Thought of the Day - Life Simplification - Possessions

Something i have been thinking about for quite a while is simplifying my life, mostly in terms of possessions but partly in terms of repetitive tasks i have to do.

In terms of possessions i have an unfortunate habit of accumulating things; i might need them at some point and if i do, i want to have my own stuff. A prime example is ice skates, i haven't been ice skating in over a year and the next most recent time was like 5 years ago. But i can't bring myself to chuck out or sell my skates, the thing is i wouldn't want to go ice skating without my own skates because frankly hire skates suck. That is only the tip of the iceberg; i do the same with bikes, paintball stuff, computer stuff and hoard various other things too. The biggest problem i have is that most of my stuff is worth next to nothing if i sold it, but could be useful to me so it feels like it is worth more to me than it is to sell.

Having said the above, if i flogged all the stuff i don't really need i could probably afford to buy anything i did end up needing when i needed it. Then the problem becomes the effort required to flog all the stuff being much more than it is worth to me in terms of time. I would be happy to accept 50% less than the actual value if someone else would just take it all off my hands and sell it themselves. The problem with that is traditional 'house clearers' focus on old furniture, pictures, kitchenware etc rather than the more modern things i have.

Then the option becomes storage, but it is just such a waste that i can't justify it. Its an ongoing cost to hold on to junk that i will probably never use again, i would be better donating everything to charity and setting aside the money i would have spent on storage to buy new stuff.

So i feel like i'm stuck between a rock, a piece of steel and a hard place; selling my stuff is too much effort, giving it away just seems wrong and storing it is such a waste. What to do?