Is there a time in life where you should stop acquiring stuff, and even start to get rid of stuff you have?

Probably, but ideally, old underutilized stuff should be consistently unloaded and I’m now a great deal more selective about both the quality and quantity of the stuff that owns me.

“To buy a sailing yacht when you are 68 doesn’t seem feasible to me, even if you had all electric wrenches the effort to keep up the maintenance and sail it to me would be at great difficulty, and not as enjoyable as if one were 31 years old and sailing.”

Perhaps the differences in age would award different types of fulfillment from the same experience. Who’s to say which age would gain more benefit? I feel that my current 53 years of age is better prepared to find joy in activities that my younger years may have taken for granted.

Yes, I am going through that phase. From hoarder to ridder! I used to hang onto stuff for dear life, now it seems I want to clear up, lighten up. No more dust gatherers. Sentimental objects I have kept but everything else not used will go. Tough and time-consuming job but it will be done.

When we buy something new we get rid of something old. And we make trips to the Goodwill and the dump. There is no clutter in our house or garage. We are on top of this.

I’m 65½ now and I’ll be in a canoe race paddling from Molokai to Maui (48 miles) this September. I’m pretty sure I won’t need no stinking electric winches to help me sail a yacht in 2½ years from now. HA!

What @RealEyesRealizeRealLies said. and I think you mean “electric winches”

So many of us have too much stuff anyway, it’s not really about age. Do what you want, you just do it differently when you’re a different age.

And really, what someone should do about these types of things should be determined by each individual.

Well, if you have to work 60 hours a week to pay the bills when you’re 31, and only get to retire when you’re 67, buying that boat at 68 is a reasonable decision.

Why on earth would you put an age limit on your own happiness? “Oh, I’m in my 60s now, guess I don’t get to have any fun for the next 20 years. I’ll just sit in my rocking chair and wait to die.”

Fuck that noise.

If there is I haven’t reached it yet.

“Whoever dies with the most stuff, wins.”

I can’t throw away, or turn down free appliances. If someone is getting rid of an old tv or washer, I have to have it. Need is not relevant. Everything I own is at least second hand. When I get an upgrade I try and keep the old stuff to give to one of my friends or aquaintences who might need an upgrade. I’ve currently got two really big tvs.But they are the old tube kind, so even though one is like 50 inches, I can’t get anyone to take them. They weigh a ton. So now I have these eyesores sitting in my living room. But I cant, just can’t throw them away. They wirk, and 10 years ago they would’ve been awesome…..I would take them to goodwill but they don’t fit in my car…..

For me, that time is now. I no longer have any interest in the collections that I used to spend such energy on. I am satisfied with simple things and less of everything.

I’ve always been a thin the herd, thower awayer type. Cluttery types and hoarder types annoy me to no end. While I do enjoy a nice, auesthetically pleasing abode I hate clutter.
It’s an individual thing and a temperment/personality thing I think, but, yes, I do think that keeping a lot of dust collecting crap around that you are not using is burden to self and others when your time is up.

It took over 4 months to disperse a family members estate about 12 years ago. It was insane the amount of stuff these people had accumulated/kept for like 50+ years.
I think people should start thinning their herd of stuff in their later middle age for sure.
I have already passed on all kinds of things to my daughter and I am only 56.5.

She has all of the old family photo albums now, some heirloom pieces, and I just sent her an email with instructions of who to contact should I go belly up and a list of things to do and where I kept my personal paperwork etc. To much stuff is an anchor.

Oh, yes. Especially in the last 5 years or so. I’ve been passing out special family things among my kids. I think long and hard before I buy anything new to bring in, because I’ll have to replace something else.

My husband’s dad is 94, still lives in my husband’s child hood home. He keeps trying to encourage people to take stuff, but if I take him up on an offer my husband becomes angry and makes me leave it. I don’t know why.

One thing I did sneak out was my husband’s baby book. It goes up to 2nd grade. When I pulled it out, here at home, Rick got angry that I took it. I said, “I’m just afraid that it’s going to get lost, or thrown out, in the end.”
He was still mad.

His 2 brothers are the same way. I mean, he has an entire basement packed full of a quarter century of stuff, much of it junk. Dad can’t even navigate the basement steps anymore, so he never goes down there. Why don’t they just take a little at a time, one or two things, every time they visit which is a few times a week? IMO, Dad himself shouldn’t be living alone in the house. He’s fully congnizant, but he needs to be somewhere where folks can keep an eye on him 24/7, where he has neighbors just across the hall and a staff on hand.

No, not “should.” Everyone is free to do as they choose regarding their possessions.

Sure they are. And they’re free to dispose of everything however they wish, after they die. They can donate it all to Goodwill. But that wouldn’t be a nice thing to do to your kids.

I am also thinking of them as I slowly declutter my house. I mean, I’ll be dead, so what do I care how much work it will be for them if I don’t? Well, because I’m not dead yet, and I do care, now.

I guess it’s a matter of courtesy.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I feel that my current 53 years of age is better prepared to find joy in activities that my younger years may have taken for granted.
I am sure as far as finding joy or appreciating things when you are older as oppose to when you were younger is a given (for most people I know), the tranquil views of the clouds and sunset or the stunning vista from atop a sheer granite cliff might be more enjoyable when you can truly relax in it and not be a part of the rat race anymore, but the effort to climb up that mountain or sail to the middle of the deep blue sea might be physically more troublesome, if possible at all beyond a certain age. One might eventually get up that mountain but their body will pay for the joy many days later.

@Seek Why on earth would you put an age limit on your own happiness?
Does the happiness come from stuff? Some stuff has no connection to happiness, it is just something you can’t fully use because you are not physically able to use it or if you are, you will expire long before the stuff does. When was the last time you seen a U-haul following a hearse to the graveyard?

It’s a lot easier to be happy on a sailboat than alone in a dark bedroom

Well….if you know how to sail.

I’d like to set up my bed on a sailboat. Now THAT would be bliss, lying on my bed on the deck of a sailboat. haha

This is a depressing question for me. I have such lovely things and I hate to give them to my daughters. One of them would pawn or break them, the other wouldn’t want them. The latter daughter can’t stand to have more than two things on her coffee table or a dirty fork in her sink. So I don’t think she’d like my things. She might pretend to only to give them to her friends and that idea irks me. The worst part about all this is I want to buy even more stuff. I don’t know what to do. Receiving a box of something pretty in the mail is a sickness to ward off depression in my case.