Keeping It “For Later”

Some life events cause you to gather stuff:

• You have a child, who requires clothes and (some) toys
• You adopt a pet, who has its own paraphernalia
• You go on vacation, which involves luggage

What’s the common theme here? Along with generating stuff, these are all experiences that are often repeated.

When children outgrow clothes or toys, you might hold onto them for future children. Or you decide that you’d like to keep things for potential grandchildren.

If you experience the death of a pet, you may consider adopting another, so you hang on to the carrier and leashes and bowls.

You had fun on your cruise and hope you’ll be able to take another, so you store the large rolling duffel bags.

These are all decisions that people make to keep things “for later.” Before you put items in storage, ask yourself a few questions. What is the likelihood that this event will happen again? How long do you keep things until you decide? Where do you keep them so you can find them when the time comes?

If you save things for a future time, be realistic about how much room you have and what the cost will be to replace items vs. store them.

What are you keeping for later use? Click on Post a Comment, below, and tell us.

Update: Right after I finished writing this post, I read SlowYourHome’s September Summary. She made exactly that point:

This month I focused on the clothes storage – boxes and boxes of kids clothes that our two have grown out of. Rather than keeping these shut away for any potential third child, I decided to pass the best clothes on to family and donate many of the rest.

I’ll be honest, it tugged at my heart a little, but I realised that holding on to these tiny clothes will not make our kids tiny again. It also is not a big enough reason to extend our family further. If we do that, it won’t be because of a box of cute clothes.

Organized by Marcie TM: Save time and money by letting go of what you don't need and finding room for what you valueFollow me on twitter  and facebook  
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