And it can be worse than that. Your stuff can control your adult children and others.
My wife's mom started suffering from dementia and could no longer care for herself, so we took her in sometime early 2012. We began cleaning out her house and doing repairs. Four years later, we're still working out getting rid of her stuff while remodeling her house preparing it for sale. I'll mention just a few things.
Tens of thousands of plastic bags. How many can one use in a lifetime? I bundled many into large garbage bags, vacuum sucked them into large balls and brought them to plastic recyclers. Thousands of rags, neatly folded into bundles tied with string, everywhere in the house. Hundreds of bars of soap, many stuffed in drawers in bedroom chests. Many hundreds of articles of clothing, more than a dozen people could use in a lifetime. Then there's bolts of cloth, spools of thread, sewing machines, knitting accessories,etc. Many hundreds of books, magazines, vinyl records, VHS tapes, figurines, and so on. Lots of expired foodstuff, oils, spices, etc. None of her stuff is valuable.
Well, except for the crates of liquor and cigars. They were her husbands' stuff, he died several decades ago. We gave away hundreds of cigar boxes, the recipients said the cigars were still good despite the age. Same with the liquor, we made a bunch of people happy giving away brandy, rum and other aged liquor.
All this cleaning up made my wife and I take a hard look at ourselves, and we've begun clearing out much of our useless stuff. It does tend to tie you down and control you.
My Father is 93 and lives by himself in a Condo we own.
He has stuff everywhere, but it was much worse when my Father was still driving and coming home with even more stuff.
When we had some Home Owners Association people in to do some work, they reported my Father to Administration as being a Hoarder. At that point we got rid of a bunch of stuff, but there is still a long way to go.
When he Passes, we will have our hands full and most of his stuff will probably just get hauled away to the Dump.
The person I feel for is my Brother’s Wife. My Brother makes my Father look like a Piker. LOL
I did the same after cleaning out my MIL’s house. I had a 55 gallon burn barrel and it was burning or smoldering 24/7 for 2 weeks and that was just the paper.
I still have a 20X30 room full of stuff I’d give to charity if it was up to me but my SIL’s want it all but it’s been sitting there 3 years now.
My son and DIL are worse than my MIL. They just moved into a Doublewide and it is only 2100 sf after living in a 3100 sf house, most of their stuff is in the old house and that’s after purging 2 PU loads.
Your grandmother must have gone through the depression. My mother saved boxes, string, jars, because in the 1930’s these things were not available.
There is a story about Lucile Ball, the comedian. She lived in a very poor house and did her school work with a piece of charcoal. During her screamingly successful run as Lucy, each morning they would pass out the script and brand new pencils. At the end, she would collect the pencils. When she died and they cleaned out her home, they found closets full of those pencils.
We needed to be careful with decluttering, too. We found newspapers, plastic bags (just like you!), and a dumpster full of other stuff. She also collected empty Pringles Potato Chip cans (bags of them) and therein was a big problem. I was throwing them away, one felt "weird" so I opened it, and found a roll of 10's and 20's. Turned out not to be the only one. A double-edged sword. Nice to find money mixed in with all of the garbage, but it also meant that we needed to pick through it with a fine-toothed comb. Turned a few weekend's worth of work into almost a year.
I LOL'd at your comments on the liquor. Years and Years ago, my grandmother's husband (not grandpa) passed away. He was an accountant, and often would get "tipped" in high-end booze by his clients.
Anyhoo, after he passed, Gram mentioned casually in a phone conversation that she was "Cleaning Out His Liquor Cabinet".
"HOLY #@#$%@%@%", my Dad roared, "We'll be right there!". He and I jumped in the truck and drove all night to get to her house. Saved a pickup-truck load of booze, all top-shelf. The real find/save was most of a case of 100-year-old Napoleon Brandy, that she had already set out by the curb "Because it was old."
Stocked Mom+Dad's liquor cabinet for 15 years or so, the last of it was used up at my wedding. :-)
I forced hubby who is over 70 to move from a 2 story house of 34 yrs with that kind of clutter, it had his, his late wife’s his late MIL and SIL crap too. After he fell off the top roof unto the second because of a BP dizzy spell. Took us months to empty and dispose of 30+ yr old crap and down size to a Starter Home with no second story. He was still wearing his 2 older brothers hand me down clothing except for the suits and dress shoes he had to have for work.
Usable items went to Salvation Army including a ton of expensive hard back books, many still in the plastic wrapping his late wife collected.
I am the consummate bargain hunter, rummage sales and Salvation Army and coupon user. I don’t discard usable clothes I can’t wear, as my weight changes constantly due to some meds I’m forced to take. Why buy new stuff just keep the old and you will eventually get back in it once the weight gain from stopping the meds backs down. Plastic tubs house them. His electronic parts are scattered all over attic, garage and shed no rhyme or reason to how they are scattered.
Trips we pack a cooler and eat at rest stops. 1 two week trip, only 1 night in a motel, rest spent at relatives.
my mom was a pack rat. When she went into the hospital I was super sick from chemo and could barely walk, let alone clean out her house. Thankfully my daughter and a friend volunteered to do it. They asked me what I wanted and I told them. Really small list. They spent 2 months over there every day having stuff hauled off and giving stuff away. one example, They filled one of those huge trash cans twice with expired canned food.
When they were all done my only thought was...I don’t want to do this to my kid and grandkids. My problem is I can’t talk hubby into getting rid of anything. lol