Hit the 500-item donation mark this weekend and it felt weirdly emotional

I finally counted everything I've donated through our local church's thrift shop over the last year, and it came to 503 items. That's everything from old coffee mugs to a broken lamp I held onto for 6 years. I think what surprised me most was how many things I barely remembered owning once I saw them piled together. Has anyone else hit a milestone like that where the number itself made you stop and think?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_jake1mo ago

Think about it this way. You spent real money on those 503 items at some point, and now you're giving them away for nothing. That broken lamp you held onto for 6 years probably cost you $20 or $30 new, and it never worked once the whole time you owned it. Getting emotional about the number just masks the fact that you wasted a lot of that money on stuff you didn't even need or use. Donating is fine, but counting it like a trophy feels like celebrating your own bad spending habits.

allen.kai1mo ago

You said "celebrating your own bad spending habits" but I think that's missing the point a bit. For a lot of people, the number is more about how much clutter they let pile up, not about feeling proud of wasting money. It's more like a wake-up call to see the extent of it, not a trophy.

sage3081mo ago

Read something recently about how decluttering can actually mess with your head because you're not just getting rid of objects, you're also facing all the bad decisions you made buying them in the first place. Feels like @allen.kai nailed it talking about the number being more of a wake-up call than a trophy, because 503 items sitting around your house probably means you were just ignoring them for years, not actively using them. The lamp thing Jake brought up is brutal but true though, I held onto a broken toaster for like five years thinking I'd fix it someday and I think it just reminded me of a dumb purchase every time I saw it. Counting the stuff you got rid of can be a way to admit you messed up without having to feel guilty about every single dollar, which is probably why people keep doing it.