I'm not a psychologist. In college, I took a Pop Pysch course to assist me in the customer service field. We read How To Make Friends and Influence People (I kid you not). I neither made friends nor influenced people. Psychology interests me, but it's not a field I wished to pursue. I'm a scientist and a customer service person. I study seals and how to make people smile. So all of this is absolutely unfounded postulation on my part.
If we're listing things I have not studied, we should also include personal finance. I have a good credit score (mostly out of luck), but very little money in my account and tons of student debt. My method of saving money has always been to just lose it and find a happy surprise later. (A few months ago I found my $200 summer 2013 bonus tucked away in a DVD case. We went out and bought two rib eyes for dinner.)
I don't know how to save money well, but I know I need to. So, logically, a person saves money by not buying things, but people do need some things. So what do you do? You don't throw things out. Waste not, want not and all that.
I am convinced that there is some correlation between compulsive hoarding and economic class. I think that it is a lower-middle class problem. You have enough money to buy all this stuff and fill up your house and ruin your life, but you don't have enough expendable income so that you feel this immense sense of guilt when it comes to getting rid of it. I'm sure there's some sort of correlation there.
I haven't found any studies supporting this and since I don't have a background in either of these fields, I don't even know how to begin conducting my own study on it. But here is how it looks in my own life in terms of food hoarding:
My boyfriend made a delicious brie bowl for my family while they were here visiting. It cost $20+ and was delicious. But my family didn't finish it. My boyfriend went to throw it out the first day when everyone had had their fill of it. But we (he) spent so much money on it, it just seemed like we would be throwing away money. So I told him to keep it, that I would eat it. And I did. I had some of it yesterday for breakfast (so bougie). The bread was stale so I mostly just scooped out the innards and ate it on crackers. When my boyfriend came home for lunch, I went to put it in the fridge, telling myself I would just keep eating it tomorrow. But the thing was, I already ate the good parts. I didn't want to eat the stale bread (even if it was cheesy and chocolatey). I would have kept it in the fridge and kept on looking at it and thinking "I should eat that. We spent a lot of money on that." But every day it would get grosser and grosser and I would want to eat it less and less.
You feel this sort of guilt about spending money on things when you don't have a lot of money and so you don't want to throw it out. Have like five square inches of wrapping paper left? Maybe you'll use it next Christmas. Found some kind of sticky cough drops at the bottom of your purse? They're wrapped up, maybe you'll eat them in the future. Lost the top to your favorite lipstick? Just keep it somewhere safe and you'll be fine.
But no. That's not how I live my life and not how I work. I spend more money on stuff now, but I have a lot less of it. That piece of wrapping paper will end up crumpled beyond use at the bottom of the closet. I'll keep on putting the sticky cough drops back in my purse and they're going to keep on getting stickier and grosser and I'm just going to not use them ever. The lipstick won't remain clean and safe and it will probably smear all over something white.
Throw it out.
Buy cheap wrapping paper at the Dollar Store. Get a bag of cough drops you can zip back up so they don't spill in your purse. Take care of your lipsticks.
You don't have to spend a lot of money, but you do have to be mindful and you have to realize that sometimes you have to part with something that's almost "perfectly good". When your house is full of "perfectly good" stuff, it's still full.
If we're listing things I have not studied, we should also include personal finance. I have a good credit score (mostly out of luck), but very little money in my account and tons of student debt. My method of saving money has always been to just lose it and find a happy surprise later. (A few months ago I found my $200 summer 2013 bonus tucked away in a DVD case. We went out and bought two rib eyes for dinner.)
I don't know how to save money well, but I know I need to. So, logically, a person saves money by not buying things, but people do need some things. So what do you do? You don't throw things out. Waste not, want not and all that.
I am convinced that there is some correlation between compulsive hoarding and economic class. I think that it is a lower-middle class problem. You have enough money to buy all this stuff and fill up your house and ruin your life, but you don't have enough expendable income so that you feel this immense sense of guilt when it comes to getting rid of it. I'm sure there's some sort of correlation there.
I haven't found any studies supporting this and since I don't have a background in either of these fields, I don't even know how to begin conducting my own study on it. But here is how it looks in my own life in terms of food hoarding:
My boyfriend made a delicious brie bowl for my family while they were here visiting. It cost $20+ and was delicious. But my family didn't finish it. My boyfriend went to throw it out the first day when everyone had had their fill of it. But we (he) spent so much money on it, it just seemed like we would be throwing away money. So I told him to keep it, that I would eat it. And I did. I had some of it yesterday for breakfast (so bougie). The bread was stale so I mostly just scooped out the innards and ate it on crackers. When my boyfriend came home for lunch, I went to put it in the fridge, telling myself I would just keep eating it tomorrow. But the thing was, I already ate the good parts. I didn't want to eat the stale bread (even if it was cheesy and chocolatey). I would have kept it in the fridge and kept on looking at it and thinking "I should eat that. We spent a lot of money on that." But every day it would get grosser and grosser and I would want to eat it less and less.
You feel this sort of guilt about spending money on things when you don't have a lot of money and so you don't want to throw it out. Have like five square inches of wrapping paper left? Maybe you'll use it next Christmas. Found some kind of sticky cough drops at the bottom of your purse? They're wrapped up, maybe you'll eat them in the future. Lost the top to your favorite lipstick? Just keep it somewhere safe and you'll be fine.
But no. That's not how I live my life and not how I work. I spend more money on stuff now, but I have a lot less of it. That piece of wrapping paper will end up crumpled beyond use at the bottom of the closet. I'll keep on putting the sticky cough drops back in my purse and they're going to keep on getting stickier and grosser and I'm just going to not use them ever. The lipstick won't remain clean and safe and it will probably smear all over something white.
Throw it out.
Buy cheap wrapping paper at the Dollar Store. Get a bag of cough drops you can zip back up so they don't spill in your purse. Take care of your lipsticks.
You don't have to spend a lot of money, but you do have to be mindful and you have to realize that sometimes you have to part with something that's almost "perfectly good". When your house is full of "perfectly good" stuff, it's still full.
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