I love Urban Out­fit­ters. My sis­ter intro­duced me to the store when she lived in Chicago. They have a col­lec­tion of eclec­tic clothes and weird stuff that I occa­sion­ally spend money on.

So this book on their shelves caught my eye. My wife Heather spent the bet­ter part of six months deal­ing with this very issue at her par­ents’ house. They were pretty much too old to deal with get­ting rid of a house full of stuff before they moved into a much smaller home, so that joy fell to Heather. I helped some, but she did the vast major­ity of fill­ing the shelves at the local char­ity shop.

My dad was a huge col­lec­tor. After he died, it took my mom more than six years to clear out all the stuff that he col­lected, before she was able to move into a 1-bedroom apart­ment. (She didn’t want to buy a condo, as she felt like it would be a bur­den on her kids to have to sell the place!)

So I guess my only point is that if you don’t buy that junky thing that catches your eye, your kids won’t have to give it away later.

Foot­notes:

1. Spe­cial thanks to my friend James, who inspired this post.

2. Here are some related posts I wrote: Not going to buy it, Let it go, Recap­tur­ing that lost child­hood and That col­lec­tor gene.

3. I did not buy the book. And I was amused to see that as of this writ­ing, it was sell­ing for just $1.48, used. Appar­ently sev­eral peo­ple decided they didn’t want their kids to have to give it away, much later.