Hi Anne
My parents were just the opposite! They had to run to the store every single time they needed something.
So perhaps my packratting tendencies came from hating to be out of something I needed.
Although, since moving and unloading everything, I still have major packrat tendencies, but they are much more orderly due to a lack of space.
I was, besides many other things, a renovation contractor that specialized in historical homes. So I never threw anything away, not even broken stuff that could be repaired. Most of it would never be used, but I always seemed to have just the right piece to repair or replace something missing from an older home. The trouble was finding it until I developed a better storage system.
Since I am now semi-retired and have moved to a new state, where I have very limited storage space, my packrat tendencies are being strained to the max. Space is allocated for consumables first. I found that by buying consumables in fairly large quantities you save a great deal of money, even with storage space at a premium.
I still rarely throw anything away, but rather than packratting it away, possible never to use. I find a useful purpose for it and save until I have enough to do the project I was packratting it away for. The point being is that it does get allocated to a project and when enough of the item is amassed, the project comes into fruition and gets completed.
You had mentioned paper! Rarely does a scrap of paper get discarded into the trash. Although I don't subscribe to a newspaper, it still ends up in our yard every morning, along with a mailbox full of advertising. The amount of paper that I receive every day would fill a whole trashbag per week. Trashbags cost money that is just thrown away. I purchased a heavy duty crosscut shreader that can eat whole envelopes along with the staples with a large shreaded paper bin. Instead of buying mulch for around the bushes, I began using this shreaded paper instead. From a distance it looks like stone. The only trick to using shreaded paper is to wet it down so it don't blow around, once dampened it stays in place. Since it is paper it disintegrates fairly rapidly and needs replacing. My mailbox is an endless source of FREE new mulch! So the front yard especially, always looks new and crisply mulched.
I have learned not to packrat things that I no longer can find a use for. And some things I was packratting away with a project in mind, when I could not longer get the item I was packratting, and not having enough to do the intended project, I either found a use for the items or discarded them. More often than not I would find a use for them or someone else who needed more of the same.
I just picked up several skeins of assorted embroidery floss. Already they have been matched to DMC color codes if possible, and the oddball skeins placed in my basting and gridding box of floss. I normally keep a full set of DMC colors in reserve. One thing I hate is to run out of a floss and can't find it locally and have to stop my project until I can order it. Floss is not THAT expensive to build up a reserve set of your favorite brand. It also helps when you are coding up a new work or have stray floss you need to figure out the number for.
Since different floss companies colors will vary slightly from DMC numbers and even some DMC dye lots vary slightly, I have established a simple system to keep these oddball colors in a useable fashion. If I know the manufacturers number, it is written on the bobbin too, but if not, I use a DMC number that is the closest and always place an L or a D ahead of the number. L or D for lighter or darker than the actual DMC color. You would be surprised at how fast you can use up the oddball colors when working on a project and actually make the project look better by doing so. Almost anything with a flower petal, you can use a shade lighter on the left and a shade darker on the right of the petal with the true color in the center and it gives it more depth of body. Most of my work is photo-charted images, so I can more easily get by with using off-shades for the confetti stitches and get by with it. We make a lot of bookmarks using scrap Aida and sections of undefined floss colors. So oddball colors don't last long around here.
The biggest hurdle I had to overcome with my stash of all things, was to be able to locate it when needed and have it sorted in a useful fashion so it would get used up. All to often I would run across something I knew I would need, and when the time came that I did need it, it was nowhere to be found.
I obtained about 1000 set-up boxes all the same size, and another 500 or so larger boxes also all of the same size. This made sorting and stacking a whole lot easier than a haphazard collection of boxes and cartons and cans. If I don't have enough of a single item to fill one of the set-up boxes, I combine like items into the same box. When I'm sorting (this is just an example using something simple), I may make a box for pencils, one for pens, one for markers, etc. But find that all of the above items combined will not fill a single box, so I compact all into one box named writing instruments or perhaps two boxes, one for writing instruments and one for drawing instruments, which would include color pencils and markers, chalks, etc. The shelves in the storage room are also divided up into categories or departments if you prefer. Hardware, Automotive, Crafts & Hobbies, Notions, etc. the latter having subdivisions. Items that can be used with almost anything, like glues, pastes, tapes, etc. are kept on a shelf marked Office Supplies. In my case, Hardware consumes the most shelf space and is divided up into plumbing installation, plumbing repair, electrical installation, electrical repair, electronic, cabinetry parts, painting, woodworking, and the tools section is divided into the various trades including a gardening section.
My wife has carried some of the shelves she uses most to the point of painting the ends of the boxes for the type Notions they contain. Sewing items are in yellow boxes while embroidery items are in blue boxes, crafts oil painting are in green boxes and crafts misc is in pink ended boxes. She paints a white box with ornate trim as a writing place on the ends of the boxes.
The shelves are set up so that set-up boxes can stack three high side by side, allowing the least amount of moving to get to the bottom box. Often it can be simply slid out and replaced back on the top of that stack of three without messing up the system.
Everything is not in the same size boxes, but each stack is like kind boxes. Floss is stored in the plastic bobbin boxes, wound onto the bobbins and stacked 8 boxes high. We each have our WIP boxes that we keep with us at our worksite. A piece of cardboard hangs in front of the bobbin boxes, and if we remove the last bobbin of a color, that number is written down on the cardboard. If one of us goes to the LNS and they don't have that color in stock, we place an X in front of it to know we need to order it on-line. If one of us orders it, we place a checkmark behind it and when it comes in and is wound on a bobbin and put back into the case, we cross it off the list. Some colors like 310 (black) for example, we keep at least 5 skeins of the same dyelot in a backup box. We do the same thing on WIP colors that are needed in mass for that project. When that WIP is completed, THEN the unopened skeins are wound on the bobbins and placed into the stacked boxes in numerical order.
Unfortunately, since moving, ridding ourselves of the unneeded stash we had, and are starting over per-se, we are not quite as organized yet as we once were. Much of what we did move is still packed in the original moving boxes, untouched, until we can find the room to unpack, resort, and restore. We went from 1,600 sq. ft. of storage space to less than 500 total sq. ft. of useable storage space and it's mostly filled with unopened boxes since the move with no room to move, much less get organized, hi hi.....
TTUL Gary