Cardboard explosion!

Wednesday was like an early christmas on our doorstep, when we got home there was 4 boxes of various sizes waiting there.

The new items are:

Wall clock (which is replacing the crappy "atomic" clock that got recycled for being epically inaccuate)

3 kitchen tools - skimmer, tongs and a microplane grater

1 Book - SuperFreakonomics

and a USB adapter for the car's cigarette lighter.

That's a net gain of 5 items, so we're at -25. Which is quite a bit down from the recent best, but still pretty respectable, and should give me a little breathing room going in to the holidays.

This is where I get all my clothes

A new t-shirt showed up in the mail today, it came from the internet. I probably ordered it, but it's also possible that the internet has just started sending me funny t-shirts now...

new total = -30

A couple new things (and a correction)

A few espresso spoons showed up in the mail this weekend. I was trying to decide how to count them, if it was a new set of 6 or something like that I'd just count it as 1 (one of these little things isn't worth enough to count as it's own thing). But it's actually 7 vintage spoons, from 3 different sets. I figure I'll just count it as 3, for the 3 different patterns in the group, and leave it at that.

Also, I thought that I should count the charger for the new phone as it's own thing. Normally I wouldn't count a charger, but with the phones these days the charger is just a USB cable, and a USB converter for the wall socket, so you can use that for any phone (or anything else that needs to get charged). Someday soon phones won't even come with a seperate charger.

So, 4 more things, I'm at -31 things.

Chinesse toys!

My Rubics cube just showed up from China. Granted it took them 2 weeks to fly it over here, but it was $7, including the shipping. Which seems cheap, except that it must be all of .30 cents in plastic that I assembled myself. Anyways, that brings me to -19, but I was doing some laundry yesterday, and finally went through and counted up all my "work clothes".

11 White tshirts

11 Dress Shirts

4 dress pants

3 suits

11 ties

28 pairs of socks

... see something off there? Yeah, I told you I had way too many socks, so I trimmed that number down to 15, with the other 13 pairs going off to goodwill with 1 tie that I never wear, and a couple other things I missed on my last trip. The new tally is -35 (once I drop all this stuff off) and adding up all the clothes I counted today (plus my 19 pairs of boxers and 1 pair of long underwear that are in the same set of drawers) I've counted up 270 things. I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm around 25-30% done counting....

MW2

I'm back at -20; went and picked up Modern Warfare 2 after the tasting last night. I think I'll have to go through the house and make a second pile of stuff to bring to goodwill, I'm sure I can find more stuff.

A couple new things

Got a couple gifts in the last few days, a pull-over fleece, and a BSAS (Boston Securities Analyst Society) umbrella, which birings me to -21. I'll have to do another sweep through the house and see if there's more stuff that can go to goodwill. Or get sold on the internet.

Out with the new, in with the old

the old phone sold on Amazon in just a few days, so that got shipped out today. But a new bit of espresso gear, a new portafilter (the thing you pack the coffee in to) showed up in the mail, so it all nets out.

Phones in, phones out

Went out and picked up the new Verizon Droid today after work. I just started playing around with it, but it's a lot of fun so far. That also means that the old phone is for sale, I cleared out all the data on it, and posted it on Amazon Marketplace, we'll see how long it takes to sell.

Living things too

Sold scribblenauts and mailed it out, which brings the count down to -24. Amazon marketplace is really great for selling stuff online, I like it a lot more then ebay (for buying used stuff too).

Also, went through and counted up all the plants in the house, 40, I'm not going to count the pots separately. There's also 2 watering cans and two of those little glass automatic watering globes. So, another 44 plant related things to add to the list. And at work I have a fancy new notebook that the CFA Institute sent me, now that I'm a member. I guess I'll use it up eventually, but I think it's nice enough to count; back down to -23, and 208 things counted so far (I've started taking out the things I've gotten rid of from the total tally).

More shopping?

Just went out and picked up a few undershirts and things for work, so another +13 which brings me way up to +23. But it's ok because I finally went to goodwill today too, with 19 things from the kitchen, 22 things from the closet (mostly old t-shirts) and the two crappy set of plastic poker chips we never use, so a grand total of -43, woot! Along with the Nintendo DS I mailed off on Friday and the 2 chipped up cups that got tossed I'm way down at -23, my lowest yet.

Although at this point I think I've sent off most of the obvious stuff that I could get rid of, it's going to be a little harder to start finding things to sell/give away, but that's the point of this whole thing, to make me think about how much stuff we buy, and how much stuff we have that I could probably do without.

For Sale

I just posted the Nintendo DS and Scribblenauts (the last DS game I had) on Amazon - it's like ebay but without all the scammers. So hopefully those will sell for a few bucks.

Update: It's only been posted for a couple hours, and already the DS sold. Woot, this is way better then ebay.

Goodwill trip ASAP!

We got a new DSL modem from Verizon because it looked like ours was causing problems, but we've still got connection problems sometimes even with the new modem, so we've got an extra one lying around now. Eventually one will go away, but for now it's a +1.

Vanessa also gave me my b-day present, a set of espresso cups, which is a whopping +6, so I'm at +10. The good news is that we threw out a pair of our old crappy chipped up espresso cups, and I've been expanding the goodwill pile - there must be 20 things there now. I'm going to go through the house once more, and then ship out all this stuff and get back in to negative numbers.

It's just data

Its looking like this is going to be a consumerism heavy week for me. The new baking sheets and cooling racks finally arrived. Well technically they arrived last week, but it took a long time to get them from the post office. I have to say that dealing with the people working at the Somerville post office has been the worst customer serivce experience I've had in months, if not years.

But back to buying stuff, so that's 4 new pieces of baking equipment, which puts me over my limit, plus I'm buying Forza 3 today, and have a few things coming in the mail, so I would be way over. Except that after I unpacked the baking sheets I looked around the kitchen for stuff we didn't need any more, and made a pile of at least 10 things to bring to goodwill in like 5 minutes.

I'll have to cart all that stuff over this week sometime, but I'll be well under my limit, I'm sure there's some clothes I can bring at the same time.

As far as stuff I'm expecting this week, a lot of it is computer stuff, notably Window 7, and some new memory for the desktop. Since all that stuff is getting installed, I don't think it should count as seperate items from the computer itself (otherwise I'd have to open up the box and count all the hardware that's already been installed, and I'm defintiely not counting software).

Once I buy Forza 3, I'll be at +3, and I'll update that total once I make the goodwill trip. I'm also thinking about what I should count next, maybe things in the kitchen, but that might be a big task, so maybe I'll start somewhere easier, or at least prepare a game plan first.

It's the Christmas in October!

It's getting close to birthday time, and I've gotten a few gifts that I need to add:

An XKCD sweathshirt

A vegetarian cook book

and... a Blowtorch! a gift to myself :)

so, that puts me at -2 of my original total, but it's worth it to get these cool gifts.

That stuff doesn't addup anyways

I finished counting up the stuff on the bookshelves, and decided that some of the stuff I already counted probably shouldn't be in there, things like photos or mementos from holidays and vacations, so I cut them from the list. Here's the rest of the books:

The War of the Worlds

Frankenstein

To Kill a Mockingbird

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

Consciousness Explained

Military Misfortunes

2001: A Space Odyssey

City Walks: NY

Zen and the Art of Poker

Labyrinths

The Catcher in the Rye

Hold em Excellence

More Hold em Excellence

The Intelligent Guide to Texas Hold em

The Monopoly Companion

The Wisdom of Crowds

Fight Club

Snow Crash

Gig

The Odyssey

Spec Ops

Stephen Hawkins Universe

Irrational Exuberence

Must we Mean What We Say

Traffic

Brainstorms

Armchair Economist

Black Swan

Brainchildren

Black Holes and Baby Universes

About Time

The Undercover Economist

How Would you Move Mount Fuji

Collapse

Zodiac

The End of Food

Plus the furniture in the living room:

Couch

Love Seat

Ottoman

Bookshelves x4

Sofa Table

Coffee Table

3 Lamps

Office Chair

That's everything in the living room, except for plants, which I'll count up another day (there's a lot of them!)

Adding it all, and knocking off all of the art and things of sentimental value, we're at 176, and I'm at -5 of my original total (whatever that was, although we're slowly getting there.)

Recycling

I just packed up a whole pile of old CFA prep books and practice tests to go out for recycling, but Vanessa says that they shouldn't count towards my total because I was planning on getting rid of them anyways, which I think is fair.

Also, I ordered some new professional baking sheets and cooling racks, but when they show up I'm going to give our pile of old, little, baking sheets to goodwill, so that will probably be a net negative. I guess I'll have to go through the house and grab all the other stuff I've been saving up for goodwill at the same time.

Here's another 2 shelf's worth of stuff:

RISK

Monopoly

Yahtzee

Cribbage board

3 decks of cards

2 boxes of poker chips

Books:

Good to Great

Liar's Poker

Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail screenplay

The Get Fuzzy Experience

The Indispensable Calvin & Hobbes

Italy 2009

Rome

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Kinds of Minds

Tipping Point

Red Queen

I also noticed that I haven't put down Moby Dick, which I just started reading (it's really good so far, no wonder everyone likes it - it's not just about some big whale).

New Total: 127

Wires don't count, right?

Gave away our ice cream maker, it was fun to try out a bunch of recipes, but we haven't used it in awhile, so it's off to a better home.

Also, ordered a little adapter cable to plug some computer speakers we have in to the TV, I don't think this counts because it's a $1 piece of cable.

So, one less thing, we're at -4 (although I have been doing a little online window shopping).

And here's another shelf worth of books:

Contact

Diamond Age

The Audacity of Hope

Freedom Evolves

The Watchmen

Little Zen Companion

Zen Speaks

Nine Stories

Stories of Vladimir Nabakov

Logic of Life

A long Way Gone

The Bad Guys Won

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Bel Canto

New total: 107 (and we're only about 1/2 way through the books...)

Old stuff - out the door

Gamestop actually gave me a somewhat fair trade in for the games, so five games are gone

-Jam Sessions

-Brain Age 2

-Meteos

-Red Faction

-Call of Duty, World at War

That brings me to 3 under. I also realized I didn't actually have Brain Age 1 that I listed before, so I'll have to cross that off the list (although, since I didn't ever actually have it, I'm still only 3 under).

I better go through the TV stand tonight and count up everything over there - after dinner (nachos, hmmm).

Edit: Here it is

Dr. Horribles Sing-a-long blog

Usual Suspects

Cleaning Cloth

Kill-a-Watt

Earplugs

TV Stand

Tivo <3

Xbox

Power strip x 2

Forza 2

Beatles Rock Band

Guitar Hero

Guitars x 2

Controllers x 2

Xbox remote

Box for Remotes

TV

New total: 93

Time to start getting rid of stuff

Well, I bought something else, The Beatles - Rock band, and we got an engagement present (a beautiful little clock), so now I'm 2 over. I've got to look around and find some stuff to get rid of, but I'm not sure what. See, this is where having a complete list would be great.

I'll update this later tonight with (at least) a couple things.

Edit: I looked around, and the obvious answer is old video games. I'm going to take 5 that I haven't played in a while to see if they'll give me a decent amount to trade them in, otherwise I'll sell em online. Update to follow.

Back from Colorado, didn't buy much out there except for some cutting boards, that quickly became a wedding present, that and a bunch of food - that stayed food. Also just placed an order for Scibblenauts for the DS, looks like a good game, but it'll bring me back to my limit once it shows up.

Time to list some stuff sitting on the shelves.

Books:

Darwins Dangerous Idea

The Blind Watchmaker

Fermat's Engima

Milk

Notes from a Small Island

Blink

Cesar's Way

Ever Since Darwin

Invincible Warrior

The Art of War

The Mother Tongue

A Devils Chaplin

The Botany of Desire

Neither Here nor There

A Walk in the Woods

Origami Art

Rats (just finishing this, it was great)

How to Pick a Peach

Fire on the Mountain

... This seems to have become my borrowed book shelf, with quite a few being not technically mine, but I'll count them here because I've had them for months (or years).

And some non-book things on the shelf:

A Mother's day photo

Lamb ornament

2 little xmas boxes

Peugeot Emblem

That's 74 total.

Big things, and little things

So, I just sold the desk, I'm officially at -1 things less then I started with.

Also, I bought an engagement ring on Friday, but I gave that away yesterday :)

We'll be in Colorado this next week, I don't think I'll be buying anything out there, but I'll post it when we get back if I do.

More progress

I've actually got some interest in the desk (suckers), so that might be gettin going this weekend.

And here's the things on the first two shelves of the bookcase (I'm taking it in stride now that I have to name everything)

Picture from Maine vacation

Flying dog x-mas ornament

Books:

Basic Works of Aristotle

Plato and a Platypus walks in to a bar

Cecil Adams, More of the Straight Dope

Outliers

A History of Warfare

The Prism and the Pendulum

Ten on Ten

That brings us to an even 50.

I need better pictures

So, the desk isn't selling, I'll have to get Vanessa to take some pictures of it, to make it look snazzy.

Here's the new and improved list of everything at my desk, at home:

The Desk

Lamp

PC Tower

Monitor

Speakers

Power Strip

Wireless Keyboard & Mouse

Organizing tray

Pencil holder

Scissors

Flashlight

Calculator

Xbox headset

Nintendo DS

Meteos

Jam Sessions

Brain Age

Brain Age 2

Trash Can

Paper Shredder

Air purifier

The new total is now 41, which seems fairly manageable, so far.

Making room

I put my old desk up on craigslist, it was just hanging out on the porch. If it sells that will get me to -1, meaning I'll have a little room to go out and buy something. I should do some cleaning, and bring some stuff to GoodWill too.

Also, I was thinking about how to count everything, and here are some rules I think I can stick to:

1. Only things that are worth enough to try and sell get counted. So, pensils and blank CDs are out.

2. Food is out, it's just going to get eaten anyways (plus, you couldn't sell it).

3. Soap, toothpaste and all that junk is out.

4. Anything else that I'm planning on using up is out: glue, tape, wrapping paper (if I bought wrapping paper).

5. I'm making an exception from #1 for socks (or any other clothes), I don't think I could sell a pair of socks, but they're what got the whole thing started, so they stay.

6. I have to name everything as I count it, no more "42 books", I'll make a list of all the books, that way I'll know if I've double counted something.

So, here's the start of the list (I'll put this in excel at somepoint) with everything that I have at work:


Backpack
Cell phone
Blackberry
Sunglasses
Hankerchief
Wallet
Bowl (for lunches)
Keyboard
Mouse (I bought my own, the ones here are terrible)
Adding machine (fancy calculator, again, got my own)
Umbrella
Tie
Pair of socks (in case of emergency?)
Sport coat
Fake leather portfolio
Plant, with pot
Picture of Vanessa
Picture of a bear (a Demotivational picture)
My walking shoes
Coffee Mug

That's everything, not including the clothes I'm wearing. So, starting over at 0, using the new rules, the total is: 20.

Another day, and no new stuff

Another day spent not helping to jump start the economy.

But I realized I forgot to count 2 things yesterday while counting the books - the bookshelves, so that brings the total to 148.

Counted up everything on my desk today, 51 things, plus a few random things near the desk (trash can, air purifier, etc.) brings it to 60. I'm going to have to think about how to count things like pencils, or blank CDs because I've got a ton of those lying around. My first instinct is to count a package as 1 thing, but I'll have to consider it a bit. As with any good game, this one needs some rules.

Total of everything counted so far 208, and I'm not even through one room yet. I suspect the kitchen is going to be particularly full of stuff, I was in there all day today cooking, and it's shocking how many dishes/pots/ladles you can dirty up in a short amount of time.

Starting to count

Haven't bought anything new today.

And to get started I counted up the things on the bookshelves in the living room:

102 books

44 other things (mostly games/cards and photos)

Total: 146

First post, the idea

While I was putting away my laundry this morning, I decided that I probably have more socks then I need, or will ever need. And then I realized that that's probably true for everything I own - I have more then enough stuff.

So, here's the idea, I can't get anything new without getting rid of (selling, donating, trashing) something old. I'll keep track of the stuff I have and get rid of here, to help keep me honest.

I'm also thinking I might start a list of everything I currently own, so I'll have an easy to consult list of things to get rid of, and also to get a better idea of how many things I actually have (I'm sure it's a lot, I mean socks alone...).

I've started thinking about all the rules I'm going to try and stick to, things like does food count (probably not), how many things is a pack of playing cards (just one), what about stuff that Vanessa and I bought together (probably just count them as 1 thing for me). I'm sure there're lots of other rules I'll have to figure out.

So, that's it for now, how ever many things I have right now, that's it for me.