hopeless packrat- plastic bags!

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Hopeless packrat- plastic bags!

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amother

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 11:28 am

I am so embarrassed. I am a compulsive hoarder. I never get rid of anything!!! I literally just spent the last two hours sorting and throwing away plastic bags, like the kind you get in the grocery store. I always hang on to them. I unpack my groceries and stick them into this huge cabinet-- I actually do use them occasionally, but I bring a LOT more into the house than I get rid of. It gets worse. Shopping bags- like the nice ones you get in department stores-- I'm the annoying lady always asking them to double bag it, or asking for an extra bag if I'm carrying other stuff. I always think they will come in handy. I am so wrong. I just spent my morning going through literally hundreds of bags, throwing away most, and keeping just the nice(er) ones. What is wrong with me??? I always think I will reuse everything, but if I actually want to use something, I have so much stuff that I probably can't find it!!! Exclamation

Anyway, this is just a vent. And I'm too embarrassed to even tell this to anyone...

But the fact that I spent two hours organizing is a really good sign... If only I could spent two hours a day, I might be half way organized in a year or two! Thanks for reading.

mandksima

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 11:59 am

In the States, in CVS or Walgreens, probably any drugstore chain, carries these really cute and functional fabric bags that I love that hold rolled up plastic bags very compact and easy to pull out of the bottom. I always ask my kids to grab a bag for the baby's diaper and they can get them easily. Consider it maybe and then throw away any bags that don't fit into this one bag. Or get two like me and make that your limit. I also use those shopping bags to line our trash bins in each room.

I also save a few of those nicer paper or plastic bags but I hardly ever reuse them.

amother

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 12:09 pm

It's hard not to save something that may be useful. My mother was just saying to my daughter that I am the most throwing away, non pack rat person that she knows,(I try very hard-not to be like her) but I still have more plastic bags than I need. I have old clothing I'll never use. We have so much excess in this modern world. I sometimes force myself to throw something out, even though in my head I'm thinking, "You never know when we may find a need for this object." I tell myself, my need for uncluttered living space is greater than some potential need for some odd object.

When I was in the former Soviet Union, the old people used to go through our garbage to salvage a dirty plastic bag or some thrown away food. I once saw a poor old woman opening up a diaper. I guess she didnt know what it was.

It sounds like you're on the right track. It is hard. Good luck developing your throw it away muscles!

Tehilla

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 12:49 pm

I actually hang one bag from a rack in my kitchen (not over a counter). all the bags I can stuff in there get saved. everything else goes in the trash. I use them to send my husband's lunch every day, and to put in the small wastebaskets.

avigailmiriam

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 12:50 pm

Have you considered keeping a few reuseable tote bags in your car for when you shop. That way, you never ever have to take the plastic bags home and it's better for the environment too!

amother

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 12:51 pm

OP here.

OMG, it's been another two hours and I'm still cleaning Exclamation

Of course, this all started because I have someone coming (an interior designer) in one hour who needs to see the bedroom-- the mess of the messes. No one ever sees the bedroom. So I started the day by organizing all my bags, and now I'm onto the office and papers, but haven't touched the bedroom! Oy vey iz mir. Anyway, I've actually made astounding progress, especially for one who has a documented phobia of cleaning / organization, but there's sooo much more to do! Back to work... Any other packrats our there?

Mimisinger

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 2:05 pm

A lot of stores now recycle plastic bags. You bring them to the store and put it in their bin, that way you get them out of your house but don't feel like you're throwing them out - you're saving the earth! I have one of those tubes made to hold plastic bags - when it's full, the rest go out. But we use them like the others on this thread - dirty diapers, the little trash bins in each room, dh's lunch and whenever I'm cooking - peels, shells, etc. go in there so I don't have to stand over the trash bin.
And remind yourself, there will always be more bags!

As for the nicer ones, whenever you bring something to someone else, a dish for shabbos, a gift, a loan of clothes, use a fancy bag. They never get used and they take up the most room! But good luck, when you're done you can come here and help me!

amother

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 4:44 pm

Please check out FlyLady

amother

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 7:13 pm

A few years back, they actually banned stores giving away free bags where I live. You have to pay a tax for a plastic bag. So everyone uses the reusable ones, (except my dh, who NEVER remembers to take bags to a store) Occasionally you see people walking through the street carrying eggs and milk in their hands - too cheap to buy a bag!

send me your plastic bags...I miss them!

amother because how many countries have such a law???

amother

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 7:59 pm

Ask a good reliable friend to help you get organized. Old clothes to gemachs, trash where it belongs: in the trash!

amother

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 10:10 pm

OP here again. Thanks for all your replies. Of course I've checked out Flylady and even bought the books and read them cover to cover, but when it's time to get off my fanny, it's a different story! I'm also a compulsive workaholic (work is on the computer), so I'm glued to this screen! Anyway, I did manage to make the bedroom look decent today before the meeting, and the whole apartment actually looks ok now. I just have to keep it this way as well as start little projects of more in depth organization of various boxes, papers, etc... Thanks again.

amother

Sun, Oct 19 2008, 10:13 pm

Kol HaKavod OP! We know you can do it!

Ima'la

Wed, Oct 22 2008, 10:12 am

Another packrat here, but also organized by nature, so that helps!

Supermarket bags - I stuff one supermarket bag full of the rest of them - and if I have more than 1 or 2 bagfuls of bags, I throw out the rest - I won't need more than that!

Nicer bags I save - and I do use them - but not as many as I have! But you never know what size/shape you'll need... (ok, maybe this isn't helping!) But I try to stay on top of keeping them neatly folded and put away. (I think I might still have a box of bags at my parents' house if they didn't throw it out. I'm married 8.5 yrs.!)

And it might be totally counterproductive to tell you this, but...
When DH & I got married, my grandparents lent us their house for the month before we moved to E"Y (they were in FL anyway) so we were busy packing. All the toiletries (that might leak) and semi-breakable things that needed some padding but didn't require actual bubble wrap, we wrapped well in multiple layers of plastic bags. And thanks to my grandmother, we were very well stocked in that department! After we finished the ones in plain sight, I looked in the basement and found TONS more! Some from stores that had closed down years earlier! Boy did they come in handy!

grin

Wed, Oct 22 2008, 10:35 am

plastic shopping bags (OK, those we have in Israel) can have a successful 2nd career as garbage bags and the smaller version can replace sandwich bags. Ecological and economical too.

BeershevaBubby

Wed, Oct 22 2008, 10:46 am

grin wrote:

plastic shopping bags (OK, those we have in Israel) can have a successful 2nd career as garbage bags and the smaller version can replace sandwich bags. Ecological and economical too.

Supermarket bags line the diaper pail and the garbage pail in the bathroom.

Ima'la

Wed, Oct 22 2008, 11:15 am

Yes, I also use them for all the wastebaskets and bathroom garbages.

mandksima

Wed, Oct 22 2008, 2:02 pm

Ima'la wrote:

Yes, I also use them for all the wastebaskets and bathroom garbages.

I rely on them so much that I find myself getting a little teed off when I come home from the shopping and they all have holes. The nerve! There go all of my garbage and diaper bags! I'm complaining to the store owners who are constantly ordering thinner bags because they are out to get me!

Pizza

Wed, Oct 22 2008, 3:20 pm

I use them for lunches, and instead of saran wrap for putting leftovers back into the fridge
Also for garbage in the wastepaper baskets around the house
Also for storing cookie dougn in the freezer

bonitag1

Wed, Oct 22 2008, 11:10 pm

I take empty tissue boxes and stuff them with the plastic grocery bags. I keep one near the trash, one in the kitchen, another in the bathroom. Anything that doesn't fit in a tissue box(its amazing how many can go in one box) I put in recycling. This has ended my plastic bag clutter. and when the tissue box wears out, there's always another one to use.

ValleyMom

Mon, Oct 27 2008, 9:39 pm

THROW THE BAGS OUT! My brilliant once a week housekeeper salavages the bags and hoards them in a closet and I keep dumping them. Bags are bredding gorund for insects. UGH!

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