Catch this series from the beginning with Part 1 here: https://www.publish0x.com/crypto-musings-consumer-impacts/my-staycation-day-1-xdgrmkz

The average person piles up an amazing amount of crap over the years. Call it stuff, memories, clutter, or being prudent and not wanting to spend more (but we add new items every year), the fact is we all load an amazing amount of junk year after year. In fact, before eBay and similar arrived, the garage sale was primary way people got rid extra stuff.

Photograph source: Wikipedia, 2005.

Now, an entire digital market exists as people sell old stuff they don't want anymore to people who do. You would think that would help reduce the amount of clutter on average. Surprise, it actually increased it! In fact, the clutter and stuff spread from home to the work place. Think about it, how many times have you walk by someone's cubicle at work with a gigantic toy collection or Disney figurine parade running across their top desk storage drawer system? We all have one in the office, even in boring government (in fact, there are lot of them in government).

Annually, it's probably a good bet a typical household adds about anywhere from 100 to 500 lbs of more stuff to the residence. Whether it's clothes, magazines, books, computer stuff, furniture or other, it all adds up. However, the amount that goes out the door is far less. No surprise, even the biggest homes get plugged up with stuff in few years.

Photograph source: Wikipedia, 2009.

I once had to work for a law office that dealt with probate (i.e. the legal process of dealing with people's stuff after they are dead). One day my attorney boss said he was going to need my help emptying out the apartment of his client's father. This was in San Francisco, out in the flats, so an apartment generally meant a full size floor with at least two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. The furniture was already gone, so I didn't have to worry about that, but the attorney said my task was to generally clear out all the other stuff. He smiled when he told me to just open the main window and chuck the stuff out into the trash bin below. I thought he was kidding.

Getting to the flat after taking the 36 Geary and walking a few blocks, I was confronted with something out of a TV show. The former resident who passed was some kind of a book collector. However, any books worth anything were already taken by his family. Instead, it was everything else, and literally piles of it to the ceiling. Think of every newspaper, book collecting market magazine, and every other printed piece of whatever you've seen in your life stuffed into this apartment. I got the job done by sundown, but I literally felt like I was digging into a mine just to create a path from the front door to the window to start clearing things out. It gave me a new insight in my 20s into what a person could bury themselves with in a lifetime.

My itinerary the last two days might seem odd for a vacation, but given that I'm stuck at home this summer versus traveling, it made for a good opportunity to purge, which I do at least once every two years:

Wednesday:

• Woke up at 11:30am as that sleeping in thing was so damn good I had to do it again.
• Spent three hours making about $50 writing for clients, paying bills at the end of the month, and making a nifty grilled cheese sandwich lunch with sourdough, Mexican blend cheese, and tomatoes with sliced pickles. All washed down with some cold iced tea. A perfect meal for what came next.
• With it being 100 degrees outside, I spent the next 7 hours purging my garage. I pulled everything out, all over the driveway, and went through everything to keep, sell, give to charity and trash.
• Produced one huge pile of charity stuff with at least 10 pairs of old shoes, filled up both of the oversized garbage and recycle bins, and filled up half a truck bed of crap for the dump.
• Zipped to In and Out Burger for dinner and closed off the night with a long hot shower to kill off my aching back and shoulders. Lifting and hauling doesn't work so easy when you're 30 some years past your 20s.
• Stayed up late binging Netflix and drinking a few cold beers too.
• Went to bed by 2:30am after chasing my younger teen off the gaming computer.

Thursday:

• I was good this morning. I got up at 10am instead!
• More bills to pay starting off the morning.
• Answered a few panic email from work because they couldn't find something or fix it. At least I'm still wanted.
• Then hydrated and back out to the garage. This time it was to go through 20 something boxes of paper and figuring out what needed to be kept and purged. With a bit of help from the wife, we got it done by 7pm. Fried, hot, tired and exhausted, but every box is now loaded in the truck, ready to go to the recycler in the morning.
• Filled up the remainder of the truck with 18 bank boxes of paper no longer needed (old college class stuff from my second degree pursuit).
• Spent the evening tapping out $20 in writing and research for $50 more tomorrow.
• Binged the series Lillyhammer on Netflix, a bit of a Joe Pesci copy placed in Norway. Cultural smorgasbord mashing in a comedy.

Four more days of Staycation and I still have the 4th coming up - BBQ, beer and things that go boom!

Cheers!