I used to be completely addicted to thrifting and saving money, and would buy things I did not need just because they were on sale. Nothing has made me more aware of how out of control I was than the decluttering process I'm going through now.
I tended to get a little obsessive with collecting things, like salt and pepper shakers or all the books by a certain author or wooden boxes or music boxes shaped like pianos. If I got one, I wanted more.
The reason I could do this was because I had money to spare. I had a good job at the time and lots of disposable income. I had savings, a house, a car, everything I needed but something in me was empty and kept collecting junk.
When I lost everything, I started collecting free stuff, curb shopping, freecycling, dumpster diving. It's taken me many years to gradually get rid of most of that stuff, and I still have too much. I'm fighting now to keep from bringing more junk in from the dumpsters at my apartment complex. God only knows what would happen if I had a truck or even a car!
I'm a freelance writer, and I could be making a whole lot more money. I feel like the only reason I stay poor is because I still haven't figured out what that hole is I was trying to fill, and I'm scared I'll just fall back into the bad habits. Take for instance, not having a car. If I had a car, I would probably be shopping every time I got bored. No car, no money, no way to go spend it.
Yes, I have an appt. with a counselor the end of this month, because I feel like if I don't figure out what the emptiness is I'm trying to fill, I'll never break out of this cycle of spend/hoard/declutter/spend/hoard. There is something that happened to me, and I don't know what it was. I wasn't always this way.
Submitted June 23, 2017 at 01:10PM by anybodyanywhere http://ift.tt/2syUzgR
