How much of a pack rat are you?

So Melissa just commented thus:

“I don’t know … seems like planting the idea of “recycled crafts” in my head might give me the excuse to become more of a pack rat! (”I don’t know, I might make something from this someday …”) I already keep too much stuff!”

I read a lot about people’s yarn stashes, about swaps, about recycled projects, etc. And although I know I occasionally keep stuff to make other stuff out of, I am decidedly not a pack rat. I used to be, but then I moved - and not just one move, but more like 20 moves in 14 years. Hence, I am no longer a pack rat and most of what I own is eminently portable. In addition, I have a VERY strong ethic about not wasting anything from my grandmother - I scrape pans when preparing food, cut fabric so as to use every square inch, and otherwise get stingy about my materials.

So I wonder where the stuff comes from that people make into recycled projects. Do they go rummage through scrap metal piles or secondhand stores when they get the urge to make a sculpture or project? Do they already have said collected materials in house, remnants of their own lives? Do people buy yarn, art supplies, and thrift store items because they like them, not because there is a particular project or idea associated with the item? Do people keep things for no reason, or with the intent of swapping them, or because they really think that said item *might* be useful one day for who knows what? How many people really have the space to do that?

I seem to be unlike most people in that I have no stash. No, really, I don’t. Fact is, I’m very stingy with buying things, and I don’t buy things without having something in particular in mind for said item. I also don’t buy a lot extra of things, so I rarely have much besides 6″ square of fabric or a few lone inches of yarn left. I don’t buy random art supplies I won’t use. I don’t like waste - and this doesn’t lead to me recycling, or swapping - it leads to me just not having it or buying it in the first place. I tend to run out of things more often than I have something left over. I spent a lot of years in the state of being a poor college student, and then two years in Manhattan with NO space. Plus, most things I might get the urge to keep can probably help someone else more than me or be recycled and used elsewhere. Also, I’ve realized that many things I get the urge to buy I don’t really need - want does NOT equal need.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a pile of yarn and fabric and paint. I do have a pile of yarn, but it’s attached to half-finished projects. I do have about a box full of fabric, but it’s all being slowly turned into various projects. I don’t reuse my clothes - if I don’t wear it, that means I don’t want to see it again, and I have accepted that I won’t remake it. I give it to Goodwill or the Salvation Army or my mom’s church. I seel my books or give them away, magazines go to charity (that’s right, some charities often want your magazines), etc. But that’s it.

I have a weird ethic, it seems. A combination of my grandmother’s Depression-era resistance to waste, my own years with few resources and space and a lot of moves, and fondness for supporting charity whenever I can.