Coming Unmoored

“If you’re tempted to keep something because it was expensive, remember the difference between value and cost. Value is what something is worth. You spent a lot of money on it. To throw it away would mean admitting that the money was wasted.

Now you need to think about the cost. What is it costing you to keep this item? How much space? How much energy? What about the peace of mind that comes from having a clean home full of things you use?

You one made a decision to purchase this expensive thing that you never use. Now, if you keep it, you’ll be throwing good space after bad money.”

–Peter Walsh, It’s All Too Much

Getting rid of anything is not easy for me. If you haven’t already figured that out, you soon will based simply on the number of ongoing entries from me whinging on this subject. One particular area of decluttering is especially challenging for me, however–where the item cost a lot of money and there’s no easy way to recoup the expense.

I hate, hate, hate admitting that I spent a lot of money on something from which I am not getting much use or value. My standard, more-than-a-little disfunctional way of dealing with this is to park the item in a corner somewhere in the misguided hope that I will either A) start using it on a regular basis like I originally intended or B) come up with some clever way to recoup the money I’m out.

About five years ago, Sean, a male friend of mine who’s an accountant, tried to explain the concept of “sunk costs” to me. Sunk costs are where costs have been incurred and which cannot easily be recovered. The deed is over and done and it’s been at a price. In contrast to this, you also have variable costs. The amount of these costs will change based on what you decide to do going forward.

Any good, cold-blooded accountant or microeconomist will tell you that only variable costs should be considered in making decisions about future actions. (Or, in idiot-simple-speak: don’t throw good money after bad, stupid!)

Sean was trying to get me to understand the concept of sunk costs by way of explaining why, even though he’d spent the last two years working really, really hard with his live-in girlfriend to make their relationship work, he didn’t think that should factor in to his decision whether or not he should continue to try. And that, in fact, he’d decided it was best if he simply cut things off and got on with his life.

In retrospect, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I was flabbergasted at the time by Sean’s description of his thinking process. I mean, he’d fought SO HARD to make his relationship work, how could he simply walk away NOW?

Which, brings me back to my staggering pile of possessions… I have an enormously difficult time emotionally separating myself in situations that have proven costly to me up to the present. I keep hoping that, if I just hang in there long enough, I will find a way to recoup my losses and end up back in the black. (I mean, hell, after much long-suffering on the part of the heroine it always works out in the movies…)

It’s taken me to almost the age of 40 to come to terms with the fact that it rarely, if ever, works out that way in real life, with either relationships or material possessions. I’m far better off cutting my losses rather than throwing good energy after bad. But, man, it’s hard to admit I’ve gone and invested in something stupid–be it the hunky but totally unreliable guy snoring in bed next to me or the cute, little Karmann Ghia parked out front that runs without problems one day out of every five.

The fact that I’m about to move into a place less than half the size of where I live now is helping to provide momentum in cutting some of my losses, thing-wise. However, I’m noticing particular reluctance in getting rid of high-dollar items I bought near the end of my relationship with my ex-husband in a misguided effort to comfort myself. These came largely out of my own funds but I still felt pretty defensive at the time about purchases he labeled as “frivolous” or “unnecessary”. By getting rid of these items now, I feel like I’m admitting he was right. And I can’t say I like that terribly much.

Of course, the alternative is to live with a bunch of items that no longer serve me. Or, even worse, are continuing to cost me–in physical space, emotional energy, and money to maintain–when I allow them to remain in my life.

I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that it’s time to stop the bleeding. So, item by unused item, I’m gritting my teeth, writing off my losses, and getting them out of my life.

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