In sorting out my lumber room to enable my granddaughter to sleep in there I have just found my bank statements from 1966 onwards. I have also found photos from around the same time.

Are you a hoarder or do you get rid of things as you go?

I don't think I'm that bad as I've moved so many times that I had to have some sense of what was worth hanging on to and what needed jettisoning. Others might disagree! I'm in the middle of moving yet again,but back into the house where I grew up. Some of the hoarding was rather interesting from an archaeological standpoint though...the bills for all of our births were found!

I'm trying to find a creative way to use the bits of porcelain or handles from things in an art project as my mother would have wanted. I am thinking about a mosaic table for the garden. Some of these dishes may have been meaningful to her. She included them in her paintings too.

I think that before the advent of computers, we tended to keep bank statements for longer than we do now. I've noticed that when you go paperless, there are a few instances where you need a paper printout. If you change e mail systems, you're out of luck too!

I'm giving you a free pass to hoard Sue! Well, now you can recycle those statements.

I think that I will keep them for novelty value, my monthly salary was less then £30. The grandchildren might find them interesting when they are older.

Oh yes, do keep old shopping lists etc, I kept my Grocery order book from when I first married and it was amazing how cheap everything was. I kept a lot of historical stuff, like ration books from the war, my Dad's war correspondant pass book etc, these came in so useful when we were teaching WW2 at school.But I always destroyed bank statements after say 5 years. Stuff that is of no interest or use I would ditch. I am a hoarder of interesting stuff and of books (oh dear me, that is reaching crisis point)

I keep some things that I think may be useful later but no more than a couple years. Other things I keep because I feel I have to.

I don't keep too much myself, and so much of my bank statements, etc., I can see online.

We have a tradition in our family that the eldest boy (that's me) keeps a weekly diary, the earliest dates back to 1730, and I've got them all. I look back through them on occasion, and they certainly make for some interesting reading.

What an absolutely wonderful tradition, surdoux!

Surdoux, what if there is not an eldest boy? Other than that, I think that's an awesome family tradition, and it must be so interesting to get a first-hand insight into the 18th century!

We've not long finished clearing out our house to have the floorbords done and moving everything back in. In the process we threw away about three trailer loads of crap. Most of the stuff went easily but there still some stuff, that despite not seeing the light of day for many years, I still wonder if I'll regret tossing.

But it's great having a very uncluttered house - much esier to manage and since we're in the middle of a mouse plague that is pretty important!

This summer I intend to finally clear out my room at home, as when I'm here in the summer holidays, there's never any space for all my things! I'm dreading the amount of stuff I'll have to throw out! I'm definitely a hoarder, haha; I have a cupboard that I haven't looked in for a few years now, which tells me I don't actually need anything that's in there!

So far, there have always been boys in our family, except for me! I only have a daughter (not that I'm complaining.) I will have to keep my eyes open for some good breeding stock and trade in the wife!