The first time, we were chucking out stuff from the garage — large, broken boxes, expanded polystrene, old mats, beaded car seats we needed for our car during a holiday in France in 1993, that kind of thing. We threw out some 40-year-old speakers of my wife's, but she decided to keep the 15-year-old tape deck. I had to put it in the attic. I said I'd do it when we got back from the tip.
I did indeed do it when we got back from the tip. This meant my wife got to see what was in the attic. This meant she wanted to throw most of what she could see.
OK, so some of it probably did need to go out, such as this wall thing I inherited from my uncle:
I got it because I thought my children might like it, but they didn't. So, that could go. So could some hardware I'd been keeping in case I needed it.
Well, when I say "some hardware" I mean five old CRT monitors, five old PCs, two boxes of cables, half a dozen or more keyboards, even more mice, assorted floppy drives and CDROM drives, memory cards, video cards, modems, routers, exotic specialist comms boards, three sets of PC speakers, ... In a hundred years, it might be worth something; however, as I won't be around in a hundred years, that's not a lot of use to me. The space it freed up isn't a lot of use to me either, but at least it sated my wife's urge to throw out rubbish before she got to my office...
Here's what it looked like in the back of the car:
Oh yes, there was an old printer/FAX machine in there too.
Anyway, when we got to the tip, the tip guys were all over it. Such a cache of hardware seemed to be of great interest to them, but it was hard to discern why. It might have been because they could salvage some of it and sell it, which would make them happy, or because it meant a lot of work cutting up cables and carting around very heavy old monitors, which would make them unhappy. I really couldn't tell.
I kept one old PC in the attic (with a bugged Pentium 5 in it), in case that might be worth something. I also kept back a third collection of cables, a couple of floppy drives, about 8 old hard drives and my previous flat-screen monitor. Another two mice and keyboards got a reprieve, too, because you never know when you're going to need them as backup. A few more years and mice will be curiosities, too (not sure about the keyboards though).
My wife was pleased, anyway. One of the monitors was the heaviest thing in the attic, and some of the other pieces weren't far behind. This means that if I dropped dead tomorrow, she could clear out the attic herself without assistance, which I guess is a good thing...