An Old Soul Incognito: Stockpiling vs. Hoarding

I got to thinking recently about of my favorite reality-TV shows: Hoarders and Extreme Couponing. Both groups of people on these two very different shows do, however, have some common ground. They both tend to attain / acquire enormous quantities of "stuff", often occupying and filling one or more rooms of their home. Most of the people on both shows discuss the euphoric "high" they feel when making purchases. A lot of them also talk about how their "collections" or "stockpiles" bring them joy and/or comfort.

It seems to me that many viewers of these shows must see a blurred line between the two groups of people on display. I first began to consider this when I noticed many of the shoppers on Extreme Couponing made statements to the effect that they ARE NOT HOARDERS. Of course, many of those people who appear on Hoarders claim they ARE NOT hoarders either.

I've raised an eyebrow on more than one occasion while watching Extreme Couponing. Some of the stockpiles seem absolutely ridiculous to me. One episode had a single young man who lived alone. He had an entire wall full of feminine products. The phrase that caught my attention was "These have wings. I don't know what wings are, but they were free!" I'm not a fan of getting and keeping large quantities of items JUST because they were free. If you can use or donate them, that's great, but I'm not going to store two pallets of free cat treats in my spare bedroom when I don't even own a cat!

I'm not against stockpiling household supplies. I myself have amassed quite an extensive stockpile of different items we use. But there is the key word.....USE. I don't buy things we have no use for. I wanted to share some of my stockpile items with you all to illustrate that not all coupons, savvy savers, and stockpilers have a garage stacked full of potato chips, dish soap and tampons.

Here's a list of some of the essentials I currently have stockpiled: