Tea Hoarding Challenge - end of Month 4

Alright, this is ridiculous! Do normal people have pantries that contain SOOOOO much tea that 4 months of usage shows no dents in the total? Good Lord!

I know that I have finished off several boxes and tins of teas. But you couldn't tell it by looking at the pantry. There is still so much tea left. My sister was here last month and looked at it and pronounced it much depleted since December, however she also said she believes this will go on into 2010! More than one year! I feel like the biggest schmuck in the world. Who does this? Who hoards this much tea? I'll tell you who does . . . . . . My mother, that's who! Apparently the apple did not fall far from the hoarding tree.

All this begs the question, What else am I a hoarder of? I have extensive collections of many items. I am aware of that and I am really thankful that I signed up on the Compact group in Jan. 2007 to get a handle on shopping. I got the message loud and clear about shopping as a hobby, having too much stuff, landfills, disposable electronics, etc. I promise you that my whole sensibilities regarding this stuff is a complete about-face from what it was. We lived as ex-patriates for 12 years and over time I really developed the ex-pat philosophy of when you find something you really like, buy all you can because they will never carry it again. This is true, the stores do that to you. You should have seen what it was like when the grocery store in Santiago, Chile would accidentally get a few cases of root beer in! And get this, when we would ask the manager to get more, this was the response "No, we don't like to get more of (insert happily found product) because you will just buy it all, and I will have an empty shelf."

Do you need to re-read that? Honestly, this is where the dumb, wide-eyed "Huh???" look comes in and the first thing out of your mouth is wtf???? He doesn't want to stock things that we want, things that are so ridiculously over-priced it should be illegal, because we would buy it all and then they would have to re-stock the shelves. Now, maybe I am just a crazy American with too much time on my hands (and apparently too much root beer buying money) but this made no sense to me at all!

Now, my 2009 self would not buy into that mentality. I would be a completely different ex-pat wife than I was back then. Shopping was a sport for me. Now I would spend way more time at the orphanage or visiting the families that live at the garbage dumps. I did do these things, but I bet I spent way more time purchasing than I did helping. That is just wrong. I should be, and I am, ashamed.

So, back to my tea stash. I still have lots of tea. I will be mindful every time I look at my pantry. Every time I decide which tea to drink. Every time I empty another tin. By the by, I am saving all the tea tins to use for loose teas when I open those packages. I really was going to take pictures of my tea stash but I never got to it. I wonder if it is because I am ashamed and don't want to show you how much there really is?

How much of something is a good amount to have on hand? How much is too much? How do you know when you have crossed that line? When is it good financially to stock up on a sale item and when is it just ridiculous? These are the things I find myself thinking about when I am looking at my teas, or my cookbooks, or yarn, or body lotions. I got under the bathroom sink the other day and I have it well organized by cute little bins. There is a large bin in the back that is full of lotions. I know I filled it and put it back there when we moved into this house almost 4 years ago. In all this time I don't remember getting into that bin and pulling out a new tube or bottle of lotion. Does that stuff get old? Does it get out of date and un-usable? I don't know. I think I will pull a bunch of it out that I will never in my lifetime use and take it down to a women's shelter and let those girls have a crack at using it up.

I think this is all the taking a really good look at myself that I can do for one day. Please comment on your own standards of stocking up, using up, etc.