Today I discarded the equivalent of at least four “apple box” size cartons of packaging material from the toys and dolls I’ve been deboxing. I unboxed my Pinky:st hoard today, including “rare” figures like Tenjho Tenge sets, Post Pets, and even sealed-carton Pucchi, Air Gear Ringo, and Gunslinger Girl Henrietta figures. Research on eBay indicates that boxed Pinky:st figures are not holding any resale value. I unboxed everything, threw away or recycled the packaging, and put the figures into plastic sandwich bags and then stored them in a plastic tub. I used a plastic storage tub that I already had, one that I had emptied when I more efficiently repacked my larger-scale dolls and toys last week.

I can think of two advantages to unboxing all these figures. One is that they take up far less space – one box instead of four larger boxes. The other is that, since the “collectable value” did not ever materialize, I can now use the figures for the purpose for which I purchased them, photography and diorama construction and playing, without worrying about decreasing the value by not keeping them “mint in box.”

I know it would be better if I were actually getting rid of stuff, rather than simply getting rid of the stuff that my stuff was packed in. But it’s an incremental thing. The actual downsizing will happen at some point. I have to build momentum. Breaking the collecting, or hoarding, habit is not easy. For now, I do actually have less stuff than I did at the beginning of the day, as the four empty cardboard cartons and the two-thirds full rubbish bin attest. It just… for some reason… doesn’t seem like it. Four boxes out today, a half-dozen or more last week when I was working on the Monster High stuff, and it still feels like I can’t even move in this room.