How long from "I'll keep it, it'll come in useful", to it coming in useful?

If you hadn't found the toe straps what else would you have used? As in, how much more clutter do you have? (I've got loads of velcro straps in varying sizes that I could use I don't need that many velcro straps) 😀

I took an old OS map on a trip to Carsington in May. It didn’t have Carsington Water on it

It'll come in useful 3 days after you've decided you're never gonna use it & taken it to the tip - or is that just me?

Toe straps are also the dogs dangling bits for seating difficult tyres.
They do not help in removing them

37 years, 5 months, 4 days...

It’ll come in useful 3 days after you’ve decided you’re never gonna use it & taken it to the tip – or is that just me?

This, usually about a week for me but no longer than a month, and ill search for it for about half hour before i remember i got rid of it.

Toe straps. I collect them at all opportunities.
Haven't climbed really since 92 but still dig bits of kit out for other purposes. My 1981 ice axe was dug out tother day for metal detecting work.

Still counting the days on many many It'll-come-in-useful-one-day pieces of junk in my garage. Those QR straight steerer 130mm Fox Vanilla 26" forks with the worn stanchions, for example... I reckon one day they will be Just The Thing!

I took an old OS map on a trip to Carsington in May. It didn’t have Carsington Water on it

I like this a lot

I have two brand new pairs of ratchets for Shimano M180 shoes.

I don't have the shoes anymore, and no one else is likely to have any that haven't fallen apart.

I still can't throw them away though! 🙂

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I keep old tyres and used chains because'you never know when they'll come in handy'.
Actually I do know...the answer is never.

"um, hi, my name is Fettlin and I have a problem..."

I really dont like throwing things away if they have a potential use, no matter how far down the line. It comes from my dad, who would make a whole series of Britain Biggest Hoarders! From old tractors, mowers, house radiators, block paving lifted from Worcester high street, kitchen sets of saucepans, old car radios even a couple of washing machines, if it 'may' in some warped reality have some undetermined use in the future, its kept 'just in case'.

I dread to think how much stuff he has or how long its been kept for, but I know there is a Parquet Floor that was lifted from a school in Worcester sometime in the late '70s that is going to be used in our kitchen soon, so 50+ years and counting!

I had a work colleague who upon clearing his father’s possessions from the house following his demise was a box named “pieces of string too short to be useful” 🤣

The bird feeder hanging from the tree in my garden is suspended from a piece of Troll tubular climbing webbing, purchased in Nevisport circa 1979. In later years it has been used as a lifting strop for the removal of car engines and hanging a kayak from my garage roof.
I still have some Binda toe-straps from the early 80s somewhere in my garage.

1 day after bin day, having binned it after keeping it forever.

I did once sell something, years later I needed it. I won't make that mistake again

I use old toe straps as an additional strap on the front wheels when on the car rack - stops the front wheel ocscilating at speed.

Always save old nuts and bolts !

I had a work colleague who upon clearing his father’s possessions from the house following his demise was a box named “pieces of string too short to be useful” 🤣

Beyond priceless

Inherited some old jam jars of assorted nails when we moved in 15 years ago. Probably 70s/80s vintage. Used some of them last week.

I still have keys for the house I grew up in somewhere. Must go and give them a go at some point.

“pieces of string too short to be useful”

Straight out of Adam Buxton’s Ramble book 😉

I have a massive shed full of crap that might come in useful someday… maybe

I've also got piles and piles of things deemed 'Useful' which are now just cluttering up the workshop. From odd bits of wood that are pretty useless for anything, to cardboard to , god I dont know what.

I emptied my workshop into one spare room so i could redecorate and now im overwhelmed with whats there and cannot seem to find a home for it putting the workshop back in order.

But I dont know if i can throw it away, feels wrong.

Ah good old dad ❤️ When he moved into sheltered accommodation as the only child it was my task to help him “ downsize” As it was November I decided anything not needed would go on the playing field bonfire . As it was me trying to make the decisions it was decided my auntie would distract/ keep him occupied 🤔
I worked out quickly that as I’m was returning from the bonfire the “ junk” pile was getting smaller than it should have been . He was giving his sister the slip and examining my junk pile and taking stuff back in the house ! 😬
One of the best things I found was a couple of jam jars full of screws . He had separated them into ones with mangled heads and one with mangled threads , his answer of course was “ Well they might come in handy one day ! “😂😂😂

Ah good old dad ❤️ When he moved into sheltered accommodation as the only child it was my task to help him “ downsize” As it was November I decided anything not needed would go on the playing field bonfire . As it was me trying to make the decisions it was decided my auntie would distract/ keep him occupied 🤔
I worked out quickly that as I’m was returning from the bonfire the “ junk” pile was getting smaller than it should have been . He was giving his sister the slip and examining my junk pile and taking stuff back in the house ! 😬
One of the best things I found was a couple of jam jars full of screws . He had separated them into ones with mangled heads and one with mangled threads , his answer of course was “ Well they might come in handy one day ! “😂😂😂

Ah good old dad ❤️ When he moved into sheltered accommodation as the only child it was my task to help him “ downsize” As it was November I decided anything not needed would go on the playing field bonfire . As it was me trying to make the decisions it was decided my auntie would distract/ keep him occupied 🤔
I worked out quickly that as I’m was returning from the bonfire the “ junk” pile was getting smaller than it should have been . He was giving his sister the slip and examining my junk pile and taking stuff back in the house ! 😬
One of the best things I found was a couple of jam jars full of screws . He had separated them into ones with mangled heads and one with mangled threads , his answer of course was “ Well they might come in handy one day ! “😂😂😂
I do tend to hang on to stuff but am not in the same league!

Good old STW posted my reply three times ! Well I guess the other two “ might come in handy ! “ 😬😬😬

Being a hoarder is a Love/Hate thing for sure.Last time I was in my 'shed of wonder' the first thought (as always) was a slightly frustrated "must get all this shit sorted out",my second (almost immediate) thought as I sorted through stuff was "I love these things" ...then the warm comfort blanket of shed life wrapped around me. 😌 😉 😀

Eternity is the answer.

I have a box of old phone chargers.. You never know 😉

When I used to work in the DIY trade I bought loads of stuff either for pence or got it for free. Things like hand tools, sandpaper, small power tools. There has been so many times I’ve used those things even 15 years after I left.

However I’ve sort of done the opposite to the OP several times in that I’ve bought stuff I’ve needed then a week later had a looo for something else in my storage boxes and found out I already had the thing I bought the previous week. This has happened several times including repeats on the same item so I have 3 of some things now.

That reminds me, looking for something in a garage cupboard the other day I found a brand new Madison Flux saddle still on its card that I can't remember buying 🙄

IMO.. ∞

I'm very much anti-hoarding after seeing the chaos it has caused to my parents lives over the years. They live in a big 4 bed house with 2 double garages (one next to the house, the other one is 1/4 mile down the lane and stuff still ends up in it!) and a large garden, stuff everywhere! It must be hereditary though as I'm currently going through everything in my flat of 9 years ready for a move and even though I am pretty ruthless with stuff hanging around I've still managed to get rid of multiple black bags!

However I’ve sort of done the opposite to the OP several times in that I’ve bought stuff I’ve needed then a week later had a looo for something else in my storage boxes and found out I already had the thing I bought the previous week. This has happened several times including repeats on the same item so I have 3 of some things now.

That's my dad. Sorted out one of his garages as I wanted to park a car in it and found multiples of everything, some of them the exact sam items! Mainly things like Aldi Special routers, bit sets and the like but it did surprise me (and him actually) when I managed to lay out on the floor 4 hedge trimmers, 6 electric drills, 4 strimmers and 3 Sanders. All in their boxes, unused and adding up to well over £1k. He agreed to let me get rid of all of them bar one of each that he selected but even then a few months later he bought new ones of everything as "What if the first one breaks? I need to have a spare one!". He hasn't been capable of using any of the tools for a few years now so how he'd break then I do not know and he won't let me do any work with them for him.

This reminds me, I need to have a purge of my clothing pile as there's stuff in there I never wear.

I'd a drawer full of old kettle leads. Selected the longest and best conditioned and threw the rest out.

Then I needed the paint stripper and discovered that its kettle lead was slightly different and i'd thrown out its lead.

That was a tenner well spent. Not

I found a brand new Madison Flux saddle still on its card that I can’t remember buying 🙄

Must be nicked then!

I inherited the "it'll come in handy" gene from my Dad. He grew up in late 40s/early 50s so it was very much "make do & mend".

My grandad was a builder- one of the jobs he got my dad to do when he was a kid was take screws & nails out of wood that he had removed working on job A, straighten the nails so they could be used on job B after pricing in new nails etc. Even timber was re-purposed as much as possible.

My grandad was either a recycling visionary or looking to maximise his margins/fund his daily beer intake.

It's taken ages for me to get out of the habit of saving nails/screws as the time & effort is not worth it as I have loads of boxes of new screws/nails courtesy of Dad & there are plenty more still in the loft at Mum's

I use toe straps for fitting a DealExtreme torch onto the bars if my pub bike and carrying a spare 700*25 tyre on the back of the saddle on my road bike. That might answer the original question as it was useful when my riding mate managed to rip his sidewall

I've got some bombers that came off a Kona Pahoehoe that have been in the garage a good 15+ years.. Can't get rid of them though because as soon as I do I'll no doubt need to own someone.

I’m at the other end of the spectrum. If it hasn’t been used in six months it gets sold, given away or I get rid. Unluckily for me Mrs F is the opposite and would fit in well with you lot.

37 years, 5 months, 4 days…

Chapeau sir, chapeau

When my brother and I were teenagers my dad bought a 100m length of steelcable and rigged us up a pulley run off a hill in a local park. We got a good bit of use out it that summer. Circa 1976.

When clearing his garage out after his death aged 90 I found the cable coiled up in a sack. Approx 40 years later having survived two houses moves.

Thinking back - after showing us how to rig it and operate it he left us to it along with our crowd of friends. Different times.

Just come back from a family holiday. Some one admired my mums blouse. She mentioned that it was 42 years old……

I have two brand new pairs of ratchets for Shimano M180 shoes.

I don’t have the shoes anymore, and no one else is likely to have any that haven’t fallen apart.

Optimistic post here. If you're a 43 and want another set cheap to go with the ratchets I have a pair BNIB. Got them cheap ages ago and now realise I fit 44-45 Shimanos better.

I use a toe strap on my Silca seat bag as the BOA strap is utter shit. But then I started to use a toe strap after losing a saddle bag once on a bumpy road.

I had some foil / polystyrene roll in the garage for the last 10 years, threw it out then less than a month later was buying new insulation foil to cover the windows for the heatwave.

My former next door neighbours downsized last year, their family filled 4 skips !!!! They were very upset.

I bit the bullet this evening and put a bike box in the car to take to the skip, I reckon I have had it 3 years.

A mate was DJing an 80's and 90's night at a local beach last week, I dug out my genuine "I Ran The World" t shirt which I wore in 1986. Proper Little Britain Lou & Andy version. A friend that we run with was celebrating her birthday on the same night and found that my t shirt was 6 years older than her hilarious.

My dad is an uber womble, nothing is wasted or chucked out. Even when we moved house twice, his collection of 'I might need that one day' stuff came too. In the late 80s, I was rebuilding a 1966 Mini Marcos kit car based on a 1959 mini donor and needed a really old indicator relay. Couldn't find one in the magazines or down the scrappy. "Give me a minute" says dad and comes back a few minutes later with a 1960s BMC relay still in it's original packet. He sold his mini to buy a Hillman Imp in 1969, so the relay must have been over 20 years old, yet he kept it 'just in case'. He's 82 now, still got a wind up wooden gramaphone, 1950s 78s, a reel to reel tape recorder, box brownie camera and tons of Super 8 cine equipment. I'll need a skip for all of it when he shuffles off to the great workshop in the sky.

I have a sink which is from the 1950s. It's a big old boy, solid enameled cast iron with double drainer. I got it off a mate who was renovating his flat: it took both of us to carry it to my car, and it pretty much filled the back of an Octavia estate with the seats down.

We initially got it because my Mrs wanted it for when we did the kitchen up.

That day has now passed, and we didn't use the sink.

Never mind!, we said, we'll keep it for when we put in a utility room.

That day has also now passed, and once again we didn't use the sink.

We've now had it something like seven years, and it's buried in the conservatory behind two wooden doors I bought from Wickes because they were on offer (and which we didn't then use in subsequent DIY), and the Gumtree-sourced bath which, fingers crossed, is going to be used when we do the bathroom up.

In my mind we're recycling heroes, but deep down I know the truth.

I reckon charity shops exist as the least worst option for this scenario.

Used some stiff steel wire that used to be bucket handles to make something to hang bungee straps to in the shed and a bracket for a bunjee to stop bike from leaning into other bike. Had them laying around for years. Brought them with me when we moved. #livingmybestlife #slowworkday

I reckon my garage has reached an equilibrium where actual useful stuff is so buried in boxes of junk that it costs me as much to re-purchase things I already have but assume I've binned than I save in finding the correct spare part.

24 years from catching a drumstick at the end of a Reef gig at Brixton Academy to me needing something to stir paint with.

I'm 55 and haven't come in useful yet. But I'm holding out.....

It was brought home to me when I helped my mum sort out my late dads man cave (a 10x10 ft steel shed). It was packed as efficient as you'd expect from somebody who served his life in the forces yet, there were thousands of screws, clips, tins and general iron work that would never be used.

Then went into the loft of the house and found all the stuff he didn't think that important but didn't want to throw away. The whole loft space was boarded and had plastic tubs (the £15 under bed size things) all around, probably 100 of them in total.

So much crap (sorry dad) it was unbelievable.

Sorted through it all, binned most and kept some keepsakes.

Went home, stood back and looked around our garage - it was de-cluttered the following weekend.

I have some hope o2/c2 pads that I no longer have brakes for. Free to anyone has a use for them.

My best man's mum bought us some espresso cups for our wedding as he was going to buy us an espresso machine. He didn't buy the espresso machine.

20 years later I bought a coffee machine and used the espresso cups for the first time.

I got some large cast iron brackets from a railway yard 35 years ago, and due to the their need to be bolted through any upright, had not found a use for them until recently, when I used them to make a porch roof for a workshop.

Fortunately I bought two pairs, so I have still have one pair remaining, just in case.

as above.

Coming in useful = it'll come in useful + 3 days

Chuck them in the bin and youll find a use for them by wednesday.

We've done well to get this far without anyone mentioning their back catalogue of STW mags.

I've had a trailer cover that we used when going to & from uni, trailer's long gone and not towed one since but I finally used it to cover up some stuff in the garden 20yrs after leaving uni. Clock's still running on half the contents of the garage & loft, there's a pre-uni fishing rod up there too!

I get a ridiculous amount of joy from bodging a fix from something that i've held onto for ages

I've been getting better at keeping all sorts of old bits but now using white labels on drawers, organisers, boxes and trays. Still lose stuff and can't find bits but it's definitely getting better!

I've sorted the big tub of random bolts into various metric sizes. Sorted old sockets and screwdrivers, tidied up various piles of tools. Other bits now also sorted in different places, including lots of outdoorsy gear. It's unbelievably cathartic

Mrs BH for years rolled her eyes at the collection of “just in case” odd sized pieces of wood found in various corners of sheds and garages. Over lockdown she discovered a bit of a taste for around the house projects and can now be found sifting through said collection for her next project. Case proven, m’lud.

Had a XT thumb shifter in my spare for about 15 years before putting it in a pub bike.

We’ve done well to get this far without anyone mentioning their back catalogue of STW mags.

Don't!
The wife keeps making noises about the 4 crates full of early/mid 1990s MBUK. MTBPro, MTB Monthly, and various other mags.
I know I should bin them, but I can't ☹️

Use toe straps a lot for various jobs.

Managed recently to use one of the hundreds of bits of useless pish that I stubbornly/stupidly hang on to.
The night before an overnight John Muir Way ride, I started packing my stuff and loading it onto the bike. I realised quite late on that I had nowhere to mount my old school/cheap and therefore quite bulky sleeping bag. Obviously wanted to avoid a backpack, so started hunting the shed for something I could fashion into a rack. Ended up cutting up a 2005 OEM Bonty rim, and drilling it to bolt onto the various braze-on mounts the Pubesmobile has on the fork. Worked a treat much to my surprise/relief. Fully expected it to rattle itself off on the first descent off Stonymollan.

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@sillyoldman that rack was pretty impressive. simple solution well executed.

bit of smoothing off with a dremel and a £100+ price tag and you're on to a winner..

A few years back my next door neighbour, in his 70s, broke a window on the side of our semi detached house.

He repaired it the same day using a pane of glass from the equivalent window on his side of the semi. He had removed it 30years before when their extension was built, and had kept „just in case“. Re-using that old window made an old man very happy.

@lovewookie - it could have ideally done with a bit of de-burring, but it was Beer Thirty by that point…

@J-R Love it!