I've been thinking lately about books too, because I always loved the idea of having a library in my house, and what I've discovered is that because I don't have a maid
books get dusty. So I've got shelves of books that always have to be dusted. And some of them are just old paperback novels, some in lousy condition because I read them a bunch of times but now most of them I don't want to read anymore because I know them inside and out. I also have a lot of nice-looking hardcover books that I didn't like all that well but they look classy on the shelves.
I've just started unloading some of these. There's really no reason I need to have all these books all over the house when there are libraries in town.
About the freebies and consumables and cheap things that we get and store up, I really think this has been ingrained in many of us at least since the generation that lived through the tough times of the Depression and World War II. My friends and I typically all have parents or other relatives like this, where they couldn't throw anything out because you might need it some day. Everything was stockpiled. It's a running gag which I even heard in a comedy routine about how "Mom's got cupboards full of paper bags -- it's a fire hazard!" Twist ties, rubber bands, old jars, and so on . . . man.