If you think that you need more than you need, how much do you actually need?

I was thinking about having stuff. Nice stuff. Lots of nice stuff. How much do I realistically want?

I was thinking about Elizabeth's comment about having a few bins of quilting and sewing stuff and it an idea. I was working on solutions to my own sewing problem (I have a few bins myself!). First I threw out all of the scraps that were pretty useless -- mostly scraps from tee shirt projects. That brought me down to one and a half bins. Then I folded all of the fabric neatly and utilized an empty drawer for all of the sewing accessories, such as patterns and thread. I thought maybe if Elizabeth threw out the scraps, she'd have less to deal with. But then it occurred to me that maybe it is all large pieces of high quality fabric. And then I thought of the much larger stash of nice fabric I used to own. What if I suddenly became the owner of a lot of nice quilting fabric? Say, 20 boxes full? Not scraps, but yards full of nice fabric in colors I liked. 50 boxes? A storage unit full? A boxcar full? If you are a quilter, then it's a lot different than if you're me, because I just don't quilt very much at all.

I cannot possibly use 20 boxes of fabric in the next year. I probably wouldn't even touch it once. I just don't have the time. Wife-mommy-student-hood is about all I can get done. I would probably salivate over the fabric, imagining what could be done. But I probably wouldn't touch it. It would take a lot of space to store, though.

Let me illustrate with someone that's a little harder to question, because these are actually necessities. Say I have 7 pairs of dress shoes, all very nicely made and that fit. My mind balks at first thinking I'd never be able to afford such a thing, or be able to find that many different kinds that I'd truly love. Then I think wow, I would really love that if it really did happen. And then I think that perhaps someday I *will* have the resources to buy that many good shoes. So what will I do?

I only dress up once in a while. I might start wearing pumps on a daily basis if I could find really good ones (and could afford them), but dressy shoes might only get worn once a week, if that often. Let's say twice a week for good measure. I only have a a few dressy clothes, and I think black would go with most of them. I'd wear some kind of white dressy sandals in the summer. Let's just throw in a dressy colored pair, maybe red. So I'd need three pairs of dress shoes, to be generous, and they'd last at least several years with that little use.

What would I do if I became the owner of 20 beautiful, fabulous dress shoes? 30? 40? 50? 100? They absolutely wouldn't all be worn. If this sounds like a modest estimate, what about 1000? There must be a limit to how much I use, and then there must be a limit to the excess as well. 

Same goes for any other clothes or shoes or ANYTHING. If you think that you need more than you need, how much do you actually need? What's the limit? What you can store? Beyond what you can store?

Obviously, there has to be a balance, but owning too much is draining. How do you find the balance? How do you decide that you have enough of something?