1. Marriages suffer and some have even ended when one or both partners hang on to useless things.
2. Blended families struggle when they try to combine two households full of stuff.
3. Anxiety and depression develops when the excess leads to cluttered spaces which affect every area of one's life. This could send people to therapy. In the extreme it could cause untold emotional distress even leading to suicide. Unfortunately, I have seen this happen.
4. Relationships suffer when people are too embarrassed to have friends and sometimes even family over.
5. Injuries happen when elderly people fall because of too many obstructions in their spaces.
6. Time is wasted looking for needed items.
7. Money is wasted re buying lost items thus adding to the clutter.
8. Budgets are blown causing money and often marital problems due to over spending. I call this OCD - Over Consumer Disorder.
9. Landfills are growing exponentially.
10. Economies of developing countries are harmed. When items won’t sell here and they find their way overseas in the form of “donations,” their small business owners who provide goods cannot support their families because they cannot compete with “FREE!"
THE MOST IMPORTANT REASON TO STOP OVER CONSUMING IS:
11. Our carbon footprints are destroying our environment.