I can relate. My mother hoards old magazines thinking someday she will need the information in them. She hoards magazines, reader's digest books, you name it.

Before my father died, he kept her in check. Throwing piles of old news papers out. Growing up it was a common scene to hear her yell at him that he threw something out she needed.

My mother use to write a news letter for a government agency. She is a very good, articulate writer. She is so good that one time I was suffering through a creative writing college course, came home got some help from my mom, and the college professor told me I had a career in journalism if I didn't like engineering. It was a family joke for many years.

I have a little bit of this myself. My wife yells at me to get rid of things. History repeats itself... I take broken electronics apart for their parts. Kids toys break, toy gets put on my work bench. I eventually get around to taking it apart to harvest parts like LCD panels, MMC slots, etc...

I'm getting better. I realize some when I blow dust off of it, it's time to throw out.

I think it's a mental thought process that what you have has some value to you. Not like value as in it is worth something to someone else but a cost saving thing. I would rather use a harvested MMC or LED than go to Digikey and buy a bag of them and wait a day or few for it to arrive. The value is in having instant access to it while on a project. At least that is how it is for me.