The clutterbust dilemma

I am always pulled two ways at the moment. On one hand I NEED to make more room. On the other hand I don't want to lose stuff that could be really useful.

Towels - most people would say that you cannot have too many towels. Well, I have! I have far too many towels. So I am passing the shabby ones on to Nice Mr Next Door (who really helped getting the furniture in last night) as he works on cars. But what about the not so shabby, non microfibre ones that I can't see me using but probably won't sell in a charity shop. Because there may be 'things' in used towels.

(it was well known during Medieval and Early Modern times that the Black Death could be spread via clothes and the actual bug itself can survive on cloth for @ forty days. There was often a ban on selling second hand clothes during times of plague)

It really does seem a shame to get rid of the nicer towels, because apart from anything else I am confident that one day I will have a flood or a spill or something and the towels will be a life line.

I want to keep a few empty pots of a particular yogurt clean and to one side. They are low and shallow and quite sturdy and so ideal for painting and such like. That's clutter, but useful.

I think I have over fifty pillow cases! Fifty! That is me being insane on getting bargains on ebay (lovely quality too) and the ones that come with duvet sets and then all of darling father's. But not only are they useful for putting on pillows but also for putting things in, especially if you want them free of dust. Or using them to wash things in, like the pegs that I have that are dirty because I never took them in over winter and now they are leaving black marks.

And I found the perfect container for some tiny safety pins I use as stitch markers when I am knitting - I had had a paste sandwich for lunch and the cleaned jar was ideal. Should I keep a spare jar cleaned just in case for things like that? I don't eat a lot of paste, and I am the only one in the household that does apart from evil cat. It was effectively free, reusing rather than sending to recycling or landfill, and it was ideal. But if I hoard things like that I could end up like darling uncle who at one point had hundreds of flimsy margarine containers and fruit punnets 'just in case'.

Anyway, I have got rid of a very rickety chest of drawers and bookcase and updated the clutterbust. Also a laundry basket frame. The house still feels constipated.