and found box after box of saved plastic bottles. Some I knew were there, some I didn't. I'm beginning to think maybe you can save too many. And my milk carton collection is also out of control. I could start and pot my vegetables for the next ten years and still have half of them left.

And I didn't even live through the Great Depression. (But my mother did.)

Use it up.
Wear it out.
Make it do,
or do without.

My mother was born in 1935. She didn't retain many memories of deprivation, it was my paternal grandmother who taught me about conservation of resources. The good thing about today is that those plastic bottles and milk cartons can be recycled into some other plastic product. We get to keep what is needed and make sure the rest is sent off to new homes in new forms.