I could totally see falling into that trap before we really thought about a purposeful life, partly in thanks to this site of course. It's just so... normal? People give us so much crap even now after we've told them literally, "Please, no, consumables only. We can purchase anything we need." But, alas, the stuff keeps coming and ends up in a box for regifting or resale unfortunately.
Luckily our work lifestyle drove us into a sense of simplicity early. Moving so often resulted in abhorring the constant slog of managing crap. So, we only keep what we need and value.
A couple of things I find interesting about this discussion though. The garage situation... while we have room to park our car in there, often times we don't. That's because our current garage (single car, so I suppose it's smaller than most) doubly serves as our wood shop and mechanic shop (more engines than just the car). So, while we can roll it in for bad weather, it's not practical to work if any projects are going on. In our last house we only had a covered carport with a shed, which I really liked because of the delineation. The tools and such couldn't practically be in the carport, and the car of course couldn't be in the adjacent shed. Everything was "neat" without really trying.
The other thing was this quote from the article:
The rise of Costco and similar stores has prompted so much stockpiling — you never know when you’ll need 600 Dixie cups or a 50-pound bag of sugar — that three out of four garages are too full to hold cars.
That's been one of the reasons I've never continued use of stores like that. Sure, you save a bit more for a few items that you use regularly... but, a lot of it is crap you don't need anyway (disposable tableware is what I'm leaning on). The clutter is just one more negative in my book. For perishables and a large family, I concede that's completely different.