How Much Stuff Do You Actually Own?

HOW MUCH STUFF DO YOU ACTUALLY OWN? The moment that you open your wallet to buy something, it costs you - and not just financially. Each new possession requires space, cleaning and maintenance, not to mention disposal when the time comes. Our addiction to consumption is burying us under our possessions - and unsurprisingly, it's stressing us out. 88 We live in an age of abundance Years ago, possessions were handed down with material goods like clothes being passed from generation to generation. Before 1750, and the industrial revolution, a shirt would have cost $3,000 in today's money. 000000000 DO000000000 STUFFOCATION Our fondness for stuff dominates almost every aspect of our lives, in a process that author James Wallman calls "stuffocation". Housing size, for example, has ballooned in the last 60 years. THE AVERAGE SIZE OF A NEW AMERICAN HOME: 1950 2011 983 sq. ft. for 3.37 occupants 2,480 sq. ft. for 2.6 occupants But the USA's $24bn personal storage industry proves that those supersize homes still aren't enough for all our stuff. 25% of people with 2-car garages don't have room to park their cars inside them. 32% only have room for one vehicle. BURIED BY POSSESSIONS A 2012 study by UCLA observing 32 middle class LA families found that all of the mothers' stress hormones spiked when they had to deal with their belongings. 54% 18o% find it too complicated to deal with. are overwhelmed by their clutter. Even in the smallest home in their study (980 sq. ft.), there were 2,260 items in the 2 bedrooms and living room alone. Shockingly, the researchers were only counting the items they could see - ignoring items inside cupboards and drawers. That means, including those unseen items, the average home is filled with 300,000 items. In the UCLA study, the average family had: 438 139 BOOKS AND MAGAZINES TOYS 90 DVDS OR VIDEOS 212 CDs 39 PAIRS OF SHOES 9/10 The average American woman owns had so many things that they kept household items in the garage. 30 outfits ..but they own 3.1% 40% of the world's children of the toys 1 for every day of the month. live in America... consumed globally. $1,700 Americans spend $100bn on shoes, jewelry and watches – this is more than they spend on higher education. is spent on clothes annually, and 65lbs of clothing is thrown away. Marketers love peddling the idea of "retail therapy", as if buying stuff will fill a hole in our lives. But new stuff means new responsibilities, and the stress that ultimately comes with them. The answer isn't to live like a hermit, but to realize that happiness comes from experiences – not from being caged by possessions. Sources Hill, G. (2013). Living with less. A lot less. nytimes.com Johnson, E. (2015). The real cost of your shopping habits. forbes.com MacVean, M. (2014). For many people, gathering possessions is just the stuff of life. latimes.com Somerville, M. (2015). Buying begets buying: how stuff has consumed the average American's life. theguardian.com Stromberg, P.G. (2012). Do Americans consume too much? psychologytoday.com Wallman, J. (2015). Viewpoint: The hazards of too much stuff. bbc.co.uk Produced by CashNetUSA. EMoney's on the way® This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License - www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 000000