Early Spring?

By Holly Henbest

Well, Punxsutawney Phil failed to see his shadow this year on Groundhog Day, so it looks like the forecast is calling for an early Spring.  That means it’s almost time for Spring Cleaning!

It’s a great time of year for cleaning house, simplifying your life, and starting the year fresh! Here are 15 statistics gathered by Joshua Becker for “Becoming Minimalist” that confirm the suspicion that Americans simply own too much stuff:

1. There are 300,000 items in the average American home (LA Times).
2. The average size of the American home has nearly tripled in size over the past 50 years (NPR).
3. And still, 1 out of every 10 Americans rent offsite storage—the fastest growing segment of the commercial real estate industry over the past four decades. (New York Times Magazine).
4. While 25% of people with two-car garages don’t have room to park cars inside them and 32% only have room for one vehicle. (U.S. Department of Energy).
5. The United States has upward of 50,000 storage facilities, more than five times the number of Starbucks. Currently, there is 7.3 square feet of self-storage space for every man, woman and child in the nation. Thus, it is physically possible that every American could stand—all at the same time—under the total canopy of self storage roofing (SSA).
6. British research found that the average 10-year-old owns 238 toys but plays with just 12 daily (The Telegraph).
7. 3.1% of the world’s children live in America, but they own 40% of the toys consumed globally (UCLA).
8. The average American woman owns 30 outfits—one for every day of the month. In 1930, that figure was nine (Forbes).
9. The average American family spends $1,700 on clothes annually (Forbes).
10. While the average American throws away 65 pounds of clothing per year (Huffington Post).
11. Some reports indicate we consume twice as many material goods today as we did 50 years ago (The Story of Stuff).
12. Currently, the 12 percent of the world’s population that lives in North America and Western Europe account for 60 percent of private consumption spending, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only 3.2 percent (Worldwatch Institute).
13. Americans spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches ($100 billion) than on higher education (Psychology Today).
14. Over the course of our lifetime, we will spend a total of 3,680 hours or 153 days searching for misplaced items. The research found we lose up to nine items every day—or 198,743 in a lifetime. Phones, keys, sunglasses, and paperwork top the list (The Daily Mail).
15. Americans spend $1.2 trillion annually on nonessential goods—in other words, items they do not need (The Wall Street Journal).

So, join us this Spring as we go through our closets, drawers, and garages. Our best tip…if you don’t love it – don’t buy it! If you already bought it and don’t love it – get rid of it!