Most of us know we own too much stuff. We feel the weight and burden of our clutter. We tire of cleaning and managing and organizing. Our toy rooms are messy, our drawers don’t close, and our closets are filled from top to bottom. The evidence of clutter is all around us.
Today, data is constantly being collected about our homes, our shopping habits, and our spending. The research is confirming our observation: we own too much stuff. And it is robbing us of life.
Here are 21 surprising statistics about our clutter that help us understand how big of a problem our accumulation has actually become.
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. Nearly half of American households don’t save any money (Business Insider).
12. But our homes have more television sets than people. And those television sets are turned on for more than a third of the day—eight hours, 14 minutes (USA Today).
13. Some reports indicate we consume twice as many material goods today as we did 50 years ago (The Story of Stuff).
14. 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).
15. Americans donate 1.9% of their income to charitable causes (NCCS/IRS). While 6 billion people worldwide live on less than $13,000/year (National Geographic).
16. Americans spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches ($100 billion) than on higher education (Psychology Today).
17. Shopping malls outnumber high schools. And 93% of teenage girls rank shopping as their favorite pastime (Affluenza).
18. Women will spend more than eight years of their lives shopping (The Daily Mail).
19. 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).
20. Americans spend $1.2 trillion annually on nonessential goods—in other words, items they do not need (The Wall Street Journal).
21. The $8 billion home organization industry has more than doubled in size since the early 2000’s—growing at a staggering rate of 10% each year (Uppercase, note: link no longer available).
The numbers paint a jarring picture of excessive consumption and unnecessary accumulation. Clearly, many of us have far too much stuff.
Fortunately, the solution is not difficult. The invitation to own less is an invitation to freedom, intentionality, and passion. And it can be discovered at your nearest drop-off center.
Further reading:
For more helpful tips, here’s an article filled with tips on how to declutter your home. You can also use our Decluttering Checklist to keep yourself organized and focused.
For a complete lifestyle change that will prevent clutter from coming back into your life, learn more about simple living from this article on minimalism.
Prudence Yeo says
Definitely guilty of pt 18, love shopping too much even if it’s just window shopping!
Prudence
http://www.prudencepetitestyle.com
Ethan says
There’s a lot of clutter, indeed!
True enough, the solution is not difficult.
We buy so many things that don’t really help us. We even buy just for the sake of it (or because everybody else simply buys stuff).
But sometimes we don’t realize this one effect–they only create more chaos.
It may be hard to accept simplicity–every day, but man, we could do more with less chaos-inducing little objects!
Shirley S says
Thanks for the article
Shirley S says
In a lot of circles I would definately not be the person with all the extras , I singly support 3 teenagers and yet I can still look around and say ah this could be simpler. At one point in my life I had a mattress and 3 coffee tins, I made it. Now twenty plus years and many miles later yes I say make it simple it’s only stuff, it comes and goes, love, peace and hope do not
less4success says
Thanks for gathering all these stats in one place! I am flabbergasted.
One addition:
“2. The average size of the American home has nearly tripled in size over the past 50 years (NPR).”
And what’s really ridiculous is that the average number of people in each household has even decreased over this same time period: http://www.marketingcharts.com/traditional/american-households-are-getting-smaller-and-headed-by-older-adults-24981/
Katie says
My possessions overwhelm me! I am on a mission to get rid of excess. Funny thing is that I don’t even come close to fitting these statistics and I still feel that I have too much. I love your articles Joshua. Thank you!
Nice joy says
It was interesting to read. I have decluttered my house and garage after starting to read your blog. Now I leave my garage open most of the day, nothing to steal from it and I park my car in my garage now. Thank you Joshua.
Nathan Atkinson says
I would like to apologize for getting a little heated in some of the comments here. Sometimes I get a little passionate and apologetic about simple living. Sorry if I distracted from Joshua’s great writing and these eye-opening statistics.
Have a wonderful day!
anakinmcfly says
Nah; that wasn’t heated at all, and you handled it nicely. I can empathize with the other poster’s points that it requires a position of privilege to even see a personal need to minimize (a poor person can’t afford to, and wouldn’t have that excess to begin with). But I think that’s a separate discussion and one that wasn’t relevant to this article or blog – nobody is whining, as they thought, just trying to live more intentional, less wasteful lives that contribute towards reducing the disparity between the haves and have nots, helping the rich live with less so there’s more available for the poor. Resources aren’t unlimited, after all, and I see only benefits and more resources for the poor when the privileged stop grabbing more than they need.
Judy says
You are fine. The best thing to do is ignore trolls though. ;) Writing back just encourages them.
Nathan Atkinson says
True. I think it was the name calling that got me. These stats have really inspired me, though. I’m trying to rethink what I buy for gifts now. Does anyone have ideas about how to tell relatives that you would rather have experiences (tickets, events, restaurant gift cards, etc.) as a gift instead of more stuff? I don’t want to hurt feelings but they sometimes don’t understand, though they mean well :)
Judy says
I try to give gift cards more now too! Then you can tell the recipient that gift cards rock and they’ll get the hint that you’d prefer that also. IF you get a gift, just graciously accept it. What else can you do?! Some people love to buy things for people they care about and we can’t rob them of that. :) :) :)
Everyone is different.
Emily says
To let relatives know you want “experiences” rather than stuff, you just have to tell them.
Some will get it. Some will not.
Tell them well in advance – telling them a week before the gift-giving occasion is probably too late because they already have something.
Give them some suggestions of specific things that would be appreciated – a museum membership, swimming passes, restaurant vouchers – and make sure the price range is about the same as the gift budget usually is. You want to be clear this isn’t a “money grab”.
This worked great with one set of grandparents, and completely bombed with the other set. Oh well. Some people will never “get it”.
Brian Fulthorp says
you forgot to add the stat about how many books the average american has that they (probably) never read…
not to mention Bibles…
Carina Spring says
Thanks for the article, Joshua. It’s an important reminder to be mindful of our purchases in the first place.
There is age-old wisdom in the idea of not being wasteful with our hard-earned money, our time, or the planet’s resources.