Do we really have 300,000 items in our homes?
You’ve probably heard that number being floated around: the average household contains 300,000 items. But does it really? It turns out I have a bit of inside information, as well as some thoughts, so here we go!
That number actually comes from a NAPO colleague of mine, Regina Lark, who was quoted in the LA Times in 2014 saying that the average house contains 300,000 items. I attended one of her webinars last month, where she explained that when asked, she said that she got the number from the UCLA’s 2012 book Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century – which I happened to be reading at the time! And then, try as she might, she was never able to find that reference, although she is convinced that she did read that number somewhere and did not make it up. I also could have sworn that it was in that book, but when I looked for it, I couldn’t find that figure either. However, her quote has since taken on a life of its own and is, to this day, being repeated everywhere as truth, probably because the LA Times is an important publication.
So, the book was published after UCLA conducted a great anthropological study with 32 American families in 2012, and they talk a lot about their methodology. They did count objects, but it was more of an estimate: they made educated guesses about certain groups of items, and they only ever counted items in plain sight – meaning that anything that would have been in a drawer, in a cabinet, or behind something visible was not counted. Here are some figures from that study, along with a quote that will not surprise you: “Middle-class America has the most possessions per family in history.” Households surveyed had an average of 438 books and magazines, 139 toys, and 39 pairs of shoes per family (again, these are only visible items). In home offices, the lowest number of plainly visible non-paper objects was 21, and the most was 2,337. In the garage, it ranged from 50 to 650. Having more items on one’s refrigerator (magnets, papers, etc.) was correlated with having more objects in the home. But there is no total anywhere in sight!
Now, here’s where my opinion comes into play. Let’s be generous by rounding up and saying that a person lives for 30,000 days. From those days, we wouldn’t really count childhood, so there’s maybe 25,000 days left? Let’s say the average household has two adults, and they are acquiring objects not just for themselves, but also for their 2.5 kids. Okay. So with my rough mathematical model here, those adults would have to acquire (while never discarding!) about 12 items each day in order to have 300,000 by the end of their life, right? So it would have to be an even faster rate of acquisition in order to have that many items while their kids are still living with them, as in the UCLA study. I’m not counting perishable items like groceries or cleaning products in this tally, and I wouldn’t be counting every last piece of paper either, since the UCLA anthropologists didn’t.
Speaking for my household, we are not acquiring items at nearly that rate. Sure, there are isolated times when I will buy a lot at once. For example, in one shopping spree, I could buy several outfits for my kids to go back to school as they grow, along with school supplies. But on an average day, I am not buying anything. And regardless of how much I buy, I do get rid of some items along the way (like the kids’ clothes that have been outgrown, plus the school supplies that get used up).
All this to say that while I do not have any idea how many items are in my household, and while I’m sure the number would seem very large if I were to learn it, I don’t think it’s anywhere close to 300,000!
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Minimalism, Marie Kondo, and The Home Edit
My last post was about minimalism, and today I want to elaborate on the relationship between minimalism and Marie Kondo as well as compare it to The Home Edit.
I remember that when Marie Kondo opened her online shop (initially selling household objects and with broader offerings now), many people criticized her for “selling out.” I believe that those critics did not understand her philosophy. You see, the goal of the KonMari Method™ is not to get rid of as many objects as possible, but to mindfully choose which objects to keep.
One of the first steps of a tidying festival is to imagine your ideal lifestyle; this might look different for everyone, and some people will definitely be more comfortable keeping most of their belongings. The thing to keep in mind is that you should be surrounding yourself with only objects that you love (which is where the carefully curated objects in her store come in, if they speak to you). In practice, this means that many people will realize along the way that they had been keeping objects that they did not love or which did not serve them, and so they will discard those objects and end up with much more curated belongings. This can overlap with minimalism, but it is not the case for everyone.
Marie Kondo’s official website maintains that KonMari is not minimalism. That being said, if I go back to Joshua Becker’s definition, minimalism being “the intentional pursuit of the things we value the most and the removal of anything that distracts us,” I feel like Marie Kondo’s philosophy is indeed compatible with minimalism (though, again, not asceticism).
I want to make a quick comparison here to Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin of The Home Edit. To simplify, their method is based on the appeal of a ROYGBV aesthetic as well as, ideally, the purchase of certain objects sold by the organizers (either directly from their website, or through their exclusive collection at the Container Store). It is also premised on having a LOT of backstock – and therefore enough room to store it! Their Netflix show, Get Organized with The Home Edit, was advertising all that product, whereas Tidying Up with Marie Kondo was all about using organizing products you already have on hand. The KonMari reveals were much less spectacular – more down-to-earth, if you will.
Critics also like to talk about the wastefulness of the KonMari Method™, what with all the “discarding,” but again I have to say that I disagree. While there can be a substantial quantity of items donated (those in good condition) and trashed or recycled (expired makeup, papers that are no longer useful, etc.), I would argue that the KonMari Method™ did not create those items. It merely moved them from their temporary, cumbersome place in your home to a more appropriate place – the problem really began when useless objects were manufactured (before they were even purchased!), and this has to do with our consumerist culture. The KonMari Method™ actually encourages mindfully acquiring new objects, thereby reducing the likelihood of buying useless things in the future.
Meanwhile, on the second episode of Get Organized with The Home Edit, Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin were in Rachel Zoe’s closet – which they had ALREADY organized over a year prior and were just touching up – and they dealt with it by… relocating some items to her off-site storage space AND adding storage to the closet. So, certainly not a minimalist approach! I mean, I understand that Rachel Zoe is a fashion designer and needs to keep certain items for reference, but in my opinion, those should be archived in a warehouse or something, not in her personal closet. She’ll need to deal with it at some point, like after the next few seasons’ worth of designs come into her space.
I really enjoyed this Refinery 29 article comparing Marie Kondo and The Home Edit. This quote jumped out at me: “But if Kondo’s method elevates objects in a uniquely Japanese way [based on Shintoism], allowing us to consider and value them, The Home Edit elevates objects in a uniquely American way: by putting them on display. Here, of course, is where the product is necessary. Our many things, from Clorox wipes to designer purses, go on display. Their closets and drawers and pantries become their own sort of shrine to consumption.”
That being said, Marie Kondo will be joining in on the fun! Next month, the Container Store will be launching her line of sustainably sourced products. I can’t wait to see what they look like!
If you are interested in either method (KonMari or The Home Edit), be sure to get in touch!