- So it's been said that the average American home has over 300,000 things in it. Naturally, as a minimalist, I wondered what that might look like for us. So I decided to count everything we own.
That's right. I've decided to go through every cabinet, drawer, and bin to count all of our things. And before I even get started, it's clear that I need to lay down some ground rules.
I mean, what exactly qualifies as a thing? Is a box of screws a thing, or do you count each screw individually? What about loose screws?
Is this a box of baggies, and now is it a box of baggies in a bag? This hard drive looks like one thing, but now is it two? Is it a pair of socks or two individual socks?
What about a candle? That's certainly a thing, but not for very long. And food?
Am I to count every grain of rice, pint of milk, loaf of bread? Yes, it's true, I've thought through every last excruciating detail of this experiment, because, well, I don't have a life, and I'm sure that I'm not gonna come up with a solution that will make everybody happy, but here's where I'm at. A box of screws is one thing, mainly because I don't have the time to count each one individually.
I'm gonna combine all loose screws as one thing as well. And let's just keep all the baggies inside of a box. If the hard drive needs a cable to operate, then it's one thing.
A pair of socks is also one thing. You won't see me walking around only wearing one sock, so the pair are inextricably linked. And I will count all consumables except food.
So I'll count hand soap, toothpaste, and toilet paper, but I won't count Natalie's collection of Asian sauces and soups. And in situations where there isn't a clear answer, I will be the final referee. I will do my best to be honest and to be fair throughout this counting process, but there are so many unknown factors that I'm sure I will come across that we can't think through everything, so I will decide whether a thing is a thing or a group of things, and I will do my best to make sure that I do not over or undercount.
And speaking of counting, I have a lot of counting to do, so let's get started. All right, so I think I wanna start in the living room here because there's the least amount of stuff in here. After giving it some thought, I realized that counting everything just wasn't enough.
I also wanna categorize everything. So I'm gonna sort things based upon what type of thing it is, whether it's camera gear, stationary, or kitchen utensils and whether it's something I own, Nat owns, or we co-own together. One throw pillow, two, three, four, five, six.
Seven, eight throw pillows. (keys clacking) (* music) So I think one of the most interesting things that's gonna come out of this experiment is figuring out whether I actually have more stuff than Natalie. Now, I consider myself a minimalist.
Natalie doesn't. But I do have a lot of camera gear for work, and so I'm a little bit worried that even when we factor in all of these cosmetics and makeups and toiletries, I might actually have more stuff than her, but I am holding out hope that I can retain my title as the person in the house with the least amount of stuff. We will find out.
I found some holiday decorations. This in particular is ridiculous. (laughs) This is a set of 50 Christmas tree ornaments.
Nat and I did have quite a battle over whether we should or shouldn't get Christmas ornaments. I said no, she won, and so now, we have to store this. We have two bins in total of Christmas decorations.
This is bin number one. It's got Christmas lights and pine cones. This upsets me.
(* music) Now, you might be asking yourself, "Why, Matt? Why are you going through your home and counting all of your stuff? " That's a good question.
I would say, first and foremost, curiosity. I'm really curious to know what the actual number is. When minimalism first got popular online back in 2010, there was a lot made about how many things a minimalist should own, and there was even a movement of people who tried to get their things down to 100 items or less.
We obviously own a lot more than 100 things. We literally blew past that with the holiday decorations alone. And that's the other reason why I wanna do this.
I wanna prove to you and show you that minimalism doesn't have to be this extreme lifestyle and it can be much more practical. Most people that consider themselves minimalist or live an intentional lifestyle don't own 100 things, they don't travel the world carrying everything they own on their back, and they don't live in a tiny home. Most people that consider themselves minimalist or live intentional lifestyles live lives much like Nat and I do.
We don't own a lot of stuff, but everything that we do own, we use. It serves a purpose. It brings joy to our lives.
And whether the number of things ends up being 1,000 or 10,000, what's most important is that you're being intentional with the things that you consume, use, and bring into your home. That's really what minimalism is all about. All right, so I just got done with a couple of quick calculations here.
Now that we've gotten through the bedroom and all of our clothes, I wanted to stack Nat and I against one another to see who owns more clothes or at least how we compare, because I think we already know the answer to this one. So it turns out that I have 87 pieces of clothing and Nat has 173, basically exactly double. So that's probably not a surprise to anyone.
The only surprise here is that she doesn't actually own more than that. 173 is pretty light. If you were wondering, we have 69 hangers between the both of us.
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Thanks so much to Squarespace for sponsoring this video, and now, back to the count. Actually, I think I lost count. Shit.
I think the one thing I've struggled with the most when it comes to minimalism is guilt. When you try to be intentional with each thing you bring into your life, you can easily overthink everything. Should I have purchased that dumpling steamer?
Did I really need that action figure of The Rock? But the point of simple living has always been to make our lives simpler. Should we pause before we make a new purchase?
Yes, we should. But we shouldn't have a meltdown over each thing we buy, and we especially shouldn't hold onto guilt for the mistakes that we've made. We just need to do the best we can to use minimalism as a tool to bring the important things in our lives into focus and to help us let go of the things that don't really matter.
And this process, for me, has been cathartic in many ways. As I go through every last hair tie, rubber band, and book in our apartment, I've realized we've been doing a pretty damn good job. It's certainly not easy to live a simple life.
We have so many things competing for our attention and so many companies trying to sell us stuff to solve our problems. It takes real work to block out all that noise. But I can tell you at least from our experience that it's worth it.
So while I will say that this experience has been eye-opening and I've learned a lot, I would be lying if I said it didn't cause an insane amount of anxiety. Oh, my God, it's just so overwhelming. The amount of drawers, the amount of bins, the amount of cables and batteries and all these individual things are insanely overwhelming, and I'm holding myself to an impossible standard where I literally wanna count every single thing, and so I don't wanna miss anything, so it has made that process that much more difficult.
All right. (sighs) It's done. I have counted every single item that we own.
And the grand total of everything we own, Nat and I combined, in this home, is 1,641 items. I know. I know.
(festive music) Honestly, I thought we were gonna have about 9,000, maybe 10,000 things in this house. I am actually pleasantly surprised. Now, I actually have breakdowns and I've categorized every single item, so I can actually get into these numbers in a little bit more detail.
So let's look at the consumables versus nonconsumables first. So out of all of our things, just about 1,300 of them were actual things and 278 of them were consumables, so that includes things like shampoo, soap, tissues, all of the things that we might go through, like candles. So if anybody was being a stickler and was, like, saying, "You shouldn't really count the tissue boxes or the shampoo bottles," then you can put the total number of things that we own at about 1,300 items.
But putting that to the side, what you all really care about, what you really wanna know, is who owns more stuff, Nat or myself, and I am horrified to say that I have more stuff than Natalie. (laughing) I don't even know how I can say that. How can I even come clean and give that up?
Natalie owns 461 things and I own 498 things. I gotta say, it was really close in the end. I ended up having about 30 more things than Natalie.
I do feel like it's unfair because technically, I don't own half of the stuff. In fact, if you look at the things that I actually own and break it up between my work and my personal, I actually own far fewer things. I own 229 personal items and 269 work items.
I think it's fair. I think it's fair that I separate my work items from my personal items because I technically personally don't own those things. My business owns them.
Do I own the business? Yeah, but that's just semantics. I don't think we really need to go into detail of who owns the business, who doesn't own the business.
Okay, so let's move along and look at some more data. So if we actually take a look at all of the things we own, including the things that Nat and I co-own together, these would be the things that Nat and I will fight over if we ever get divorced. 42% of the items that we own are co-owned, so that's 682 items.
So the counting of the things wasn't actually that difficult. What really was difficult was categorizing everything and figuring out what type of thing this thing is so then I could make a really beautiful pie chart like this. So out of all the things that Nat and I own combined, all 1,600 or so items, most of it was clothing at 16%, then personal care at around 13%, then paper documents at 9%, organizational items at 9%.
Those would be any kind of bins or boxes that hold our things. Of course, we've got my camera equipment at 8%, kitchen items at 7%, and then down it goes, electronics, holiday decorations. (chuckles) It is absolutely absurd that 4% of the things that we own are holiday decorations.
I would not have it that way, but I have no ground to stand on at this point. I have more things than Natalie. I can't complain about anything that she buys for the foreseeable future, and it's breaking me.
I don't know how I'm gonna look my parents in the eye. And then down from there, we've got decor at 4%, dining at 3%, stationary, tools, bath, accessories, travel, and just for fun, I thought I would break down and categorize all the things that I own between my work and my personal things to see where all the things go. No surprise, 26% of the things that I own fall under camera equipment, and then we have clothing at 17%, electronics at 14%, paper documents at 8%, tools at 8%, personal care at 8%, organization at 7%, and then from there we have decor, furniture, accessories, travel, kitchen, sports equipment, medicine, and finally, utilities.
That is it. Am I glad that I did this experiment? Sure, why not, yeah.
It was interesting. I think I learned a lot to do this audit, to take a look at all of the things we own. One, I gotta give a hat tip to Natalie, gotta give the respect.
She won this fair and square. Yeah. I'm still coming to terms with it.
I'm glad I did it. I think that, at the end of the day, whether you own 1,600 items or 16,000 items, what I think is most important is that we are intentional and thoughtful about the things that we own, and when we look around at our place and when I literally one-by-one touched and went through every single thing that we own, I can honestly say that we use everything. Now, there are things that get less use, like the hamburger costume.
I mean, maybe we only use that once a year during Halloween. And other items we get much more use out of. But I can say that we use literally everything that we own, and that feels really good to me.
It means that we have less clutter in our home. It means that we're really intentional with our spending and the things that we invest our time, money, and energy into, and that feels really good and gives me a lot of peace of mind. And so, do I recommend that you go through your home and count literally every thing that you own?
Um, no, I don't, because of the amount of anxiety that it gave me. But I do think it actually was a helpful practice, and if you do wanna do it, if you do feel so inspired to count your things, definitely let me know what you come up with. Shoot me a DM on Instagram or add a comment down below here.
Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed my misery. Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
