What's More Important, Your Life or Possessions?

Accumulation has become a major issue as people get older, it weighs on their health. The responsibility of cleaning, managing and organizing seems to go on forever. How may or your "projects" are really a reorganization of what you own? Our basements are messy, our drawers don’t close, and our closets are filled from top to bottom. The evidence is all around us.

Increasing data is being collected about our homes, shopping habits, and spending. The research is confirms: we own too much, and it is robbing us of life.

Here are some surprising statistics about our clutter that help us understand how big of a problem this has actually become.

There are over 100,000 items in the average American home - US Department of Commerce.

The average size of the American home has nearly tripled in size over the past 50 years - US Census Data.

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 - Self Storage Industry Statistics.

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.

The United States has upward of 50,000 storage facilities. That's 7.3 square feet of storage space for every man, woman and child in the US - Self Storage Association.

The average American throws away 65 pounds of clothing per year - EPA Office of Solid Waste.

Americans spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches than on higher education - Psychology Today.

Over the course of our lifetime, we will spend a total of 3,680 hours or 153 days searching for misplaced items - The Daily Mail.

Americans spend $1.2 trillion annually on nonessential goods—in other words, items they do not need - The Wall Street Journal.

The $8 billion home organization industry has more than doubled in size since the early 2000, growing at a rate of 10% each year - US Department of Commerce.