About 25 of us (including Sari and the kids) met at the church building today to do some sorting in our free clothing outlet. Bags and bags of donated stuff had been piling up and with Spring cleaning coming (and likely more donations) we thought we better move some stuff along down there.
Granted, some of the stuff that people donate is terrible - old, ugly, has holes in it, dirty or bad in some other way..... but I was shocked at the huge amount of really nice stuff that goes through that place. One bag we opened had about 20-30 pair of designer jeans in it..... easily a couple of thousand dollars worth of jeans that looked like they had never been worn. In some ways, it was just baffling.
A quick look at "Stats Canada" states that... "In 2002, consumers spent $11.5 billion on women’s clothing and accessories and $6.1 billion on men’s clothing and accessories" (that was the most recent year that I could quickly find info for - I am sure it is higher now).
So a little math..... $17.6 Billion total on clothes and accessories.... divided by roughly 30 million people and you get..... $586.66 cents per person per year. Now, take out children, seniors and prisoners (all separate categories) - take out all clothing purchased in the States (out of country) - anything purchased online or second hand (these were just "retail sales" numbers) ... and that number is (in reality) probably 3 times as high or more.
Someone is spending a lot on clothes every year - especially when you consider how poorly I am doing at pulling my weight in this category - someone has to make up for my lack of spending.
But you don't need a bunch of Stats to prove that we buy more than we really need or use.... just come to the Clothing Exchange sometime.
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