Reuters had a “Top News Article” today on a British survey revealing that women spend a crapload of money on clothes they will never wear.
The home insurer Churchill found that, on average, women have 14 items of clothing in the back of their closets that they haven’t worn in the past year.
In the end, they will have spent more than $22,000 in a lifetime on clothes they will never wear.
They happened to very briefly mention that men on average had nine items of clothing in their closet they hadn’t worn.
While we could get deeper into this in terms of consumer culture and its effect on women, I think these dudes are trying to make a simple point here: We’re all obsessive shoppers that are shitty with money.
I would expand on this, but I have to run to the mall.
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Compared to the press release from which this 'article' was actually cribbed, it's positively balanced.
I spent five years writing articles on a particular set of topics. I read the news on this topic about 5 hours a day. One thing you learn pretty quickly is that a large % of the "news" is actually derived from press releases. The press releases serve the interests of the folks who write them: they are attempts to get free press for the company. In this case, it's Churchill, a home insurance company in the UK with a cute 'nodding dog' for a mascot.
For them, and the marketers, manufacturers, and others interested, the survey wasn't meaningless. Women waste money at nearly twice the rate men -- in THE U.K -- since it was a survey only of UK residents.
As for "all" of us being obsessive shoppers, you happen to have the disposable income to be so. So, I doubt that all of us are obsessive shoppers. :)
just because they do not wear it does not mean it is wasted money. many women enjoy shopping for its own sake. it requires no justification.
I think the study may have quite a few flaws. I have several items in the closet that I have not worn in the past year. However this does nto mean that I have never worn those items. In fact, many of the items I have worn the hell out of before buying new things. I hang on to clothes for a while before deciding that I will never wear an item again, and then I donate my old clothes to a local women's shelter. Now, would you say that I have been out wasting money?
I hate shopping. I am down to about two outfits and I like to pretend no one notices.
I bought a hammer two years ago and still haven't used it. What a waste of money that was!