I had no idea.

Yesterday I listened to a webinar that presented the following information: the average person in the US buys 66 items of clothing a year. Which seemed really high? To me?

So first I tracked down where this information came from, and I found it repeated in a 2018 article in The Atlantic (We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things).

"Americans spent, on average, $971.87 on clothes last year, buying nearly 66 garments, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. That’s 20 percent more money than they spent in 2000. The average American bought 7.4 pairs of shoes last year, up from 6.6 pairs in 2000."

(No information was offered on how the American Apparel and Footwear Association assessed this information, and I was more curious about my own purchasing history than researching data tracking methods.)

And THEN I did a not-very-careful review of stuff I've bought since the start of the year, and came up with the following number: 21. (Well, 22, but the article separated footwear, and I bought a pair of sandals, so 21.)

9: items in the underwear category -- some of which I'd forgotten were from this year, but only in the sense that I don't think about underwear that much? also March seems like another era already.

3: tops -- two long-sleeved mid-layers and one t-shirt from the July hiking trip

8: shorts & capris -- work-from-home was a weird shift in what I wore every day in the summer??? I own multiple pairs of shorts now???

1: hat -- and an excellent hat it is, too!

Which is more than I expected! Wow!