Scarcity Brain: Fix Your Craving Mindset and Rewire Your Habits to Thrive with Enough

by Michael Easter

The machines make more than $30 billion each year in the United States alone, or about $100 per American per year. It’s more than we spend on movies, books, and music combined. And the figure rises about 10 percent every year.

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If we were to open our closets to Martha Jefferson today, she’d be shocked. The average American purchases 37 items of clothing each year. One study found we now own 107 items of clothing. That study also detailed how we feel about those 107 items. It discovered that we consider 21 percent of those clothes unwearable. We think 57 percent of the items aren’t great—either too tight or too loose. Then we have an average of 12 percent we’ve never worn. And that leaves us with a Martha Jefferson–esque 10 percent—11 items—that we regularly wear. The EPA says we throw away about sixty-eight pounds of clothing and textiles per person per year.

There are now more self-storage facilities in the United States than McDonald’s, Burger Kings, Starbucks, and Walmarts—combined.

Even if we don’t pray regularly, we do in the foxhole.