A list of average possessions needed by the average person?

[ForestLilac]

I’d love to see something like this but can’t find anything through Google. I can find stuff from minimalist websites but that’s not really what I’m after.

I want a list eg the average person owns three pairs of trousers, five saucepans, seventy books, stuff like that. Nothing specific like all your horsey gear or scuba diving equipment, just average stuff the average person owns.

Any ideas where I can find this?

Not sure it will exist because it's too variable.

Eg I only have 2 pairs jeans but I own 3 denim skirts.

Who is the average person? I think I'm perfectly average and own lots of vinyl records and a cat. I own no foundation or candles. Does that mean people with candles are not average? Or those with streamed music aren't?

I don't think it exists.

I think there is no real point to finding an average. Why do you feel the need to compare yourself to this fictional number?
it’s like the mythical average energy use. Meaningless. I just googled. Apparently £38000 worth.

Interesting idea but how would anyone collect this list? Retail sales maybe?

But if you’re a ‘normal’ person eg you’re not a professional chef or professional sportsman, surely there will be an average range?

But what the average person HAS is different from what they NEED.
And anyone can work this out for themselves, making a few assumptions along the way (e.g. how often you use the washing machine, what different environments you're in requiring special clothes).

Perhaps if you explain why you ask we could be more specific and helpful. e.g. your brother's house has burned down!

Sorry that was for @gogohmm

But your average number of records would be offset by mine (1) and an average might be 10?

Do you think you have too much stuff or do you want to justify what you have got

What for?

Do you mean you want to know what the 'average person' actually owns or what they actually need to ie kit out a home? Two different

That information will not exist, how could it? How could it be collated? And what would it mean anyway? Nothing

For that information to be available, it would need to have been collected.

I've never been asked how many of each item I have in my home, and I'm guessing there isn't a centralised list of this stuff.

You might find information on various types of possessions available from various studies or organisations, e.g. a kitchen appliances manufacturer might have stats on how many pots and pans people tend to own from a survey they've done, a fashion student might have carried out research on capsule wardrobe essentials, etc.

But there's unlikely to be a centralised database for this unless someone had a reason to fund it and make it public.

This is a great example, exactly what I mean, however I got just over £2000 for the UK. Not sure where you got such a high number from?

What the average person needs in the UK will be vastly different to what the average person needs in Alaska or an Amazonian village.

I'm not sure that you'd get any meaningful insights from it - but it would be interesting to compare countries.

I don't think being a chef or a sportsman will necessarily impact how many pairs of trousers you have. I think that's the problem with the numbers, they'll be too wide ranging, there is average person.

You could conduct a Mumsnet survey for specific questions like trousers or pans and see what the response is. I think it will be very varied even in this quite samey community.

idk, this is interesting as DS is setting up home from scratch and is focussed on only having the essentials. Looking around my kitchen there is so much non essential that almost everyone has sideyes the bread bin and containers that the tea and coffee have come out of their own ones for but isn’t needed really.

What’s not “normal” about being, for example, a chef though? That is a totally normal job (and so are lots of other things that have nothing to do with cheffing whatsoever).

It kind of sounds like you have a really narrow view of normality and a poor grasp of how much variation there is among people

It's a weird, unanswerable question. For a start, do you mean the average first-world person, or are you including the entire world population? Or the UK?

What’s not “normal” about being, for example, a chef though?

I can answer that! The number and quality of knives and knife sharpening requirement required in the home. Totally not normal 😁

There definitely is an element of truth in this, but I’d like to see what the UK average is. Where am I compared to ‘average’? I’m not a sportswoman so I don’t own lots of trainers or swimsuits or towels. I’m not a chef so I don’t own 25 knives and lots of niche cooking things. I’m not a DJ so I don’t have lots of records or mixing decks (or whatever they have lots of). But how many books or coats or boots or earrings do these people have?

But these people with a lot of something specific related to their hobby or job will be offset by me and other people who don’t share their hobby or job. I have lots of books about a specific subject. I imagine you don’t, instead you may have lots of something else instead. Add thousands of people to our lists and you’ll get an average, no?

You're probably best off just conducting your own survey of the specific items you want to know about on MN (or elsewhere), OP.

It’s not normal in the sense that most people aren’t chefs and don’t own niche or excessive amounts of cooking stuff. If I was a chef I imagine I’d have a vast array of niche foodstuffs or baking trays of different sizes or cookbooks or whatever, most people aren’t nurses (and therefore don’t own multiple nurse uniforms and nursing books) etc.

The average person in the UK has fewer than 2 eyes.

So counting how many pairs of crap catchers they own will be harder than 5 day old skids and about as pointless.