So wow, this was one beast of a project. It seriously was much more work than I had originally thought. But hey, it all worked out. In the beginning I thought it was going to be pretty straight forward and no nonsense, but after meticulously cataloging every one of my items I knew I had my work cut out for me. After getting everything into the database and after starting to pull some lists together comparing my various items I noticed some interesting facts, trends, and other such things about my possessions.
One of the first, and most obvious things I noticed about my stuff is there is a lot of it. Like wow, I have a lot of stuff, way more than I thought I had. I know I didn't start my college career with this much stuff, it's strange how one just amasses stuff like this over time. I'd really hate to do this project again in a few years. The stuff I have the most of is generally pretty cheap. The top two things are business cards and printer paper. Both are paper products and are worth less than 5 cents a item, printer paper going for as low as 1 cent a sheet. The third and fifth items I own the most of are much more expensive. Why? Both of the items I collect and thus find more value in and actively hunt down and purchase. The items I tend to have the least of are consumables, generally foods, goes to show I don't have a lot of the same food and thus don't eat the same food time and time again.
When it comes to the materials my worldly possessions are made of I have far more items than I have materials that make them up. The top 5 materials that make up my items are, in order of most frequent to less: paper, plastic, vinyl, cotton, and metal (various metals that is). The total value of all my paper goods is about 7 times less than that of my plastic items, but I have 3 times the amount of paper goods than plastic goods. My plastic possessions come from an average of twice the distance from where I call home than any other material in my top 5. On average the materials that make up my items come from 3500 miles to less than 2000.
On the subject of distance, I never thought that some of my items come from so far away and come from so many different countries. Originally, before I started cataloging my items I never thought about where all my stuff came from. If someone had asked me how many different countries my items were manufactured in I would have told that person 7, maybe 8, different countries. I was quite surprised to learn that my items come from almost 30 different countries. The item that traveled the furthest to reach me is actually one of pairs of pants. That pair of pants traveled roughly 9800 miles to reach me. Most of my possessions come from over 2000 miles away. Pretty much all of my consumables are manufactured/canned/made within the USA, which means they come from no greater than 2000 miles away.
The items I categorized as sentimental I also listed as probably going to last me the longest time. The two longest lasting items are a steel pocket knife that's already been around for roughly 70 years, and the second is a cast iron fan that's probably been around for the same. Each of those are going to be around for at least another 100 years easily. Not just because they are made from sturdy materials, no, but also because I do have an emotional attachment to them which means I'll take even greater care of them than I would of my other possessions.
Just about one third of my items are going to end up in the trash, mostly the consumables, but also a number of the more intimate clothing items (my underwear!) because who would want to buy second-hand underwear. The cheaper items are generally the ones ending up in the old landfill. The paper items are mostly going to end up in the recycling bin. The more expensive items are going to end up on the auction block (to recoup some of the money spent on them in the first place). And lastly my sentimental items are getting given away, not in the sense like I'm going to give away my older clothing, but in the sense I'm going to pass them on to those I deem worthy to take care of items I hold near and dear.
Everything I own is worth something, especially to me, I mean heck, I do own them don't I? Anyway, my most precious and essential possession is my laptop, it tops the list on the perceived monetary value list. It's strange though how most of my essential items aren't even in the top 40. A number of my sentimental items are listed in my top 30. Why? Are my sentimental items really worth as much as I have the down for? Would someone actually pay that much for those items? Probably not, but I would probably pay that much to get them back if I had lost them in some strange turn of events. Generally I think that most people value their sentimental possessions more than their other possessions and tend to apply a greater monetary value to them because of that emotional attachment.
Lastly, when it comes down to how often I use certain items, there really aren't any trends that appear. Everything is all over the board. My top usage items run the gamut when it comes of what is going to happen to them when I'm done with them; some are going to end up being sold, some will end up in the trash, some are going to be given away, and a one is going to be archived. They mostly have a life expectancy of 3 years, with one lasting as long as 70 years. And these items come from a bunch of different countries. A few everyday items will last less than a year, and those would be things like toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant, etc. At the other end of the spectrum, the things I use the least still have no visible trends. They are seemingly as random as the items I use everyday.
I still don't know what to think of all this information that I've gathered. It's quite the helping of personal data to digest all at once. If this project didn't take as long to compile I would recommend that more people take a good hard look at what they own and get together some comparisons between their objects in the same fashion that I've done here.