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ym. at wsj.com. That's ym.

1:11

at wsj.com. Now on to the

1:13

show. show. Here's

1:17

your money briefing for

1:19

Friday, April 11th. I'm

1:21

Mariana Asperu for the Wall

1:23

Street Journal. If you're in spring

1:26

cleaning mode, you might be wondering,

1:28

how in the world did I

1:30

get all this stuff? W.S.J.

1:32

reporter Dauvin Brown found that

1:35

it's not just you. Americans

1:37

are drowning in their own

1:39

stuff. I did to buy things because

1:41

I forgot I bought it already, but

1:44

we're not just accumulating. Like that's what's

1:46

really interesting to me. We're duplicating. We're

1:48

buying more of what we already have.

1:50

We'll hear more from Dalvin about why

1:53

it's costing you more than you think.

1:55

Stick around after the break. I'll

1:57

in video. Spring

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through Fort's who selection varies by

2:40

location while supplies last. Americans

2:45

buy a crazy amount of cheap

2:47

stuff, but it's costing us. Wall

2:49

Street Journal reporter Dalvin Brown joins

2:51

me. Dalvin, let's start off. How

2:53

big of an issue is our

2:56

clutter problem? It has reached crisis

2:58

proportions, and I mean that. I

3:00

found that it's not just about

3:02

a cluttered closet anymore or a

3:04

cluttered drawer. It's about entire rooms

3:06

being dedicated to storage. About 21%

3:08

of people use over 500 square

3:10

feet for storage, which is like

3:13

the size of a two-car garage.

3:15

And as one professional organizer told

3:17

me, we're battling a tsunami of

3:19

stuff, and the stuff is winning.

3:21

From your story, which listeners can

3:23

find in our show notes, I

3:25

gather that people are buying more...

3:27

moving more and losing more of

3:29

their own stuff. Walk me through

3:32

how that's all happening. Yeah, so

3:34

it is a perfect storm created

3:36

by ease of acquisition, so how

3:38

easy it is to buy things,

3:40

and then the difficulty of disposal.

3:42

Online shopping and social media have

3:44

made buying things really frictionless, so

3:46

if you taps on your phone,

3:49

something arrives at your door. A

3:51

lot of people don't even remember

3:53

what they ordered, and then it

3:55

just shows up at their door.

3:57

rid of those things requires physical

3:59

and emotional labor. And that's really

4:01

taxing. So what's fascinating is how

4:03

this cycle sort of feeds itself.

4:06

People buy things, then they run

4:08

out of space. So then they

4:10

buy more organizational things to manage

4:12

the things. And as one of

4:14

my sources told me, I am

4:16

buying things just to manage my

4:18

things. U-Haul even had to increase

4:20

the size of its largest trucks

4:23

by 60% over the past 10

4:25

years. I was shocked when the

4:27

company told me that. And it's

4:29

basically to accommodate Americans growing volume

4:31

of possessions. And one of the

4:33

things you mentioned in your story

4:35

that honestly made me laugh a

4:37

little bit is how many people

4:40

buy more things because they just

4:42

forget that they already have this

4:44

one thing and they can't find

4:46

it? Yes, exactly. So 71% of

4:48

Americans in a recent survey. That's

4:50

the bulk of us. Yeah. Buy

4:52

things that we already own because

4:54

we can't find the other thing

4:57

because we've hidden it somewhere in

4:59

our homes from ourselves. I, like

5:01

you Richard, I tend to. buy

5:03

things because I forgot I bought

5:05

it already, but we're not just

5:07

accumulating. Like that's what's really interesting

5:09

to me. We're duplicating. We're buying

5:11

more of what we already have.

5:14

There's so much interesting data that

5:16

you bring up in your story.

5:18

What was the most striking number

5:20

about Americans' habits that you found?

5:22

In 2024, Americans bought 5.7 times

5:24

more flat wearing dishes compared to

5:26

1994. So three decades ago, people

5:28

had... a lot less stuff just

5:31

in their kitchen. And that's not

5:33

a small increase. That's nearly six

5:35

times what previous generations purchased. We're

5:37

also buying 3.5 times more furniture,

5:39

2.5 times more clothing and footwear

5:41

compared to 30 years ago. And

5:43

it's not like I'm having 5.7

5:45

times more people over my house

5:48

that I need all these dishes

5:50

for, or all this furniture for?

5:52

Exactly, and we don't have five

5:54

or six times more space in

5:56

our homes to put things. So

5:58

we're fitting multiples more possessions into

6:00

roughly the same square footage, and

6:02

it's no wonder... that another number

6:05

that came up for me was

6:07

that downsizing a home now takes

6:09

about 40 hours, which is double

6:11

what it took a decade ago.

6:13

And this all makes so much

6:15

sense. But Dauvin, we now have

6:17

constant access to low-cost products from

6:19

places like Timu and Sheehan. Is

6:21

it just that we can't help

6:24

ourselves when we see something that's

6:26

just that cheap? I also spoke

6:28

to some psychologists who did say

6:30

that when prices fall below a

6:32

certain threshold, it impacts our decision-making

6:34

processes fundamentally. One source in my

6:36

story said, you see something cool,

6:38

then it costs $6 and you

6:41

think, why not? The mental calculation

6:43

shifts from, do I need this,

6:45

to why wouldn't I get this?

6:47

And then you end up with

6:49

more stuff in your home than

6:51

you probably need. We're talking a

6:53

lot about tariffs now. How might

6:55

these heavy import taxes on foreign

6:58

goods by the Trump administration impact

7:00

this clutter we're talking about in

7:02

our own lives? While the clutter

7:04

issue has been a thing for

7:06

years now. One of the things

7:08

that pushes this conversation forward is

7:10

the fact that the Treasury Secretary

7:12

recently stated that access to low-cost

7:15

goods is not the essence of

7:17

the American dream. And that signals

7:19

a policy shift away from prioritizing

7:21

cheap imports. If tariffs significantly increase

7:23

prices, they might also slow the

7:25

influx of inexpensive goods. So if

7:27

tariffs make the things more expensive,

7:29

then people might not buy as

7:32

much. However, tariffs do not address

7:34

the mountains of stuff that we

7:36

already have. So that legacy will

7:38

remain. We'll be dealing with the

7:40

consequences of that for years. Things

7:42

may become more expensive to get,

7:44

but some of the economists I

7:46

talked to said that like people

7:49

just may change the way that

7:51

they do consume or where they're

7:53

getting their goods from. Let's say

7:55

someone wants to declutter. They're listening

7:57

and... taking this as like you

7:59

know their sign, what are some

8:01

cost effective ways of getting rid

8:03

of some items you might not

8:06

need? In my story I start

8:08

with estate sales because in some

8:10

way like that is the best

8:12

way to get rid of a

8:14

lot of stuff in one fell

8:16

swoop and you hire someone they

8:18

take 35 to 50% of the

8:20

proceeds and they let strangers just

8:23

come in and buy your stuff

8:25

within a couple of days or

8:27

they listed online. The Facebook marketplace

8:29

and offer ups of the world

8:31

let you directly handle it and

8:33

sell it to other people. The

8:35

most important advice from professionals. is

8:37

to try to prevent the accumulation

8:40

in the first place. Yeah, trying

8:42

to turn off the tap rather

8:44

than like buckets of scooping water

8:46

out. Yeah, I mean, I have

8:48

this rule that whatever comes in

8:50

my house, I forget it sometimes.

8:52

I'm like, oh, one item in,

8:54

one item out. I should probably

8:56

do one item in, two items

8:59

out. But you know, I think

9:01

like that sort of that mechanism

9:03

works for me. That's W.S. Chair

9:05

Porter, Porter, Delven Brown, and that's

9:07

it for your money briefing. What's

9:09

News and Markets? And then on

9:11

Sunday, catch the last episode of

9:13

our three-part series, Buying a Home

9:16

in 2025, Navigating The Crunch. This

9:18

episode was produced by me. I'm

9:20

your host, Ariana Aspuru. Jessica Fenton

9:22

and Michael Laval wrote our theme

9:24

music. Our supervising producer is Melanie

9:26

Roy. Aisha Amuslim is our development

9:28

producer. Scott Salaway and Chris Sinzley

9:30

are our deputy editors. And Philana

9:33

Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's

9:35

head of news audio. Thanks for

9:37

listening!