Correlation between refrigerator magnets and "stuff."

[brad]

Interesting article in the NY Times today about a forthcoming book on American consumerism, which found, among other things, a direct correlation between the number of magnets on a family's fridge and the amount of stuff they have in their house.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/ga...ican-home.html

So, how many magnets are on your refrigerator? I went downstairs just now and counted 17. That seems like a lot; not sure the correlation holds well for us as our house is uncluttered and we're pretty religious about getting rid of things we don't use.

How many magnets are on your fridge, and do you think it correlates with the amount of stuff you have?

[Four Pillars]

Interesting article in the NY Times today about a forthcoming book on American consumerism, which found, among other things, a direct correlation between the number of magnets on a family's fridge and the amount of stuff they have in their house.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/ga...ican-home.html

So, how many magnets are on your refrigerator? I went downstairs just now and counted 17. That seems like a lot; not sure the correlation holds well for us as our house is uncluttered and we're pretty religious about getting rid of things we don't use.

How many magnets are on your fridge, and do you think it correlates with the amount of stuff you have?

It applies in our house - we have at probably 50-100 magnets and tons of junk in our house.

[HaroldCrump]

The exterior of our fridge got completely full with magnets (all 3 sides), so we started putting them inside the fridge.
Yeah, we had to throw out some food to make room, but so what.

I am only half kidding.

[Four Pillars]

The exterior of our fridge got completely full with magnets (all 3 sides), so we started putting them inside the fridge.
Yeah, we had to throw out some food to make room, but so what.

I am only half kidding.

Haha - let me guess. A lot of them are letters from the alphabet and numbers?

[MoneyGal]

Um. I have no magnets on my fridge. Also, when I got to this job, which has a metal cabinet for my coat, there were a bunch of magnets on it and I took them all off and threw them out.

[dogcom]

I never thought how important fridge magnets are in our lives. I hang my calender with them along with many other important reminders and papers I need on the go. I think fridge magnets come close to post its in our lives. Wasn't it George on Seinfeld who once claimed in one episode that he invented post its and now that I think of it the writers could have had him say fridge magnets as well.

[scomac]

22 on ours. With respect to 'stuff'; we moved into this house with about 3 pick-up truck loads of belongings. We did it in an afternoon with two helpers. I doubt we could get out of here now on anything short of a full tractor-trailor and a brigade of helpers.

Time to purge!

[HaroldCrump]

Haha - let me guess. A lot of them are letters from the alphabet and numbers?

Yep, sounds like you speak from experience ;o)

That aside, we are probably an exception to this theory, if it is even valid to begin with.
We have lots of fridge magnets, but we are not "drowning in stuff", as the author claims.
Sure, we can all make do with less.
But our stuff is neatly organized, everything has an assigned space, and most of the "stuff" gets used on a regular basis.

[Young&Ambitious]

Wow this is interesting, I got to say, this makes sense! I have less than 10 and they are used to hold papers and sushi menus woohoo.

Although I have to say, I have stuff... but in my defense it's only because I downsized to a city bachelor sized condo

[kcowan]

4 magnets and no stuff. We purge every year because we sublet our place when we go south.

(Our neighbour who went bankrupt 17 years ago, finally got evicted. They worked all day to get his stuff into boxes and put into storage. I think some of the stuff came from his former house and had never been touched while here. He is 83.)