A girl at work (27 yrs old I think) recently had her mom's house burn down and she told me she had $20k of shoes she lost. Not even including heels or her kid's shoes, but her Jordans and other shoes that are often $160 a pair. She's been collecting them since high school.
She's making $11-$12 an hour right now, and made like $18 an hour in the past. So $20k is not a small chunk by any means.
They did have insurance on the house but not enough to cover everything after the house itself.
I'm glad I don't really have anything to lose if my house/apartment burns down (other than pets of course). The two most expensive things would be my bike, then my mattress.
I babysit occasionally for friends of mine with 4 kids. I know they buy lots of junk food, toys, and of course, have the expenses of 4 kids. They laugh about the expense of groceries and how it matches their mortgage payments.... she works a government job in accounting or something related and he is a school teacher.
He has (at last count) 3 utility shelves (the metal/garage style ones) filled FULL (think, stacked from shelf to the bottom of the next shelf) of Jordans and fancy Nike shoes. The top of their wall length closet is also packed from shelf to ceiling with such shoes. They are still in the boxes, he rotates wearing them, and if it rains, he has a back up pair of "crappy" (aka, normal) shoes to wear instead, and carries his Jordans in his backpack.
He likely has over 300 pairs of these things. And he is over 6 foot, so I'm sure his size is unusual and potentially more expensive (I wouldn't know...I've never bought Jordans).
If that were all, I'd be like "whatever, thats his thing". NOPE. He also has almost a full basement (2 small rooms are kids rooms, that main living space and extra room in the basement are his) FULL of cardinal baseball stuff.
Collectibles, signed stuff, autographed balls, etc. FULL, as in, no wall space, most of the floor space taken up with the displays....shelves everywhere full.
The amount of money spent on his "collections" makes me wince...particularly since I get their mail for them too, and I know they still owe on student loans, and they are in their early/mid 30s.