There are some recent findings out that Americans have, well, just too much stuff — and that a huge number of garages in America can’t even fit cars because they are so filled with junk.

A team of researchers from the U.C.L.A. Center on the Everyday Lives of Families followed middle class American families for years to find out all kinds of data on the material goods we manage to accumulate.

The book is called “Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors,” and here to talk with us in today’s Mid-day Extra is Jeanne Arnold, professor of anthropology at UCLA and one of the authors.