What's the most expensive thing you've ever spent money on? Your wardrobe? A car? A holiday? A house?
What would you say if you learned that over your lifetime, you will spend roughly £18,450 on something that is none of these things.
Think it might be a cost you can thriftily avoid? Unfortunately, it's not. Because what you'll be spending it on, comes round every month – for roughly 37 years. Yes, that's right: your period.
A recent VoucherCodesPro survey of over 2,000 women revealed that women spend a whooping £18,450 on menstruation over their lives. Making up that amount includes tampons and sanitary items, which come in at roughly £13 a month, and which almost all women surveyed said they use.
Making up the rest, is the other oft-needed period paraphernalia, such as new underwear, painkillers and chocolate. Indeed, nine out of ten women polled revealed they bought painkillers during that time of the month.
In all, the average yearly spend on menstruation came in at £492. Which is, yes, more than a flight to New York. But why so expensive?
Well, one of the reasons is because sanitary products are subject to a 5% tax, and that's down to the fact they are classified as 'non-essential', 'luxury' items.
A petition with over 244,000 signatures has been signed, however, calling on the Government to not only scrap that fairly ludicrous tax, but to make sanitary items cheaper too; all the women who took part in the survey said menstruation products were too expensive.
If successful, women around the nation could save as much as £114 annually, according to analysis by Ampp3d as reported by The Mirror.