Here’s How Much A Woman’s Period Will Cost Her Over A Lifetime

We all have a love/hate relationship with periods. We know they are necessary and we don’t mind being assured we aren’t pregnant once a month, but at the same time they make that time of the month hell for us. Not only do we go through pain, bloating and breakouts once a month, we also pay quite a big price for it, literally.

Between tampons, pads, pain relievers, birth control and chocolate (all pretty essential for women), the costs associated with this time of the month add up. Taking into account that there are different prices for everything that we need and, unless you are a super hippie who lets everything… well, flow, it is a cost that only half the population has to deal with.

The average woman has her period from age 13-51 and it usually lasts anywhere from three to seven days. That means a total of 456 periods over 38 years (some get their period a lot younger and keep menstruating for longer!), or 2,280 days – that’s 6.25 days of her life (sigh). Here is how much women spend on their period in their life (on average, those lucky ones who are fertile for longer than 38 years can do the math themselves).

Pain reliever

You can take up to six caplets a day, and girls usually have cramps for about two days on average. There are 40 caplets per package, which costs $8.99.

12 caplets and 456 periods = 5,472 caplets. That’s $1,229.82 just for relieving pain that we didn’t ask for.

Tampons

Tampons aren’t the only option, but 70 per cent of women use them. You are instructed to change tampons every 4-8 hours, so say 6 hours on average. A box containing 36 tampons cost around $7.

4 tampons a day for 5 days= 20 tampons a month and 9,120 tampons in 38 years. That’s $1,773.33.

Panty liners

Some women only use pads and some combine them with tampons. Let’s say women use an average of five liners per period and a box containing 36 panty liners is around $7.

That’s a total of $443.33 in your lifetime.

New underwear due to stains

It happens to everyone, and it’s impossible to clean. Women own an average of 34 pairs of underwear and let’s assume each woman bleeds through one pair per period. Cheap underwear is about $5, so after 456 periods you’ll be $2,280 short.

Chocolate or sugary treats

This one is essential (at least to most of us but some might be able to resist). To round up, let’s say women buy one chocolate bar around the time of her period. At around $2 per bar, it’ll add up to $912.

Acne medication for breakout

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Not everyone needs this, but most of us have probably bought some kind of spot treatment. They last pretty long though, so it’s not something that needs to be bought every month. Let’s say a tube of spot treatment lasts around 3 years (if only used that time of the month)- that’s 12.6 tubes and they cost around $7.49. That’s around $94.87 on breakouts all together.

Birth control

Studies show that about 80 per cent of women use oral contraception at some time in their lives. Depending on where you live, they cost anything from nothing to $50 a month. If we say it is an average of $25 a month on birth control, it’ll be $11,400 in your life.

Heating pads

They cost around $20 and assuming everyone uses on average two in their lives, it’ll add up to $40.

That’s a total of $18,171 spent in our lifetime that didn’t bring much joy (except the chocolate, chocolate always brings joy) and a lot of money that half the population is free of paying due to genetics and biological functions that we have no control of. Well, here’s to being a woman, now let’s go protest about tampon prices.

H/T: Huffington post