A woman Spends 399 Hours a Year Shopping ...Do You Buy That?

 A poll of 2,000 female shopper-gatherers by market research firm 'OnePoll.com' reveals the average gal spends 399 hours and 46 minutes on 301 shopping trips a year. That adds up to 8 1/2 years of shopping over 63 years -- or 3,148 days (25,184 hours) of retail therapy over one's lifetime.

Cliche alert!

Before we cue the survey highlight reel and accuse our sisters of rampant shopaholism, consider two important points:

1.Households don't automatically restock themselves when they're out of milk, toothpaste, and proper gym shoes. Women tend to do the bulk of the shopping for the entire family. In other words, those aren't warm-up laps at the strip mall. They're a chore.

2.It's not like gents spend their spare time toiling to find a cure for cancer. Or cleaning out the garage. One study in Britain found that over a lifetime, the average man spends 10,585 hours parked on a bar stool in a pub. Another 11 years is consumed by watching the telly, and one entire month gets frittered away looking for socks.

With that, let's dig deeper into the results of the study:

Food: Squeezing fruit and corralling unruly kids during 84 annual trips to the grocery stores eats up a total of 94 hours and 55 minutes a year.

Clothing: Finding the perfect pair of jeans takes time -- 100 hours and 48 minutes over the course of 30 trips to store dressing rooms, to be exact.

Shoes: Given our supposed obsession with footwear, 15 yearly excursions (and 40 hours and 30 minutes spent admiring ourselves from the ankle down) hardly seems excessive.

Books: Who doesn't like to spend 31 hours and 21 minutes a year in a quiet place, flipping through the New York Times best sellers? Or the latest People?

Toiletries: It takes 17 hours and 33 minutes annually to gather what everyone needs to shower, shave, brush, pluck, exfoliate, deodorize and moisturize. And, yes, it probably does take 27 trips to the drugstore to figure out the four aisles of toothpaste options.

Window-shopping: The chase is indeed more fun than the catch. Learning the art of retail recon -- keeping cards and cash in our wallets -- takes 49 hours a year to master.

Gifts: Proving that shopping is often a selfless act, 19 of women's 301 annual shopping trips are spent buying stuff for friends and family....Birthdays, Christmas,weddings, Christenings, showers and many more occaisions.

So what do you think sister-friends? Have you ever kept track of how much time you spend in retail therapy? And how do you save time -- and money -- when you're forced to hunt and gather for your family?  Because we know a lot of those hours are spent looking for the best bargain, the best sales, to save money and spend sparingly and wisely.