Dumb question of the day?

[Ausmumof3]

How do you decide when to throw something in the bin for good?  
 

flyladys thing is if it has stains and holes out it goes but realistically we live on a farm and we’re kind of hard and clothes and there’s no unlimited budget going on here.  So mostly I mend or we wear stuff that’s kind of tatty... but even so at some point it’s had it’s life and has to go!  Help me stay environmentally friendly and financially viable without turning into a hoarders episode!  I have no idea why this is even hard.

[marbel]

I have no problem keeping old ratty clothing for working around the house/yard/farm (if I had a farm).  Now if something was impractical to work in, and was stained or had a tear that couldn't be mended... say a dress or something... I would salvage any bits that were useful (buttons, etc., or even a good piece of fabric to be used for something else) and toss the rest without guilt.

 

[Carrie12345]

I have a kid who works in farm fields and two kids who play in the woods.  I definitely get overrun by “outside” clothes every so often. I try to stick to a particular quantity per, uh... “ratty category” for the younger ones. (Adult child is on her own.). So, maybe a few pairs of pants that are forbidden from being worn off of our property, a few more that I’m not really going to care if I have to go run errands and they look like they’ve been playing hard, and then some that are not for rolling around in the dirt.  Then everything gets demoted as it experiences more wear.  For us, anything more than 2 or 3 in the “don’t you dare step off that driveway in that” gets chucked.  For daily farm work, specific numbers may vary.

[fairfarmhand]

I get it, we farm too.

But there comes a point when you can only wear so many ratty clothes. Like I have no need for 14 ratty tshirts. 

So I figure out my laundry cycle and go with the number I'll need for between washes. My number is 5-7. After I have that many, the rest go into rags or something. I can't store an infinite number of work clothes. 

[TracyP]

I go by the 33 item per person rule. (This was not my idea but I can't remember where I got it from.) I don't count socks, undies, or footwear. I do count jackets. I figure what they need for "good clothes" and let the rest be filled with home/farm clothes. My kids decide what to keep when their closets are getting overrun - sometimes the worst looking is also the favorite, oh well. The rest of the ripped/stained clothes get thrown out. I never feel good about tossing stuff, but I don't have any good options at a certain point.

[Ottakee]

I would figure out how many play/farm/work clothes you need and then keep the best/favorites up to that number.  Don't feel bad about tossing the rest.  Some thrift stores even sell really worn clothing for rags and recycling.....so it might not hurt to ask your local ones.  Things that are harder to replace like work jackets, clothing one size up for kids, etc. maybe put in a rubbermaid tote in storage.

[Katy]

I'd start with your nicer items and categorize, thinking about how many things you really need in each category and for each season.

1) You need a few things you may wear rarely but really need them when you do...  wedding, party and funeral clothing.  I need 3 outfits like this.  6 when we went to church weekly. 

2) Daily casual nicer items.  I try to keep about 10 outfits, the sort of thing I like to wear daily.  I look nice but I don't fret when a kid grabs my dress and smears ketchup or mud all over it.  I wear more jersey dresses now, but growing up at my dad's farm I usually wore jeans and things that was easier to throw in the laundry without worrying about stains.  If it's so stained you'd be embarrassed to be seen in town with it on, move it to category 4.

3) Athletic gear.  Stuff I wear specifically for exercise and lounge.  I probably have 10 outfits now, but before I had kids (when I always had time to do laundry), I kept 3-5.

4) Painting / Yard work / Dirty gear.  I try not to keep more than 2 of these outfits now, but when I was on a farm it was 3-4 because several times a week I knew I would be doing a dirty job. This is where the stained stuff un-apologetically goes.  When you figure out how many of these you need, keep that many outfits of the ones you like best, and toss the rest.

If you do dirty stuff MOST days feel free to keep only 2-3 town outfits and 10 days of dirty gear.  What's important is that you have a wardrobe appropriate for your life, not that you meat an artificial standard created by a suburban mom with depression who struggled to get off her butt to do the bare minimum to keep her house clean. I'm not judging FlyLady here, I've been there and I like her.  It's just that standards of motivation are a bit different when you have to get outside to feed animals every morning and night.  Things are just more severe than whether your kitchen is clean or mold is growing on the stack of dirty dishes in your sink when lots of lives are depending on you.

Edited July 2, 2020 by Katy

[prairiewindmomma]

I also limit by quantity. I have a couple of nice outfits, about a week’s worth of casual, and a few “work” outfits—for gardening, painting, etc. 

A lot of my casual t-shirts become work shirts when they are stained. Since my work shirts really take a beating and get holes on the regular, I feel okay about that. 
 

I could wear an apron or Carharts on the regular for certain tasks but I don’t and I am ok with that.