Tossing all the men's socks and starting over?

[Janeway]

I am so frustrated with years worth of socks that have backed up because they have been bought over a course of many years, and many seem slightly different. So I can spend hours sorting and matching and still have an entire small basket of left over socks. This is specific to the white athletic type socks, long and short. For winter, we mostly just wear colored socks, like Happy Socks and Cozy socks and Smart Wool and Darn Tough, etc.

Would I be massively overreacting if I threw away all these white socks, even the ones currently matched up and replaced them with a bunch of exactly the same socks? I am not talking the colored winter socks, I am just talking the white athletic socks. 

(breath holding)

edited: I decided to just separate the long white athletic socks from the short ones and the adult men can find their own socks. Thanks!

Edited July 18 by Janeway

[Ethel Mertz]

Go for it unless the wearer-of-the-socks will take on the task of matching up the socks.

[cjzimmer1]

My crew just wears two reasonably matching socks.  We don't worry if they are exactly the same.  

[Terabith]

When my kids were in early elementary school, I decided to get out of the sock sorting business.  I started dumping all kid socks in one bin (my kids are 17 months apart, so they were close enough in size to wear the same size socks) and adult socks in another.  If it's MY socks and I care about them matching, which I do for a few pairs, then I sort them myself when I do laundry.  But I refuse to sort socks for other people.  I think dumping them all and starting fresh is a completely defensible position.

[Terabith]

Gooney Bird Greene says matching socks gave her ennui, which I used on my kids as to why I was no longer sorting socks.

[Arcadia]

Our white crew socks are all in one bin since my husband and teens wear the same size. So they can match the socks themselves. 
For the ones you already match up, do you have a kid staying in dorm this fall? My teens are in college dorms this fall so they are taking the “unwanted” socks with them to college.

[Rosie_0801]

Make a quilt out of them and start over.

[marbel]

So what I do with my husband's socks when I finish the laundry is... toss them onto his side of the bed. He can match them whenever he wants to: before putting them in the drawer, before putting them on, or even never for that matter.  I have no idea what goes on in his sock drawer, nor do I care.

You should do whatever is easiest for you, including getting rid of everything and starting over.  Just remember that you won't be able to buy the exact same sock style forever, most likely. Manufacturers change things, even things as basic as athletic socks. 

[Katy]

I toss all of DH's every 5 years or so.  He has very specific ones he likes, and when I find them the old ones go.

I toss kid socks every time they start to outgrow them.  I usually like the big packs from Target or Walmart for them, and try to make sure that no one has the same style and size as anyone else. Their bin or sock drawer all matches except for special socks.

I MIGHT leave special wool, fuzzy, or holiday socks IF I can easily find the match.

[Ausmumof3]

There with you! Pretty sure I have odd socks that don’t fit anyone in my house anymore 😂 and as soon as I throw them away someone cleans up their bedroom and unearths the match from a long forgotten toy box 😏

The worst was when someone gave my dd a fun pair of deliberately mismatched socks only she didn’t tell me, just put them in the wash. They sat in my sorting basket for six months before she noticed and was like- these go together!

[prairiewindmomma]

I’ve largely gotten out of the business of doing laundry. People have their own large lingerie/sweater bags they put their socks in for laundry, and so everything is together when laundry is done. They match their own.

But, yes, about once a year I toss all of the cheap cotton socks and begin again. Everything has worn spots or is holey at that point. I will darn wool socks, but not the rest.

[Spryte]

I have tossed all the black socks and started over with a stash of matching socks. So liberating!

We loved it so much, we gave a new suitcase full of matching socks to someone as a gift — someone we knew had years of almost matching socks. They loved it so much that their spouse tossed the almost matches he had and bought all new.

Go for it!

 

[HomeAgain]

Toss the basket socks every two years.  You'll thank yourself for it.

Each person in our house has a brand of socks they wear.  DS14 is particular and wears one brand of black/white socks. 10 pairs of each.  DH has 10 tall, 10 short of a different brand (and a few dress socks kept with his dress shoes.)  I have another brand of white tall/multicolor short.

When we buy new socks, we toss the same number of old ones PLUS all the unmatched.  I figure if after two years they haven't found matches, I'm not going to make them magically reappear.

[Clarita]

I don't match socks. Everyone's has to just grab their own socks, in terms of matching everyone is on their own. Then in our household everyone just puts all their socks in a pile and search through that for good enough matches. The adults just have the same socks that all match each other.

I don't know how people can keep socks  together long enough to donate them. Socks just get tossed or used for some other purpose. 

[ikslo]

My rule is: socks don’t go in the washing machine unless they are a pair. Then they get matched out of the dryer. If I’m missing one then, I know where it is (somewhere between the washer and dryer). If there is no match prior to wash or out of the dryer, it goes on top of respective machine for a cycle or two and then tossed. No matter to me. I never have a a basket of socks and rarely need to toss.

My mom always had a basket of unmatched socks. Drove me crazy. I did the “in the wash as a pair” as soon as I moved out, and it has served me well.

[katilac]

2 hours ago, ikslo said:

My rule is: socks don’t go in the washing machine unless they are a pair. Then they get matched out of the dryer. If I’m missing one then, I know where it is (somewhere between the washer and dryer). If there is no match prior to wash or out of the dryer, it goes on top of respective machine for a cycle or two and then tossed. No matter to me. I never have a a basket of socks and rarely need to toss.

My mom always had a basket of unmatched socks. Drove me crazy. I did the “in the wash as a pair” as soon as I moved out, and it has served me well.

But, but, how do you know they're all paired up? Do you actually check as you're chucking them in the washer? 

Presumably everyone intends to throw both socks in the hamper, but socks still go missing. 

[Innisfree]

5 hours ago, ikslo said:

 

My rule is: socks don’t go in the washing machine unless they are a pair.

 

 

2 hours ago, katilac said:

But, but, how do you know they're all paired up?

I do the same as @ikslo. Socks are removed from feet and immediately the cuff of one is folded over both, before they’re thrown into the hamper. I separate them again as I put them into the wash. Then I pair them up again while folding clothes from the dryer.

The kids have done their own laundry for years, though, so I’m not fooling with it, just with dh’s and mine. He was the one who showed me the cuff trick. We don’t typically have socks go missing anymore.

[regentrude]

We don't have socks go missing, but DH has a variety of different black socks. I don't pair them; they all go into one box. He looks for two that are a pair when he needs them. Easy.

[TechWife]

Both my dh and I have several pairs of the same athletic socks (we do wear different types & sizes) & have for years. He likes his matched in pairs, so I make a stack of them as I’m folding clothes and then pair them up. I just put my stack in my drawer. 

[Tenaj]

Currently I have only four men in my house (down from a high of 7).  I try to always by different brands of underwear and socks for each.  I throw away any with holes as I'm folding laundry and always have a basket of unmatched so I can usually fill in with undamaged socks as I go.  I try to rotate and remember to replace.  My youngest son ended up with some ankle length socks that have lasted forever - to the point that there are no holes but they are stiff?  Really weird.  Just replaced those yesterday - told him everyone deserves new socks every few years 🤣

[ikslo]

5 hours ago, katilac said:

But, but, how do you know they're all paired up? Do you actually check as you're chucking them in the washer? 

Presumably everyone intends to throw both socks in the hamper, but socks still go missing. 

Yes, I put socks in two at a time, matched up. The extra seconds it takes is way less effort than matching a basket full of socks imo.

[Heartstrings]

I toss the old socks every time I buy new socks.   Everyone gets 1 different kind of regular sock.   That way I sort socks by person and they are automatically “matched”.  My husband has black socks with grey, one son has black socks with color writing, the other has plain black socks.   Of course my husband has dress socks too, but he’s the only one so it’s not an issue. I buy 2 packs for each person every 6 months or so and toss or donate the old ones before handing out the new obes.  I  tried to save the old ones for rags but they just got mixed back in so now I toss them.
 

 I’m not wasting my life’s energy on socks.  I haven’t had a missing sock box ever in my adult life.  

Edited July 18 by Heartstrings