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What do you do with your socks that are missing their mates?


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"Clean Socks Only"

 

I love that basket. I keep the spares because my kids are always wearing holes in socks. When I throw a holey one into the trash, I usually have a spare to replace it. That way pairs of socks last longer (if you follow my odd logic, ha!).

 

Anyway, the basket isn't really in the way.

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I leave them in the bottom of the laundry basket. There are some socks that the mate has NEVER turned up. I think my washer has a sock monster living in it.

 

OK...we are getting ready to move. I am thinking about sending all my mismates to my cousin in AZ. It is a family joke on my mom...when we were little we stopped at Grandma's on our way to the airport to go to Germany. My mom packed all the mismates for us to match up while we were at Grandma's. BOXES of mismates! My cousins had to help us mate socks. T has never forgiven my mom and to this day HATES socks! They live in AZ so they don't have to wear socks often.

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If I think the mate might turn up, it goes back in the drawer as an orphan. If a few weeks go by and there's no matching sock, it goes into the rag bin. We then use them for things like cleaning/polishing shoes, cleaning anything outdoors, catching drips under the bulk laundry detergent container, etc.

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I have a mesh drawstring bag that I keep in my sock drawer. All unmatched socks go into it. Any time a stray comes out of a load of laundry, I dump the bag and attempt to match. At some point, all the old ones get tossed.

 

I tend to buy socks for my sons in batches of 6, so even if a sock goes missing, there are a bunch of others that it can match with. Same with socks that get holey...there's typically a spare in my bag!

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We have a bag of socks hanging in our closet. As we do laundry, all of the socks get stuffed into the bag and then every couple of days, the first person to ask to watch a movie gets handed the bag of socks and matches while they watch then everyone claims their piles and puts them away.

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I throw my lonely mates (usually white) back in the whites basket to be washed again. They only get 3 or so washes before they get thrown out...yes in the garbage.

 

Firstly, my kids are pretty good and mating their socks befoe putting in laundry.

 

Second. I saw on "Clean Sweep" the tv show, the guy explaining the craziness behind keeping unmatched socks past a few weeks.

 

Third. Once, sometimes twice, depending on the filth factor, a year, we throw out all the kids white socks and get them a pack of new ones.

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Someone gave my DH one of those fish nets that is on a handle. I'm sure there is an appropriate name for it, but I have no idea what it is....

 

After years of not using it, I grabbed it and hung it on the back side of the door in the laundry room. After the day's laundry is done, I toss all left over socks in the net. Every month or so, I delegate the job of sorting socks to one of my helpers. After a year or so, if I happen to notice one sock is not going to ever find a mate, it becomes a rag for whenever DH asks for a towel that he can use and then throw away, or for using for waxing the furniture....you know....whenever that happens. :D

 

Naturally, not long after I started using the net, he asked if I'd seen it because he wanted to use it! I don't him no, go buy your own!! :D I'm pretty sure I've seen them at W-Mart.

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Dd10 purposefully mismatches her socks so anything that is her size...goes in her sock drawer.

 

For dh, I don't like to match socks so I buy a dozen pair of identical socks in khaki, black and white sport style. His socks go into 3 stacks instead of matches. He just picks up two out of the stack. Once he is down 1/2 way (I throw socks away if they get a hole) to 6 pair or so, I throw the rest away or they get used for a puppet day, and replace them all with new socks that all match again :0).

 

Ds is treated the same as dh, he gets two styles a year, long and short, and once they dwindle, they all get tossed and replaced.

 

For baby, she has a little mismatch pile in her sock drawer, if they don't return soon, dd 10 grabs them for crafts.

 

For me, I just let the strays hide at the back of the drawer in a stack. The stack makes it easy to check for a mate. I also only have one style of common socks like sport socks and black work socks. I do have fun wintry socks that are colored and those are the only mismatches I really have to deal with.

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i am talking about the ones that you know the mate will come up soon.

I normally keep them in a small basket, but I want to get rid of the basket.

I would like to know what others do...other than tossing them in the trash.

 

I buy a bunch of socks that match, so if I lose one there are usually a few in the sock drawer that match. I buy 10+ matching pairs at a time for me, and about 6 pairs of two different kinds of socks for each of my dds.

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Every Saturday (supposedly) I go through all the socks in the box. I match what I can and then put a new safety pin in the toe of the rest. Once a sock has 3 pins in the toe, out it goes. I figure in a good month, a sock should show up within a month. Since I don't go through the box every Saturday, by the time a sock has 3 pins in it, it's probably been 2 or 3 months. If a mate hasn't shown up by then, it won't!

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