Myself, however, I cannot stand boring socks. However, at the age of 13 I decided that life was too short to ever have anything but non-matching fun socks. So I purchase fun, silly socks, but all are ankle length (this way, my workplace doesn’t notice my “lack-of-professionalism” – just looks like I’m not wearing any) and *I* know about the hilariously adorable kitty on one foot and the really pretty stripes on the other.

It makes my work day a little less boring, like I have my own very special secret.

So, I bought a tagging gun (uses plastic barbs to attach price tags to clothes, etc) off ebay for $7 and I attach my socks together before I throw them in the hamper. Only takes a sec. Saves me hours of matching. Everyone thinks I’m crazy but it was totally worth it.

just use permanent marker and mark them as pairs, 1L and 1R (this actually makes them last longer too, at least for me, my toe slant is large and when I used to put them on both feet they’d stretch out for both toes and not last as long or be as comfortable as it would bunch up)

I have socks that are over 2 years old but still fit and are only barely worn out (i am currently replacing them, but I think 2 years is pretty good reuse value)

Having said that, I think this is a fairly good idea, overall, but I don’t wear out my socks that quickly, so I’d feel like I was being wasteful to throw them out every six months.

I just want to add that although we differ on the philosophy of efficiencies of scale vs. efficiencies of storage, I give a big thumbs-up to the core concept of trying never to own socks that could be mistaken for pairs but aren’t pairs. That is smart.

Another way to keep socks paired in the wash without safety-pin damage is to put them together and then turn down about an inch of the cuff on one sock, enfolding the top of the other sock as well.

This post and the recent laundry routine post have made me think about different approaches to “uncluttering.” The laundry post advocated having fewer clothes, and this post suggests getting by on less than a week’s worth of socks. To me this seems like chaining oneself to the washing machine. What if that routine gets disrupted? What do you wear then? And do you regularly run less-than-full loads? I prefer the efficiencies of scale in having a good number of multiples of clothing items, especially the basics like socks, undies, and jeans. (Of course, I don’t do anyone’s laundry but my own, so I don’t accumulate a load as fast as if there were multiple contributors.) I’d rather run a couple of full loads once in a while than feel like I have to keep up a constant pace on a laundry treadmill–or feel like if one pair of socks gets wet, for example, I can’t put on a clean pair because there’s not enough elasticity in my weekly clean-sock quota. I guess you could say I’ve chosen to “unclutter” my time rather than my dresser drawers. I might approach this differently if I lived in a place with severely limited clothes-storage space . . .