At what point do you say enough is enough

[Tambora]

And throw the monstrous and ever-growing pile of never-to-be-reunited odd socks away? I'm up to a half a carrier bag full now. Some of them have been in there for several years.

Should I just bite the bullet and get rid of them, or will all their little friends reappear the minute I've done the deed?

What do I do??

Wait a bit

When every sock in the house is in the bag - apart from those on feet - then open the bag and there will be several happy reunions 💫

Just wear odd socks.

Another for just wearing odd socks! My DD does it on purpose

Can you do a laundry blitz? If everything has been washed and dried, you could embark on a grand matching-up project and banish any refuseniks to the bin.

I'd throw the lot into the textile bank.

Odd socks drive me round the bend, though I have a nearly 19 year old DD who rarely wears socks in pairs. She prefers them odd and tries to tell me that there is no law stating that she must wear them in pairs.

Please someone tell me that she is wrong and there is such a piece of legislation! If there isn't I may have to write to our useless MP to lobby for one.

I like matched socks!

Do a check behind radiators or anywhere else they may hide for spares, then use the odd ones for cleaning cloths. Good for windows, then chuck them in the rag bank.

I did this last week - waited till all the socks were out of the laundry matched what I could then recycled the rest - also got some sock pegs from Amazon and implemented a new rule - no socks get washed unless they are pegged together.
Honestly it's made me very happy - sock management was driving me insane.

Matching socks AND pyjamas is law in our house. 13 year old DD just laughs at me and does her own thing 😂 😩

Every odd sock you throw away will come back as a Tupperware lid with no matching container

@choosername1234

Every odd sock you throw away will come back as a Tupperware lid with no matching container

I did have quite a lot of those as well - we had a new kitchen last year and got rid of them then.

But all these socks - honestly, there's four adults in this small and cluttered house, all with different-sized feet. The task is next to impossible.

Bin them.. If I have an odd one even once a fortnight it's gone.. Bye bye.

I wear odd socks, as long as they are the same shape ie from the same multipack so don't feel different.

Kids are he same.

Life is too short to match bloody socks.

I bought myself a few packs of the same type of black socks and chucked all of my other socks away.

OMG I love this post! I was savage the other day, bit the bullet and tossed all the odd ones out! Felt SO good, now wondering how many (whole) pair days we'll get till the next odd one pops up! I'm a fan of odd socks though, why do they have to match anyway :)

Ah, this thread is full of my kind of people.

I only buy the kids matching socks all in the same colour. So no issues with odd socks.

Any sock with even the slightest hole is immediately binned (or used for rags)

I only put away paired socks. Any unpaired solo sock goes in a special place. If it remains solo for a few months it is binned.

Sock bliss ensues

I have 2 containers - odd socks go into container 1 only. Every month I go though container 1, match anything I can to those in container 2 and throw the rest of container 2. Then the remaining socks go into container 2 and I have a briefly empty container 1. Quite hard to explain but works quite well as it gives all socks a decent chance for their pair to turn up before being thrown.

Every now and again a random patterened one turns up that nobody in the family recognises. Are they migrating here from the local neighbourhood or what?

@Walkingbkwrm My system is similar to yours except I use the corner of the airing cupboard for the latest cohort and a carrier bag for the old soldiers.

The carrier bag is winning and there are at least 50 odd socks in there. How? How has it come to this?

Right. That's it - I've decided what I'm going to do. The carrier bag is going in the loft. I can't throw that many away - there must be another 50 in this house somewhere. I'm sure they'll turn up eventually...

Everyone is so patient. I give it two washes

Tie them all together and use them to climb out the window and run away from home.

Life is too short to pair socks

I often wear a thin pair underneath my thick socks for boots. You could save them for such an occasion so you'd never see they were mismatched underneath the thick pair?
When my son was little, if I had a (good condition) odd one and they had nice patterned or design I turned a couple into little t shirts for his favourite teddy

@Justilou1

Tie them all together and use them to climb out the window and run away from home.

😂 brilliant!

If you're not planning to get inside the tumble drier I would bin them as apparently that's where they go.

I see your half carrier bag and raise you to a full carrier bag which I've just remembered about.

Nothing wrong with wearing odd socks. My kids have always done that.

I actually have progressed from a random pile of odd socks to an odd socks basket.

When I've just done a big wash of underwear (in a bid to curb the original forming of odd socks situation) I make my two boys sit on my bed and dump all the socks out and they have to find as many pairs as they can. I think they love me a little less after this.

There are fewer in the basket now though.