To bin all the socks in the house and replace with all plain black ones?

[TitsalinaBumSqoosh]

I have off sock baskets and bags coming out my ears! I'm seriously considering binning them all (in recycling obvs) and buying lots a plain black ones. AIBU?

I only have plain black and some plain white trainer socks for me. The kids have plain black too with a few pairs of superhero ones they liked.

I would definitely have one colour for each member of the family

How does this work with 3 teens all going to the same school and all needing black or grey socks? Plus DH who wears a suit so also needs black socks

I am thinking of having one style for each member:
DH has enormous plain black socks
I have smaller black socks with a coloured heel (though I also have handknitted wool socks).
DS can have plain black socks for the moment (his feet won't be as big as DH's for some time yet)
And DD can have plain black with a coloured heel or a little motif or something (she starts school in Sept).
No silly days of the week nonsense and she's not having tights (she wants to be like DS fortunately).

I have yet to decide if DS' school socks will be hand-down-able and if they will, then DS can have coloured heel when he gets to the next size and DD can have plain black and then they can swap.

If you take socks to a charity shop they will probably go for recycling (i.e. made into new fibre not re-used).

DH and I do this, we also shove them all in one drawer and just both take from it. The dc all have their own though unfortunately!

Do it!

@Seriouslyjuice

Calzedonia. Not cheap at £4 for a black pair, but omg, it feels so good putting on those socks soft, warm socks in the morn.

I've never understood how socks get lost? They go paired into the laundry (tops folded over), I unpair them as I put them into the machine, they all go into the dryer, and paired back up again (by folding the tops) when they come out.
I've never lost a sock in my life.
Or a teaspoon for that matter.

Do the DC's help? DS loves sorting the socks. He often comes to join in when he sees me emptying the dryer and gets disappointed if there's only a few pairs.

Only do it if your family’s feet are widely different sizes. It’s easier for me to identify child’s size 9-12 socks, adult 5 and adult size 12s and it’s time saving just matching up black pairs. But if you’re all similar sizes it could be hard to tell them apart 😄

We’ve gone one better and only buy adult underwear in black too 😄 only ds (5) has a bit of colour in his undercrackers 😁 easier for the washing

DH does the regular purge and buys 15 new pairs of identical black socks at the same time so they all match & wear at the same speed, usually M&S.

I also wear M&S black men’s socks, but get the ones with coloured toes & heels so DH doesn’t wear them (and shred the toes with his gnarly toe nails).

The kids both have biggish feet, so wear M&S boys socks. We recently discovered that one of their styles has the size woven into the ankle cuffs, which helps with the pairing (and culling as they outgrow the smaller sizes). We have also issued a family fatwa against buying patterned socks for the boys, as it spoils the system. They get returned/exchanged or donated to the charity shop if any appear in parcels.

I tried this and even black socks are different when washed. They fade differently.
Sorry there is no known cure for that odd sock bag. It's a part of life that we have to accept. I just stick them all in a large bag (unpaired) by the tumbler and let everyone fend for themselves. All adults here but they should consider themselves lucky with that. I've been known when I'm having a mad sort out to tip that bag out and attempt to pair as many as I can but even then I'm left with another bag of completely odd ones.
lifes to short to wear matching socks

They go paired into the laundry

Hahahahahahahahahahaha
No.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha
I'm not standing over DS and DD pairing their socks as they go into the laundry basket.
Heck, I'm not standing over them every minute of the day as they discard their socks randomly all over the house/school/nursery/town.

I did this and it helped a bit, but I still end up with slightly different black socks that don't match! Also it makes it hard to tell whose are mine and whose are DS's (a size bigger). TBH it probably makes it even more frustrating trying to find an exact pair.

I’ve done this. We basically have universal socks. I get the size 4-7 black socks from M&S and go communal (Im a single parent so no big man feet to accommodate).

It works. Especially since other packets of socks, especially for women, come in packs of 5 each one a subtly different design 😡.

And yes you do have to discard the whole lot and restock when M&S change suppliers. Still worth it.

The other laundry kept eating our socks so we invested in a set of little washing bags, it sounds fussy but saves time and socks overall.

This would be so much easier in my house!! Go for the all blacks! I have a massive washing basket full of socks!! x

Nooo! don't do it! My dear late mum would buy me black socks every single year for Christmas. Only they'd vary being from Primark, then Tesco's, then M&S. And vary between new styles from the same retailer. So the result would be dozens of unpaired black socks in a pile in the spare room. I couldn't wear mismatched pairs, even though they were all the same colour, because they all had slightly different heights up my ankle, different band tightness, different feel around my feet.

So everytime I sorted the clean laundry I had a monumental puzzle trying to sort them out into pairs, it was like doing one of those jigsaw puzzles with the picture of a plate of baked beans Many cursed words were tossed towards the direction she lived, and one autumn I jokingly but firmly threatened to disown her if she bought me any more socks for Christmas. If she'd bought black ones with a small motif or coloured ankle band that would've been fine. But I was condemned to spending hours carefully holding socks up to each other, comparing weave, band size and other micro-identifiers. Till I cracked and took the lot of them to the charity shop for the rag bag and resolved to only ever to wear socks that can easily be matched.

drspouse Thu 04-Jan-18 10:50:03

If you take socks to a charity shop they will probably go for recycling

If you take clean and still in good condition children's socks and underwear to a Salvation Army charity shop they can use them for children in shelters.

DS wears black with days of week, DH wears black with a pattern on sole, I wear plain black. DD1 wears black ankle socks, DD2 wears black sports socks and DD3 wears neon multicoloured. Don't get me started on school socks though!!

dh is size 11.5 and I am 5 - the 11.5 fits me fine

If you take socks to a charity shop they will probably go for recycling

Schools often like them for the kids to use to wipe off whiteboards.

I did this a while ago, but it's only DS and I, so it's easier than trying to figure out a bunch of socks for lots of people. All black with a coloured heel and toe for me, and black for DS. He does have a few fun ones as well. It works well for me.

It's incredible how many different varieties of odd short black sock we have in this household, so I'm not sure your predicament would improve completely ...

Yes!! We did exactly this and it was brilliant. Although we are now on the second influx of black socks and we have the issue of 'new black' and 'faded black'

We tried this and just ended up with an assortment of different size and shade of black socks, randomly distributed.
I snapped and bought a bag of socks off Ebay and I guard them as if they are treasure. When I take them off they go into their own laundry bag.

I only have white Tesco trainer socks. My two girls have white trainer socks only. My son has plain black knee socks (school) or very boyish tractor/avengers/batman socks. All easy to identify. DH has plain black Wilson or Pringle cheapies. Sorting socks is so simple.

Makes life so much easier.

It didn’t work here. They change size and shade the minute they’re out of the pack. It’s horrendous.

It doesn’t help that the two eldest children hoard them. I swear I was washing the same five socks at one point last year.