Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

With pic - to throw these odd socks in the bin?

97 replies

youngerself · 30/12/2024 21:52

A carrier bag full. I swear some have been there for years!
I'm fed up of this soul destroying task

Shall I bin them after another try at matching? I'm fully at the bottom of my washing piles.

Is there a supernatural being causing this?

With pic - to throw these odd socks in the bin?
OP posts:
Original poster
youngerself · 30/12/2024 22:26

midgetastic · 30/12/2024 22:16

The fluffy pink one looks like the partner to one I threw away... pity

Don't give people on here ideas! There'll end up being a thread to find partners for odd socks 😂

OP posts:
Original poster
youngerself · 30/12/2024 22:29

LaineyCee · 30/12/2024 22:22

Tip for the future, only ever buy one brand and colour of sock. It completely eliminates this problem.

Trainer socks, which are of course different to gym socks. Also hiking socks. DH has serious socks for work and more jovial socks for the weekends. Plus bed socks and decorative netty or sparkly socks for DD's...
It's endless

OP posts:
VacuumPacked · 30/12/2024 22:43

Use zip up laundry bag thingies for socks, hairbands, gloves, anything small -
ragman bag to charity shop, or Infant School might use them for crafts,
hand puppets, eg.

Anotherparkingthread · 30/12/2024 22:50

Honestly just throw them away that is a pile of mess and grief worth at maximum 30 quid in replacements. Nobody needs that many and clearly you don't need them as you haven't been using them. Mindless clutter and utter madness to haul around life as if you owe it to society to be a good person and retain socks incase they can be paired off. Just bin them. You are not a bad person lol.

LadyGaGasPokerFace · 30/12/2024 22:53

I have found my ppl 🙏

I thought I was the only one in the world with these damned miss matched socks.

BlueWhippetsForever · 30/12/2024 22:56

They'd go in my rags for cleaning box, if I happened to find the matching one for any of them before they got used and binned then yay, if not I'd just work through them as rags. Life's too short OP if they stress you out!

LunaNorth · 30/12/2024 23:00

This was me for 38 years.

Then I moved in with DH, he took over the washing and he never loses a single sock. Ever.

I don’t know how he does it. I suspect witchcraft.

TestingTestingWonTooFree · 30/12/2024 23:02

I like to put them on my hand, dust surfaces and then bin them.

Catterbat · 30/12/2024 23:04

My god there are others! I have roughly the same as you, OP.

Maybe if we all post pictures we can pair socks from each others collections. That’ll show the universe.

ElloKiffy · 30/12/2024 23:05

youngerself · 30/12/2024 21:52

A carrier bag full. I swear some have been there for years!
I'm fed up of this soul destroying task

Shall I bin them after another try at matching? I'm fully at the bottom of my washing piles.

Is there a supernatural being causing this?

I did this the other day.

No exaggerating, a whole bag for life full of odd socks.

I paired as many as I could and binned the rest.

I'd been wanting to do it for a long time!

DinosaurMunch · 30/12/2024 23:06

I have a similar pile. It never occurred to me to just bin them. What a brilliant idea!

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 30/12/2024 23:06

Two solutions are to safety pin pairs together in order to wash them, or to only buy eg black socks from x shop/brand. For years we had navy for one child, black for another etc. , all from John Lewis school uniform department.

DorianMeile · 30/12/2024 23:09

I put my socks inside each other before putting them in the laundry. Never lose any now!

Clingfilm · 30/12/2024 23:09

Did the same this week! We had new socks for Xmas so we're not going short.

shreddednips · 30/12/2024 23:15

We've been trying to pair up our odd socks today OP, how strange 😆 luckily my five year old enjoys the task as I hate it. Any without partners get put in a big tub of antibac solution and get used as house cleaning wipes, then I wash them, back in the tub to be reused for cleaning etc until they wear out. Occasionally I find their partners!

Diversion · 30/12/2024 23:16

Life is way too short to pair up odd socks as I realised many years ago. I am 57 and still do not own my own socks, I just wear my husbands trainer socks.

boatyardblues · 30/12/2024 23:20

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 30/12/2024 23:06

Two solutions are to safety pin pairs together in order to wash them, or to only buy eg black socks from x shop/brand. For years we had navy for one child, black for another etc. , all from John Lewis school uniform department.

We’re out the other side of the only black socks experiment, bought in bulk in one job lot and all the old ones binned. Once our kids were in adult sized black socks we needed to replace more often so the culling stopped. Then everyone grumbled about pairing so many similar black socks with slightly different lengths and cuffs etc. DS2 said we needed to start replacing with those black ones with different coloured toes and heels. It’s true. They are easier to pair (and cull once its mate goes missing). I like to mess with DH’s system by buying coloured socks every now and then. 😄

Gingernaut · 30/12/2024 23:20

If they're all washed, try finding a charity that takes scraps

My local BHF takes clean rags and scraps as long as they're clearly labelled

IKnowAristotle · 30/12/2024 23:21

Burn them before they start to multiply.

SabreIsMyFave · 30/12/2024 23:23

😆

This is me @youngerself 7 pairs of socks, and 21 odd ones! WHYYYY?

Someone said a while back that socks turn into tupperware lids!

I think it's true! 😂

.

Gggglinda · 30/12/2024 23:29

Bin them. I had a pile like this too for ages waiting for the other to turn up. I got fed up in the end and binned them all. The other socks haven't turned up so it wasn't a waste.

Christ0nABike · 30/12/2024 23:34

LaineyCee · 30/12/2024 22:22

Tip for the future, only ever buy one brand and colour of sock. It completely eliminates this problem.

We’ve done this. Sock sorting is a doddle in our house. I do still have a pile of odd socks but there are only two in it currently, having found one of my son’s in his bedroom ceiling light the other day.

thedogissnoringsoloud · 30/12/2024 23:45

What a coincidence.

Today I managed to match up a pair. The odd one had been sat in the tub of spares for, I'd say, three years!

Its pair just turned up in my son's wash basket.

I've told him he now needs to thoroughly go through the drawers and let me have any odd ones.

There must be loads somewhere!

stayathomer · 30/12/2024 23:48

I have a bag, kind of like this but not as many. I mix and match a bit but at some stage soon I’ll just go for it and start using them for cleaning and eventually throw away

OutAgain · 30/12/2024 23:48

I saw a video of someone who took apart their washing machine and all of the odd socks had made it out of the drum and into other parts of the machine...