To throw them out?

[beasmithwentworth]

The socks I mean. I have 2 teens and one lodger. I work all week then feel like I spend my weekends cleaning and hanging washing out as a lot of us do but the thing that fills me with rage is the odd socks. I’m at breaking point. So my plan is to throw all of the socks into the bin (I’ll allow a few sentimental pairs) and buy a job lot of black socks for all of us. Other exception will be DS 15 ‘needing’ his Nike socks. I’m understanding if nothing else. But apart from that. They are all going in the bin and being replaced with 5 thousand pairs of identical black socks so I will never have to worry about pairing again.

Unless there are some better ideas out there? I am so sick of putting the one sock from under the sofa in the washing machine anymore.

You cant buy loads of the same socks if daughter is a size 4 and son is size 8.
Especially as son maybe a size 9 soon?
You will have one of them in a sock to big or a sock to small

Buy different designs for each child.
Or the black ones with the different colour heal
Job done

One of my friends once lost it, collected every sock in the house and dyed the whole lot black. Within a fortnight rogue white socks started to appear.

You’re not going to win this one, OP

i have a bag of odd socks
plenty of us dont mind wearing odd socks

I wash them in laundry bags. Then when sorting out i leave them in my bed, tell them their clothes are ready to be kept and let them fight for their own socks.

Having got your colours sorted try this: i dry on the outdoor line as much as possible. As I peg out I look for similar sock and peg next to each other then when dry they come off and are rolled together straight away

I haven’t found a solution in all my 64 years. My late mother in law loved nothing more than sitting down and sorting through my sock pile. Now I have a whole laundry basket just full of odd, old, socks, I do some pairing and give up. I threw away a load recently as they must be years old (MIL died 2017). The trouble is we all have our favourite socks, but not enough of them.

I have two boys. One wears Nike socks, the other Adidas. If I find odd ones of either, they get put back in their relevant drawer and paired up later. So much easier since we allocated them a brand each!

I haven't paired socks in 20 years! Everyone has different coloured or patterned bottoms they all get shoved in their rooms if they want pairs they can find them! I don't think I have worn a matching pair of socks in 20 years.

I hear you OP. I’m at this point too. I put all the odd socks in a carrier bag and get it out every Sunday(ironing and sock pairing day) The odd socks bag is getting fuller! How? How is this happening?
DS like yours has ADHD and absolutely will not wear odd socks. DH is more than happy to wear odd ones but I reaaally want a clean slate.

When I get like this I spend 2 or 3 weeks putting odd socks in a carrier bag instead of putting them away (my kids are too small to put away their own washing), after a couple of weeks I can usually pair a good few up.

Odd socks go in The Odd Sock Bag.

At the end of the summer term and Christmas term they get paired or binned if Odd.

I'm ruthless.

Like these:
https://amzn.eu/d/1CN2bEe
https://amzn.eu/d/34IMFYm

Edited to add : apologies cross posted with others and can't delete

Something like this would be cheaper than new socks for 4 people. And if the sock owner doesn't use the clips then all the separate socks go in a basket for the owner to search through and pair up and for you to ignore

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/326661139890?chn=ps&ul=GB&trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A19ykFUnalQhuB4iGOsysAOQ49&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=326661139890&targetid=2360873003490&device=m&mktype=pla&googleloc=1006779&poi=&campaignid=21690875706&mkgroupid=169793746720&rlsatarget=pla-2360873003490&abcId=10027099&merchantid=656285642&gadsource=1&gadcampaignid=21690875706&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsPzHBhDCARIsALlWNG16HBI0y2913Z5d3cJsR5gtm3Ja8UJ5cib2Vu2lCXw5kxZVkiDTw-8aAvQQEALwwcB

We had the idea of black socks a few years ago… it didn’t solve our issues long term.

i think i have your partners!

Your teens can’t even pair up socks? Is it because they’re boys so don’t do household chores?
why is it your job? Is Dh just as incapable as the teens?

We have different colour socks for each child (eldest black, middle navy, youngest pink) And all school socks are white.

I have beautiful soft bamboo socks in lovely colours. Husband has (crunchy, thin and horrible) socks with coloured toes and heals.

So I instantly know who has which socks. Odd socks is usually find a pair with this system.

Can everyone not just take their own clean washing from the pile themselves? You shouldn't be having to pair other people's socks if you don't want to.

We went with different coloured socks for different children....Oh and I don't pair other people's socks.... They get stuff out the drier and they sort it.

I was sorting our sock basket last night , I realised all washing had been done so any socks without a partner were to be binned , loads of them , don’t understand what happened to their mate 🤷‍♀️

I suspect it's just as likely because of the ND. It is ten times harder to train the DC.

Re the socks, I have turned it into a little game where I imagine that each sock has been separated from its life partner and it is my job to reunite them. I imagine their happiness when I fold their tops down and they are together again, embracing. I have a little box in the laundry room for the poor lonely socks who have yet to be reunited and every few weeks I turn it out and help them find each other. Sounds odd now I type it but it helps me to not get impatient.

This op. Get a sock box and put all socks into it. They can sort their own. In addition buy the sock wash clips. If they dont use the sock wash clips, sock box it is.

why is the lodger not washing their own clothes?

my dh is always complaining his socks go missing and he says it in a tone that suggests he think we have stolen them. I repeatedly tell him nobody wants to wear his hard, itchy socks that do not even have a heel in them.

In this house, DH has black socks with a coloured heel, DS has black Nike, DD has coloured ones and I've got plain black. We've not got much of a sock problem. Pants and tights however - I never know which ones are DD's and which ones are mine.

We did similar to what you’re considering, got multiple packs of seemingly the same socks. Yet even between packs, there were differences in length and even texture and colour - who knew there are so many different shades of black? The socks I wear must be equal, iyswim, so the differences drove me mad (and it sounds like your DC would struggle), as did time spent checking and matching almost identical socks after washing.

Maybe we were unlucky/careless, but do check packs of socks very closely for uniformity before buying. I’m not a fan of Primark generally, but they might be your best bet, I’d expect their colouring/sizing to be absolutely consistent.

Just wash the socks, then when dry take yours and put the rest into one basket. The others can sort their own from there. If they run out they buy their own