Ok, so we are going to go in a bit of an odd place for today’s Daily Dose of Thrifty – Sock Minimizing!
There is a quite a story behind this post……..
We wanted to discuss the topic of minimizing as it is something that we are working towards. The topic of “becoming minimalist” has been a topic that Thrifty Al and I have discussed for several months. We have had mixed feelings about it, especially at first. Honestly, Thrifty Al was ready to minimize the day he heard of it – I have been dragging my feet!
Along with minimizing, we have been on a personal quest to find more organization in our lives. It seems as if we spend so much of the day cleaning frivolous messes, finding things, putting things away, taking time to find more things, cleaning more messes, etc. That is how our day usually goes! We spend so much time just dealing with all of the stuff!
Back in May of this year, I attended a blogging conference and they happen to have a professional organizer, Marie Ricks from House of Order, run a workshop on Organization. And although this topic had nothing to do with blogging on the surface, the reasoning for her workshop at this conference was that if our lives are more organized, we can spend better and more quality time blogging and spending time with our families when we are not blogging instead of trying to catch up on housework all day. Good reasoning!
So, listening to her, she shared many great tips and ideas. We have been implementing them and working through the ins and outs each day becoming more and more organized. But one thing that she mentioned at the time was less stuff = minimizing. Apparently minimizing and organization go hand-in-hand. If you have less stuff, then it is naturally going to be more organized, easier to clean, easier to find things and ultimately less time wasted!
During the organizational workshop, one thing that came up was sock organization. She shared her thoughts, which, at the time, I seriously thought was a bit extreme! She basically said to get rid of every pair of socks in the house and assign a color to each member of the family. Buy a week’s worth of socks for each person in their color! Your socks will not get out of control – when they come out of the dryer, each person grabs their color and sticks it in their sock drawer. Easy and organized is what she said and I said to myself “WOW – What?!?!” That might not sound extreme to you, but it did to me! I thought, “we’ve got a good handle on socks, I am not going to worry about that one as it is just extreme!”
I told Thrifty Al all about the workshop (he likes to have everything in order and very precise so he loved the topic – I on the other hand, am a bit on the opposite side, spontaneous and laid back) and he loved everything I told him – including the socks! I thought, “what, are you crazy 6 styles/colors of socks (one style/color for each of us) and a week’s worth. We have the socks under control (me acting offended as the housewife)!”
Thrifty Al did not bring up the topic of the socks for several weeks. It was summer and all of us were wearing sandals, EXCEPT Thrifty Al who needs to wear shoes and socks to work. Everyday he rummaged through the two sock bins (yes bins, talk about control over the socks or what!). One bin of the socks that were matched when I had the time, and the other for the loose socks who needed a partner. Most of his time was spent with the loose socks.
Then…… Fall begins to come and it starts getting cooler. We all need to wear socks, we are all rummaging through the bins to find “our socks” and “a matching set.” Needless to say, I began to notice how much time was wasted searching for socks. I started complaining!!
Thrifty Al jumped on the chance at my complaining how much time it was taking to sock 6 people! He reminded me about the sock idea. He encouraged me to look at it and to do it!
I still thought it was extreme…….
Then a few weeks ago, we were introduced to the blog Becoming Minimalist from an interview done by Three Thrifty Guys. The blog post on the day we were introduced to Becoming Minimalist was on his clothing and the lack of it! The topic was all of the sudden starting to hit me more as I read the interview and researched. I stayed up late reading more and very intrigued by it. The next morning when we woke up, I told Thrifty Al – “we need to get this place cleaned out, organized and minimized!” Thrifty Al was dancing his way to work as he has been wanting to do this for a loooooong time!
So……… WALA!
The socks have been minimalized! We were getting rid of the socks we had, replaced them with sets for each of us that were our own style and color! The girls do have a couple pairs of tights and I have my style with a couple pairs of trouser socks, but other than that…… this is what our two bins are now!
No more sock bins, small sock drawers is all that is needed. We actually do not even have to match socks, we all just grab ours and keep them loose in the drawer and grab two each morning! It feels great!
How does being a minimalist equal thriftiness? Well, in our opinion, you will spend less money (even if you are buying things for rock bottom prices), it trains your mind to not think you need to take advantage of every deal because you don’t want to have to deal with those extra things, you have less things to wash and take care of (which cost money!), and you are saving loads of time – which equals more money!
It also teaches yourself and your children to be content with what they have. This is a virtue that is often lost in the “stuff minded” world we live in! You cannot put a price on that!
We will share more on how we are becoming minimalist in a Daily Dose of Thrifty post here and there! Watch for them. Are you a minimalist? Have you wanted to be? Do you think it is extreme? Please share your thoughts, ideas and suggestions – we’d love to hear!
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Thanks for the mention! Here’s to becoming minimalists!
I did this with my kids a year ago. I had enough of sock matching. I threw all the socks away and bought my one daughter socks with pink heel and other daughter socks with purple heel. It is now so easy to find their socks.
we found a cheap and easy way to even DIY this!!!! we have 4 kids. here’s what we did:
-bought each person their own set of WHITE cotton socks (about a week’s worth)
-took a DIFFERENT COLORED sharpie marker and in LARGE letters, put their first initial on the sole of the sock. each person has their own color and letter: easy to spot
-the socks can all be bleached in one, big white load, and so all the kid’s socks can be washed at the same time, and they match everything!
p.s. what did you do with all your “old” socks? did you donate them, or did you just trash them, if you couldn’t find mates at the time of the “big purge??”
Good question Ruthie. We have actually been donating the items (including socks!) in our effort to purge ourselves of stuff. We have many places close to us that take clothing donations. Perfect for this time of year!
I did this a couple of years ago with my husband’s socks. It has made doing the lanudry so much easier. The old socks can be used as “mittens” for polishing, dusting, or cleaning.
Wow.. great idea.. I really do need to minimalize the clothing in this house. Maybe I will do that tomorrow. The sock thing is a great idea. Good job.
Just discovered your site about three minutes ago. Fabulous.
Here is another take on minimalist socks. My son, who has been doing his own laundry since he was 12, hated doing laundry. As a busy high schooler he discovered if he owned a months worth of socks and underwear he only had to wash once a month! Minimalist laundry rather than socks!
Great idea Sidney – Thanks for sharing! And Welcome to our site!
My husband and I both wear the same size, so when rite aid had ten packs on clearance for $1.24 I bought 4 packs (put 2 up for when these are worn and have holes) and when I do the laundry, I just put two together and put some in each of our drawers.
Nice idea, but isn’t it important to match the clothes you are wearing? Most of my socks are black or brown dress socks. I pick them depending on whether I am wearing black or brown pants that day. It would look really funny if I wore brown socks with black pants, or vice-versa. And then I also need white athletic socks for when I am going on a run or hitting the gym. I don’t want to wear dress socks for that.
I like that all of the socks you got for the kids are white at the tops. My kids wear uniforms to school and are always in shorts because we live in FL. Could you let me know where you purchased your socks?
Hi Kacy, Actually that was something we were excited about too because they can wear anything and the colors on the toes not show
We were even happier because we were able to get them at Target for a great price! The girls socks were on clearance for .70 and the boys socks were on sale and there was a coupon attached to the package!
Hope that helps!
my sister does this: 3 girls and plain white socks. puff paint. 1 dot for the oldest girl, add another dot as the socks that survived are passed down and the 2nd girl has 2 dots on all her socks. any socks that survive that far get a 3rd dot and all other socks for 3rd daughter have 3 dots. so my sister just sorts for dots, down on the toes where they don’t walk on them or show when wearing shoes.
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