I found the turnover rate of tee shirts surprising. I imagine that my tee shirts get 40 or 45 wears per year, and I very rarely replace them.
I wear them until they have holes and then use them as shop rags, etc.
I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)
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Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)
#12I love that the author took the time to collect and plot his own data. And this was 2020? In 3 years my washing machine should be able to do this.
Instead, in 3 years your washing machine will refuse to run if your Tide Pods subscription runs out, or if you attempt to use bootleg pods.
Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)
#13Wow. I buy one pair of jeans per year, I now have three pairs. This year I've bought exactly 2 t-shirts on vacation in Spain. I cannot imagine spending so much on clothing, that just seems.. overkill. Where do you put it all???
Maybe one thing is that price per item can vary a lot, eg a $50 coat isn’t going to take 60 times less space than a $3k coat so it’s possible to spend a lot more without using lots more space. That said, the author doesn’t seem to be buying wildly expensive items. I assume they get through with something like an ordinary sized wardrobe and chest of drawers, plus some kind of shoe storage near a door. And I guess they dispose of things that are unused or too worn.
Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and the fact that they have a summer house where at least one pair resides. This person lives differently to me. He seems to live in Finland. It's a sparsely populated country covered in forests and with an abundance of lakes[0] which has led to a quite democratic summer house culture. It's completely normal even among working class to own a summer house by a lake. There's of course variation. A large summer house…
Thanks, didn't know that. Still, the guy is spending wild amounts of money on clothing. Eur442 per year on shoes? I spend maybe £30-50 on an everyday pair that'll last me a couple of years. I also have a couple of pairs of dress shoes, hiking boots, running shoes, and lifting shoes, but all of those have been going for 5-10 years.
It depends how much walking / hiking / running / whatever else you do.
A typical pair of running shoes lasts somewhere around 300-500 miles. (You could probably stretch a pair further than that, but you run much higher risk of injury once the cushioning wears down.)
If you put in a modest 5 miles a day and have two pairs in rotation, then expect to replace both pairs every 6 months (if not more often). It is not uncommon for semi-serious runners to spend $100+ on each pair of shoes. From that perspective, $500/year doesn't seem that outrageous.
Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)
#15I did a double-take at the 3.5k Euro spend per year on clothing. My own spending is probably 2-3 orders of magnitude smaller. But then I saw how many shoes they own, and the fact that they have a summer house where at least one pair resides. This person lives differently to me.
I think many people here at HN can admit to spending that much on their hobbies, even the ones without summer houses. It just sounds like fashion might not be one of yours?
Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)
#16Interesting data tracking. I have to say for my jeans - I never put them in the dryer, always hung dry. All my jeans are now 10-20 years old now and except for some wear on the back cuff from wearing them around the house without shoes on they look and feel brand new. I can't find author mention "dryer" anywhere in the article. Hung dry clothes last a long time. it's the machine dryer that slowly destroys them IMO.
Another thing Im doing is switching to 100% cotton (or just no plastic fibers). I love the breathability and light feel of cotton shirts.
Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, it wouldn't make sense for me to do this tracking either. It would just show me wearing one pair until it has holes in the soles. But I do acknowledge there are lots of people who are more enthusiastic about shoes than I am.
Sure. I guess it's interesting how differently people can interpret the phrase "buy what you need".
~~"buy what you need"~~
"do not go shopping until after something has a hole in it, then when you are there, replace only that"
Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)
#18Interesting data tracking. I have to say for my jeans - I never put them in the dryer, always hung dry. All my jeans are now 10-20 years old now and except for some wear on the back cuff from wearing them around the house without shoes on they look and feel brand new. I can't find author mention "dryer" anywhere in the article. Hung dry clothes last a long time. it's the machine dryer that slowly destroys them IMO. A…
> Another thing Im doing is switching to 100% cotton (or just no plastic fibers). I love the breathability and light feel of cotton shirts.
I've been wanting to do the same; it's kind of amazing how at some point everything started to be made with plastics, even jeans.
If I had the time, space, and equipment, I'd make my own clothes from patterns. Because I have none, I guess I'll be carefully inspecting tags while shopping (and I'm prepared for a lot of frustration). Wish there was more of a cottage industry around homemade clothing!
Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)
#19I did a double-take at the 3.5k Euro spend per year on clothing. My own spending is probably 2-3 orders of magnitude smaller. But then I saw how many shoes they own, and the fact that they have a summer house where at least one pair resides. This person lives differently to me.
I think many people here at HN can admit to spending that much on their hobbies, even the ones without summer houses. It just sounds like fashion might not be one of yours?
3.9k USD annually is a lot for a hobby. I'm not going to argue whether it's "just a bit much" or "ridiculous", but I think it's strange to imply that it's somehow not a lot.
Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)
#2028 wears for an undershirt?
I have many that are over a decade old. I have a feeling that the author and I live dramatically different lifestyles.