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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)

#91

Post by mattmanser »

n4r9 wrote: post #4

I 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'm not sure whether you really spend so little on clothes, or have misunderstood the term 'order of magnitude'. If it were 3 orders of magnitude less you would be spending €3.50 on clothes per year. Even 2 orders less is €35, which I find doubtful a grown person can do (in America/Europe at least).

Did you actually mean that? As I'm surprised your socks/underwear don't cost at least €35 per year, eventually they get holes in them. Are you darning?

1 order of magnitude less means dividing a figure by 10. 3 orders of magnitude is diving it by 1,000.

Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)

#92

Post by al_borland »

InMice wrote: post #16

Interesting 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…

What brand are the jeans? When I think about my shirts, socks, and underwear, all of it lasts 4-6 years.. though my socks are 6 years old and I see no sign of needing to replace them any time soon.

However, I have a stack of jeans that all start coming apart in the same spot. I've started looking into how to mend jeans, as I'm sick of this being an issue. They are the most expensive thing I'm wearing (other than shoes) and seem to be the least durable. Though I do wear them 7x more often than the other articles, so I guess I should take that into account.

Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)

#93

Post by sneak »

n4r9 wrote: post #4

I 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.

25.5% of that is Finland's VAT. Europeans include tax in prices.

Also, for whatever reason, European clothes cleaning systems are insanely harsh, and your clothes don't last nearly as long when washed there. I think it's related to the energy efficiency requirements; the dryers are much much hotter (if they are available at all) and the washers have to use miniscule amounts of water so they use a lot more agitating instead, I suppose.

I've never had to buy so many clothes as after I moved to Europe, and they're never soft and fluffy anymore. It's like going back in time if you're used to North America.

Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)

#94

Post by s1artibartfast »

tekla wrote: post #21
swatcoder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No. I have expensive hobbies, and this is a hilarious amount of money to spend, wow. I Scuba and my gear (dive com, suit, tank) cost less than 3k and its meant to keep me alive, versus win instagram points and it will last me a decade.

There are lots of people that will take one or more scuba oriented vacations for $3k per year.

Relatedly, sailing or owning a boat is a much more expensive hobby.

Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)

#95

Post by sneak »

cafard wrote: post #8

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.

Clothes washers (and dryers, if they are used) seem to destroy clothing in Europe much faster than they do in North America. I'm not 100% sure why that is.

Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)

#96

Post by jlarocco »

hilux wrote: post #78
vitus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unco…

I'm not convinced you need cushioning. I spend zero on running shoes, and I've run two marathons like this.

I'm convinced you don't need it, but my shin splints disagree, and I'm happy to buy new shoes after 300-500 miles.

Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)

#97

Post by al_borland »

shiroiushi wrote: post #56
floren wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sounds like a good idea really. If consumers are dumb enough to buy such machines, then that's what they should get. It's just like the inkjet scam: people have been buying these stupid things for decades , despite the ready availability of far-superior laser printers, just because the inkjets have a slightly lower initial price. After this much time, it's really hard for me to feel any kind of sympathy for the peopl…

> If consumers are dumb enough to buy such machines, then that's what they should get.

In some markets they don't have much of a choice. I want a dumb TV, but good luck finding one without looking into digital signage, where it might not have built in speakers. The costs start rising extremely quickly to buy based on principle.

> inkjets have a slightly lower initial price

Most people shop on price. But it's not just the initial price, it's also the toner. I just looked up a color laser printer vs inkjet. 2 random ones near the top of Amazon's results.

Laser: $249 + $155 for more toner (Brother printer and toner)

InkJet: $199 + $22 for more ink (Epson ecotank with generic ink)

Or.. InkJet: $70 + $35 for more ink (HP printer with HP ink)

People are going to see this and think they can by a new printer for the price of just getting new toner for the laser.

The key, as I'm sure you know, is the yield on the laser refill is 3,000 sheets vs the HP's ~100 sheets. But the ink on the ecotank refill is claiming 7,500 sheets. So do they want to pay $155 for 3,000 or $22 for 7,500?

It's not so cut and dry and very few people care enough about printers to look that closely into it. They are busy with other stuff.

Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)

#98

Post by al_borland »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #47

Tracking all this data is pointless. How many clothes can you buy if you put that energy into making money instead? Buy what you like and what you intuitively know is working well for you. As for the analysis, the prices are subject to random inflation, and the actual wear and tear is highly variable. Even the quality of the same product bought years apart can be different enough to mess up the analysis.

> Buy what you like and what you intuitively know is working well for you.

Nearly every time I actually look at the data for something, I'm surprised by at least one result. Our intuition is often swayed by our emotion.

Sometimes people do things just because they find it interesting. Hobbies and projects are good. They don't all have to be "productive" in the traditional sense. And until the data is in, it's impossible to know how productive it might be.

Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)

#99

Post by switch007 »

sneak wrote: post #93
n4r9 wrote: post #4

I 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.

25.5% of that is Finland's VAT. Europeans include tax in prices. Also, for whatever reason, European clothes cleaning systems are insanely harsh, and your clothes don't last nearly as long when washed there. I think it's related to the energy efficiency requirements; the dryers are much much hotter (if they are available at all) and the washers have to use miniscule amounts of water so they use a lot more agitating i…

My new European heat pump energy efficient tree hugging liberal dryer only heats to about 47c (sorry not sure what that is in futuristic values)

Edit:

but I do understand about clothes. I think it has a lot to do with the decline in the quality of clothes more than anything.

Agitation is quite central to the cleaning process no? Top loaders agitate too? I can't imagine there is much in it

Re: I've tracked every piece of clothing I've worn for three years (2021)

#100

Post by shiroiushi »

al_borland wrote: post #97
shiroiushi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a good idea really. If consumers are dumb enough to buy such machines, then that's what they should get. It's just like the inkjet scam: people have been buying these stupid things for decades , despite the ready availability of far-superior laser printers, just because the inkjets have a slightly lower initial price. After this much time, it's really hard for me to feel any kind of sympathy for the peopl…

> If consumers are dumb enough to buy such machines, then that's what they should get. In some markets they don't have much of a choice. I want a dumb TV, but good luck finding one without looking into digital signage, where it might not have built in speakers. The costs start rising extremely quickly to buy based on principle. > inkjets have a slightly lower initial price Most people shop on price. But it's not just…

>It's not so cut and dry and very few people care enough about printers to look that closely into it. They are busy with other stuff.

The problem I've seen is that, even when you try to tell these not-so-knowledgeable people about this stuff and point out how they can save money with better choices, they really don't want to hear it.

>But the ink on the ecotank refill is claiming 7,500 sheets. So do they want to pay $155 for 3,000 or $22 for 7,500?

That's not what they're buying though: they're buying the HP, not the ecotank printer.

>In some markets they don't have much of a choice. I want a dumb TV

This is true: your choices are shaped by the choices of all the other consumers, because the whole reason you can buy a huge 65" TV for $750 and not $75,000 is because of massive quantities of scale. Mfgrs can only offer so many different models cost-effectively, so they make stuff that consumers will buy. Given a choice between a smart TV that lets them watch Netflix/YouTube without any extra hardware at all, or a dumb TV that doesn't and needs an additional device (and remote control), and similar prices for the two (thanks to the mfgrs getting subsidies from advertisers on the smart TVs), 99% of the consumers are going to pick the smart TV.

At least with laser printers, there's enough consumers out there who demand home/small office laser printers that there's plenty of choices for them, and consumer-friendly prices. But there's still tons of people who go for the $70 POS HP with absurdly-priced 100-page refills.

The digital signage devices probably suck for watching movies too, if you care at all about color accuracy. Those devices aren't meant for watching 4k movies at home for a few hours per day, they're meant for displaying public information in public areas with possibly bright (or even natural) lighting, and doing so 24x7.

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