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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)

#191

Post by BigGreenJorts »

floren wrote: post #18
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…

> 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 s…

> Because I have none, I guess I'll be carefully inspecting tags while shopping (and I'm prepared for a lot of frustration)

I've been doing it for years and yes there is a lot of frustration, but I do think after some time you gain the ability to just touch a product and get it's likely not made of 100% cotton (or linen or wool or whatever else) just by touch and in some cases the style of clothes. There are certain shapes that I can't quite describe, but seem to be impossible or at least not desirable in the 100% cotton realm of clothing.

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

#192

Post by BigGreenJorts »

floren wrote: post #45
InMice wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive honestly considered the same thing. Wouldnt it be nice to make a few tailored "masters" and then just make your own shirts off those. Perfect fit everytime time. It's just the senseless waste of the modern world. Like dry laundry soap, why cant i just bring my glass jar to the grocery store, tar it, refill from a bulk bin. Why do we have to make millions of plastic containers, so pointless. Ive only been to one g…

100% agreed, and I've had the exact thought about soap (shampoo, in my case)! I love stores with 'bulk' sections, but they're usually just a small selection of dry cereals, beans, and nuts. Now, to work properly with your own jars, I think you'd want a shopkeeper doing the filling, so he could check the tare. A return to the general store of old, to some extent.

It's been on my to-do list the past few months to find a bulk shampoo, body wash vendor of some kind. I got a body wash that has a bottle design that is just perfect for my shower. I want to get 2 more for shampoo and then just refill them endlessly with the bulk product.

So far in my cursory searches I have found nothing , but I'd like to think eventually I'll find some chemicals company that makes the raw products for the value brands and buy from them.

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

#193

Post by BigGreenJorts »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #84
InMice wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive honestly considered the same thing. Wouldnt it be nice to make a few tailored "masters" and then just make your own shirts off those. Perfect fit everytime time. It's just the senseless waste of the modern world. Like dry laundry soap, why cant i just bring my glass jar to the grocery store, tar it, refill from a bulk bin. Why do we have to make millions of plastic containers, so pointless. Ive only been to one g…

> why cant i just bring my glass jar to the grocery store, tar it, refill from a bulk bin Bulk Barn in Canada is exactly this, and you can get all your spices and grains from there.

I've only been to bulk barn on very rare occasions for certain candies that are hard to find elsewhere, but as far as I'm aware they only do food stuffs right? I don't think they sell detergents or cleaning materials? They're also more expensive that regular right? Hmm I suppose I'd be willing to pay for that tho.

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

#194

Post by BigGreenJorts »

thfuran wrote: post #68
Gigachad wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the plastics generally aren't even better at being clothes. They just cost less than cotton, which is why they generally blend cotton and polyester to create something that feels good enough while reducing the expensive cotton usage.

Synthetics often dry much faster than cotton and are more useable when wet.

Seconding this. In the realm of winter clothing, wool is king, but real wool is pricey and the next best thing is probably polyester bc wet cotton is horrific.

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

#195

Post by margalabargala »

rendaw wrote: post #157
margalabargala wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have certainly been years when I bought almost or actually no clothing. For people who buy clothing frequently, this might be unimaginable, but I assure you that there are people who are happy with the clothing they own and do not buy more except to replace things that wear out or develop holes. And I do this by choice!

3.50 EUR a year means one 35 EUR shirt every ten years, and no other clothes.

Why on earth would I spend that much money on a shirt? I have $15 t-shirts that I got 12 years ago in college that are still perfectly fine.

But, fair enough. The sub-$10 number might still be my median, but my mean is for sure higher.

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

#196

Post by floren »

BigGreenJorts wrote: post #192
floren wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agreed, and I've had the exact thought about soap (shampoo, in my case)! I love stores with 'bulk' sections, but they're usually just a small selection of dry cereals, beans, and nuts. Now, to work properly with your own jars, I think you'd want a shopkeeper doing the filling, so he could check the tare. A return to the general store of old, to some extent.

It's been on my to-do list the past few months to find a bulk shampoo, body wash vendor of some kind. I got a body wash that has a bottle design that is just perfect for my shower. I want to get 2 more for shampoo and then just refill them endlessly with the bulk product. So far in my cursory searches I have found nothing , but I'd like to think eventually I'll find some chemicals company that makes the raw products…

Shampoo is harder, but making your own soap is easy and satisfying and it works better than store-bought.

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

#197

Post by ranguna »

benediktwerner wrote: post #123
ranguna wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the parent comment that you've replied to said: > For people who buy clothing frequently, this might be unimaginable I too have not bought any clothes in the last 3 or 4 years. I have no need to. My current clothes fit me perfectly fine and my shoes are not in a bad state.

That still doesn't mean you spend zero on average. I assume pretty much all your clothes are less than ten years old. To have a 3.5€/year average, all the clothes you own would need to have costed at most 35€ total, which is clearly unrealistic. Though 35€/year maybe is achievable, especially if you get/wear shirts, hoodies, maybe even shoes from conferences or company events. You probably at least still need a decen…

Buying second hand actually makes things even cheaper as well. The second hand culture is growing really strong in the country I live.

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

#198

Post by n4r9 »

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…

Fwiw I'm in the UK. We have 20% VAT. I hang dry everything though, mayb that does make a difference.

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

#199

Post by poincaredisk »

n4r9 wrote: post #6
distances wrote: post #5

Earlier 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.

You're lucky, I only own one pair of regular shoes (i.e. not my hiking shoes), but since I walk a lot and I think I walk "incorrectly" I have to buy a new pair every few months because the previous pair is ruined (as in full of holes, soles falling out)

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

#200

Post by poincaredisk »

rendaw wrote: post #157
margalabargala wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have certainly been years when I bought almost or actually no clothing. For people who buy clothing frequently, this might be unimaginable, but I assure you that there are people who are happy with the clothing they own and do not buy more except to replace things that wear out or develop holes. And I do this by choice!

3.50 EUR a year means one 35 EUR shirt every ten years, and no other clothes.

Unrelated to GP, but right now I don't own any t-shirt that I've bought myself. All tshirts I have are from conferences, competitions, gifts, work swag...

Similarly, I didn't pay for any hodie that I wear (except one I use for hiking), and I'm building a gifted/given socks collection. Now I just need to convince some conferences to start giving out pants and shoes...

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