Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reaktor.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 214 posts

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

#51

Post by naming_the_user »

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 can never really work out the point of posts like this. It's like some form of personal normativity, I guess?

There are 7 billion people in the world. Some of them are in severe poverty, some of them are US decamillionaires and above, if you choose say, five of them at random then the likelihood that they all have "about as much as you" is really quite low.

Even locally, I can walk down my street and easily tell that some families have 5 million net worth and others near to zero.

To some people it's ridiculous to spend more than 30 quid on a backpack, to others it's ridiculous to buy a cheap one when you're going to be putting a 2 grand laptop into it.

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

#52

Post by grahamj »

sdenton4 wrote: post #42
Vvector wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's paying $95 per shirt, $13 for a undershirt, $10 per underwear.

And only wears the underwear on 92% of days!

I wonder how much he saves going commando those 8% of days

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

#53

Post by changoplatanero »

koolba wrote: post #35

> In some cases, buying cheap is provenly more expensive There’s an inherent bias in being willing to throw away a cheap pair of shoes that are a bit worn and stuffed. But not being willing to toss a $500 pair of Bruno Maglis with the same level of wear. That leads to the latter being worn further and driving it down till it eventually passes the cheap stuff.

when i asked the shoe salesman which pair of shoes has the best cost per mile they looked at me like i was insane lol

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

#55

Post by naming_the_user »

alisonatwork wrote: post #46
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…

I grew up being taught that cotton was best and for decades wore it almost exclusively. But something I have realized over the years is that it is also much, much heavier than polyester or nylon blends, especially when it's wet. If your shirt can't dry overnight then you're forced to buy more shirts just to handle the washing/drying overlap, which is wasteful. Not to mention only owning cotton makes doing anything ou…

It's not wasteful to buy more shirts because they will then last longer overall - you're unlikely to make a few shirts last an entire lifetime unless you want to end up with repair patches everywhere. Only if you change body shape significantly or style significantly will they get wasted. I have dress shirts that are ten years old.

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

#56

Post by shiroiushi »

floren wrote: post #12
nacho-daddy wrote: post #3

I 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.

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 people scammed by the inkjet printer industry.

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

#57

Post by inquisitorG »

swatcoder wrote: post #15
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 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?

Fashion is for sure not one of mine.

I pretty much only have shorts and tshirts that could all be replaced on amazon for $100

1 pair of jeans and 1 nice shirt, neither that I have worn yet this year. I do have a nice suite but even to a wedding or funeral I would probably just wear the jacket, shirt and jeans.

Beyond that I just don't care. There is such freedom that comes with being able to replace my entire wardrobe that I actually wear on amazon in the next 5 minutes for $150.

In the same regard, I don't notice people's clothes either. Not only do I not notice if someone is wearing something expensive vs cheap but the thought wouldn't even cross my mind to try to do some kind of wardrobe valuation.

I would suspect people really into fashion highly overestimate the degree the average person is into fashion.

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

#58

Post by eadmund »

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 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.

One order of magnitude would be €350; two orders of magnitude would be €35; three orders of magnitude would be €3.50 I sincerely doubt that you spend €3.50–35/year on clothing!

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

#59

Post by eadmund »

happytoexplain wrote: post #19
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?

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.

> 3.9k USD annually is a lot for a hobby.

It’s only $325/month, or $10.32/day. That’s less than two pumpkin spice lattes a day. That seems low to medium for a hobby.

Viewed another way, it’s less than 1/20th median household income. It doesn’t seem crazy to spend a twentieth of one’s income on a hobby.

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

#60

Post by Simulacra »

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.

There is one interesting caveat, there are websites like TeeFury Which advertise one T-shirt per day. When it's gone, it's gone.

When the site first cranked up, I bought three or four T-shirts in a couple of weeks. I could see someone getting on there and seeing a T-shirt they want every week and end up buying 50 T-shirts in a year.

Post reply on HN