The answer to lost socks! Finally, I am no longer hunting for, sorting through, and matching up socks for my family of five! I just bought inexpensive, mesh lingerie bags that can be found at places like Target or Walmart. I placed one on a hook in the closet for each of my 3 daughters. My kids tend to tear off their shoes and socks when they walk in the door, so I put theirs in a closet there, but you could also hang them in the bedroom or laundry room.
They simply throw their socks in the mesh bags when they come home. On laundry day, I ask everyone to get their sock bags and throw them into the washing machine, making sure they are all zipped up. I then wash them and throw them into the dryer as is. When they're dry, the kids take their own bag and sort their socks themselves. Little ones especially enjoy doing this, but sometimes I admit, if we're pressed for time we don't sort them at all. We know they're all there.
They then put the sorted (or unsorted) socks back into their bags and take upstairs to dump out into their sock drawer. No missing socks! No sorting! One less things for me to do! The bags are then hung up in their usual places, waiting for the next day's socks. So easy!
By Anita from San Diego, CA
This page contains the following solutions.
I bought the net type washing bags for lingerie and delicate things. Each person in the family has a sock bag.
When my husband buys new socks, he marks each one "L" for left foot and "R" for right foot with a permanant marker. Then he takes a safety pin and pins the socks together when he takes them off.
I think it's safe to bet that we've all lost a sock or two before in our lifetime. We come home from a hard day, rip off those socks, and toss them in the hamper, where they get mixed with all the other dirty clothes. And somewhere between the wash cycle and the dryer, socks magically disappear!
I do a lot of laundry. When I discover the unmatched socks, they go into a small basket nearby. The next time I run the white load through (or the color load for colored socks), I add the mismatched socks to it.
Cut a piece of 3/4 inch PVC pipe to make a ring approximately 1/8 inch thick. Sand the rough edges and you're good to go.
Give each family member their own mesh bag for them to keep in their rooms to place their dirty socks in. They go in the washer and dryer in the mesh bag. After laundering, each bag goes into their stack of clean clothes.
ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. These are archives of older discussions.
