We have been going through all of our clothes recently trying to get rid of everything that doesn’t fit, won’t get worn or is torn/stained. If we had the money I would happily throw the lot and start again but that isn’t the case and needs must, so to speak.
What I realised though, is that no matter how much I get rid of, we will always own a stupid amount of clothes.. There are seven people in this house and even if we all only own enough clothes for a week per person that’s:
- 7x pairs of trousers/skirts
- 7x tshirts/tops,
- 3x jumpers/hoodies/cardigans
- 7x pairs of socks
- 7x pairs of underwear
- 1x pair of tidy/school shoes
- 1x pair of trainers
- 1x pair of wellies
- 1x pair of walking boots
- 1x winter coat
- 1x thin jacket
Times that by 7 and that is 175 items(maths is not my strong suit I hope that’s right?!) of clothing or shoes and this list doesn’t take into account items such as the kids( x4 for the older ones):
- 1x swimming costumes
- 2x party clothes
- 3 x pyjamas
- 3x school jumpers
- 3x school shirts
- 3x school trousers
- 1x PE shorts
- 2x PE tshirt/rugby shirt
That’s an extra 72 items of clothing (even though my girls have more than two party dresses lets just keep this to basics)
Then we have hubby’s work clothes, he’s a mechanic so his stuff gets real dirty and fast!
- 3x hoodies
- 7x tshirts
- 3x trousers
- 1x work boots
- 2x luminous vest
- 1x overalls(work washes these but they come home every night)
That’s another 17 items of clothing. I don’t work now so I wont take mine into account. Did you add that all up? What number did you get? I got 264, but like I said, I really suck at maths so please correct me if I’m wrong!
But yes, 264 items of clothing to meet the bare minimum. LM is lucky to get her sisters hand me downs so she has more clothes than all of us so with all the extras of hers, the fact that E&Ff are almost teenagers(need I say more?), who only owns 7 pairs of underwear? Plus the extra party dresses, fancy dress costumes, hubby’s wedding/funeral suit(x2) and whatever else I may have forgotten we are well into the 300’s even if you take into account that O doesn’t have shoes or underwear his nappies and wool covers more than make up for them!
So when I look at this broken down list, I don’t feel so bad that we are as disorganised as we are. It does make me realise we desperately need much more storage space than we currently have and when the kids bedrooms are finally sorted this will be my main priority.
Did the amount of clothes surprise you as much as it did me? Try this is for your family, it really puts things into perspective of how much we actually own. Let me know what you think.