A graphic of a messy overflowing laundry basket, filled with dirty socks and a few dirty socks pegged on a washing line
Episode 123 – Sorting out and How to Organise Socks!

In this episode, we are talking about all things related to sorting out and organising socks! We discuss how many socks are enough, how to have a proper sock system, keeping it organised and donation stations.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The Declutter Hub podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your hosts professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:31  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 123 of the Declutter Hub Podcast.

Lesley  0:36  
I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley.

Ingrid  0:38  
If you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. Now, in today's episode, Lesley and I are talking about sorting out socks. Lesley, honestly, when you suggested we do a podcast about socks, I thought you were joking. But then we started talking about it. And we 3d realised there's actually so much to tell and say about soak. So why are they such a problem?

Lesley  1:06  
But let's be talk about the background to why I thought this is a great idea. So I woke up this morning feeling a bit frivolous. Now normally with our podcasts, we plan the months in advance. But this has been thrown into the mix, hasn't it? Very last minute, and I was like, We need to talk about socks, because I was just kind of sat there thinking, there's so much to talk about with socks, it seems so simple, but it isn't it is it. There's a lot of psychology involved in Sox, there's a lot we can talk about in terms of organisation of Sox. decluttering donating sucks. I mean, we'll be lucky, honestly to get it into 30 minutes, but we're going to try our hardest because we do like to talk, but I feel like we can nail it in 30 minutes copying. But

Ingrid  1:50  
you know what, when you suggested the topic of socks, my mind went back to one of my clients that actually had four bin bags full of random socks. And they were like, everywhere, they were like hidden, they came from lots of different places. And she's like, shocks is such a big problem. But we first had to short out other areas before we could tackle her shocks. But then at that moment, I think I really realised Yes, sucks, isn't it a big problem?

Lesley  2:22  
It is, and I'm with you. And I bet there's loads of our listeners today thinking I got loads and loads of socks. So just something about socks, which means that people have this irrational holding on idea to socks, even odd socks and keep tonnes and tonnes of them over the years. multiplied by the amount of family members. It's a lot of management of something as simple as socks, isn't it? And when so we're going to talk about decluttering that way we'll talk about organisation and we're going to talk about donation mainly. Yes. So age old question and grid, how many socks is enough?

Ingrid  2:57  
I think that all depends on how often you do laundry. Yes. So I do a load of laundry just about every day. I do probably two dark loads per week. Most of my socks are dark colours, not whites. So most of them are dogs or twice a week. So I would say that I would probably need about let's just say about 14 pairs of socks. So I wear black socks every day. But just I don't know why I just like them I found one that I really really like. So I think anywhere between kind of 12 and 14 pairs. So by the time they go into laundry, they go drying they go in my folding, they go back in the cupboard I think about I would say 14 pairs of socks. Then I've got one or two pairs of kind of socks for when I go kind of walking and hiking kind of for my kind of thicker socks and maybe two or three pairs of sports socks for when I go to the gym or a kind of exercising not walking

Lesley  4:06  
I've been working with you solidly for the last two and a half years if not longer. I'm not gonna lie. Going to the gym is not something that I've ever wanted to slip out. I'm sorry but your case in points you keep in gym socks when you've not ventured anywhere near a gym in the last two or three years. In my defence.

Ingrid  4:29  
I did this dancing class for a while that might be the one week oh, no, no, I wasn't very good. But I didn't did not do it one week but don't call me out here on the podcast because everybody will know unless it is not good. Anyway, and I have a couple of ski socks of course because I go skiing every every well no we try every year but we haven't been in one or two years but so my ski socks are there but they're in a different location in my house. So that's about it. So I think The same kind of goes for the kids must my daughter's got some long kind of knee highs for school, about five or six pairs, that she's got some shorter kind of ankle viveash ankle socks that she loves thicker quality, thicker material. And the same with my son, I think about 10 pairs of socks black for school and another pack of five or six for like the weekend. And the same husband all black socks. So I don't have I mean, if you added up all together, it's a lot of socks, but I don't have hundreds and hundreds of socks because I think that's where the problem lies. Things socks kept missing, they don't get paired, they don't get washed often enough, they disappear. And then people keep buying new socks over and over and over again. But actually, I think you just make the problem worse by having more socks. But that's my two pennies worth of it. I would love to know how you do I'm so I don't have a shock problem, but I'm on it. So how does it work in your house? Then how many shocks have you got?

Lesley  6:05  
You know, when I asked that question how many sucks is enough? It was quite tongue in cheek really because like with anything, there's no right or wrong answer for anybody, it very much depends. Very good point about the laundry. And again, even within your laundry system that you mentioned, Ingrid, yours is different to mine because I use a dryer when you use a rack. And so even that in itself means there's another 24 hours in your laundry system. And you know, getting to the point of rewiring and pour putting away let's say, then there is mine, because I can kind of put it in the wash at eight o'clock and it can be ready to wear again at 11. You know with the washing and drying. So even things like that are very relevant. You talked about realism and routines and knowing and timing yourself knowing that so it's all about knowing your own scenarios, what you typically do, what might go wrong, does that make sense? If you're not on top of it every day, and something runs away with you, it might be two or three days longer before you do so what realistically is your laundry schedule? What realistically do you need in terms of socks? Do you go to the gym every two days, like you Ingrid, as you clearly said, or you know, because some people run every day, and you're going to need more socks, if that's the case, you know, some people need more stuff, they do sports every day, you know, you talk very validly about the ski socks, I'm with you, you know, if you go skiing every year, for a week, say or whenever you kind of need seven pairs of very voluminous, thick socks. And so where do you put those, you know, I put those separately with my rest of my ski wear? Or do you put them in Utah, you know, so there's so many different scenarios with something so simple as socks, you're keeping it simple in your house. And wearing black socks, kids are wearing white socks, most was wearing black socks. Some people like the variety of different types of pairs of socks, depending on what shoes they're wearing, you know, so there is definitely no right or wrong way. But what we're going to say today is be realistic, look at the amounts you've got. And keep it to a minimum because if you've got way too many pairs of socks, that's when it really starts getting out of control.

Ingrid  8:12  
Absolutely. And I think the more people you have in your family, the easier it is to go out of control, especially, for example, if you've got kids who are all kind of the same size, or the same, were all the same black socks, I think, I think mainly the biggest problem is black socks that get complete, like which sock goes with which sock. And because I use kind of different types of socks and different, they're all black. But Max's got different socks than my husband than me. So I recognise that type. So it's very easy for me to do the sorting. But if you've got a whole family and you're like me, you're not on top of your socks, and you just see all manner of black socks. It's like oh my goodness gracious to act and why start here

Lesley  8:58  
today What are quite useful as well if you're trying to be really orderly and organised with your socks, particularly black socks, is the ones that have got colours on them, you know, kind of like yellow toes or yellow heels or red or green or whatever. And that makes it really easy. But the thing is that socks slip in, we get socks as gifts, we get socks in our Christmas stockings. So all these different types of socks kind of slip in as well. So even if you want to be super organised, you can't always be like that. And then of course, let's throw into the mix. Odd socks. And then it here we go into a whole nother area of decluttering do we see it like we're already 10 minutes into the podcast? Like can we literally we have got so much to talk about in terms of socks. Okay, Ingrid. So we recognise that we need to be realistic about sucks. We know that we've got too many. How do we go about decluttering sucks. What strategies have you used in the past?

Ingrid  9:56  
I think that's that's a that's a really good start. So I think, first of all, you need to determine if the socks that are actually in your drawers or somewhere in your bedroom or wherever it is where they live. If they're all kind of can, can we conclude they're all matched rights? Or are you like, I've got absolutely no idea, I just got some random socks that I put together, I don't know, if you, for example, know that all the socks that are in your drawers are the pairs that go together, leave them where they are for now. And just focus on all the ones that are loose and random, and maybe in a beanbag, or back somewhere or a bag for life. Gather all those six together, and then it is a matter of finding their friend finding their partner pairing them up, I would say start with first, separately doing all the socks that have colours and patterns, because that's easier. So you need to kind of make two piles, none of this has a colour in it. So it's easy to find its friend to these are all black, I need to investigate much more deeper in detail and focus on what I'm doing here. So I would say Stein that gathered them all together, and actually then colours and black separately and then start with the colours. So you can then actually see which sets are complete.

Lesley  11:25  
So I think that's really interesting and good, because a lot of people who you've jumped, you've jumped straight to the kind of match sucks. There is a step before that there's a lot of people who struggle a lot with socks, who have not even gotten to that point of matching socks or pair in socks. And they wouldn't do that. And so organizationally, they took everything in together and they pull socks out and try and match them up as they wear them. So that so are we saying that that's a good idea or a bad idea? What do you think?

Ingrid  11:54  
I personally would say, when socks come out of the laundry and are dry, I would match them and then put them away. I would not advocate having a gigantic box with socks, unless all the people in your house have the same size and wear the same sock and have the same colour, then you can use a here's a box, just take our two random socks. Listen, if you don't even care about socks, if you're like, I don't care, I don't I don't even Mike, I'm gonna wear random socks. That's my life. That's my personality. I'm cool with that, hey, this podcast is not for you. Because you're like, I'm fine. Life is all good. But a lot of us do want to wear matching socks. So I would probably say combined them together, and then put them away and wear them.

Lesley  12:46  
I think you're right. I think it's very basic. The problem you've got, I mean, when my kids went through their teenage years, it was kind of in vogue to wear non matching socks. And I'm like, really? Are we really doing this? And so then everything goes in mismatched into the wash, doesn't it? And then they come out. And I'm sure a lot of the parents who were like, yes, my kids do that as well, which is like super annoying. And even if you've got a good system going it kind of messes with you. But anyway, so there's other people that don't help. I agree. You know, I think that parents sucks at the point of when they come out of the wash is a really good idea. Do we think then that pairing socks before we put them into the wash is a good idea? Ingrid? Hmm.

Ingrid  13:28  
Interesting question. Because you've got new combine like all these little gadgets, where you can clip socks together before you throw them in the wash. Or you can put them in some sort of wash bag and then put them in. I just, it sounds like a really good idea. You know, when you've got lots of socks, and they're everywhere you think I'm going to buy these clips, and I'm going to clip them together and then put them in a wash. And I'm thinking to myself, is this really going to happen? Is this not something for like super organised people to buy something like this? Do I see my son who's like 14, clip his socks together before they go into watch? I don't think that's gonna happen. Honestly, I'm being realistic here. I rather think to myself, You know what, on the son on the Saturday morning, when I spent half an hour of folding normal laundry that's been dried during the week. I'm just going to sit there for 10 minutes and pair to soak from those five loads of laundry that I've done this week. And that sets. I don't think I can expect my family members to use clips. But if there's only two of you, and if you're super structured, maybe the clip thing works brilliantly. But in my head, I'm not sure about this whole clip situation.

Lesley  14:38  
I completely agree with you. That's what we would call micro organising a little bit. And so a lot of those systems that sound like brilliant ideas involve a very organised person to maintain or to implement that system. Are my kids talking about kids? Will they put their socks together? No. They're still at the stage where they're taking their boxer shorts or pants with their knickers. still attached, and probably a pair of socks kind of attached at the bottom to them, you know, so I'm getting all of the things combined because they can't even be bothered to separate them out, you know? So or I'm getting my husband who's obsessed with it. And he's kind of putting his socks together in the wash. And then I've got to on board over him if you well before they go into the watch anyway, because you don't want to put them through together, do you? I told you there was a lot to talk about with socks, didn't I? But I don't think for me, this sock clip system going into the laundry? Wouldn't work. Because I think that many of our listeners, for many of our listeners who are more on the kind of disorganised and organised scale, would struggle to maintain that system.

Ingrid  15:42  
Let's go back to the decluttering. Your were were cats, we've categorised them into socks with colours and structure with no colours at all. How would you then do it allegedly? Would you pair them up? And then while you're looking at him, and you're finding the pairs, I would inspect them at that moment, look at the socks and go, Hmm, what is the condition of the socks. So if I see when I'm doing my laundry, in this case, on a Saturday morning, and I'm pairing them up, I look at them. And if I see a sock with a hole, it immediately goes to the side when I see a sock where the kind of ball of the foot, the fabric has gone thin, it goes out. So I don't even go back in the drawers in the bedroom, I filter them out as I see them. And because I've got older, same kind of socks, my husband has got the same kind of socks, my son has got the same kind of socks. If one has a hole, it doesn't matter, because at some point, there will be another sock that has a hole. And then I compare it make a pair again. So for me it kind of works that way. But Would would you do the same? Or once you kind of how would you do a decluttering of socks then?

Lesley  16:52  
Yeah, exactly. So I would declutter at the points of laundry, because that's when you really look at your socks either when you're putting them on, or when you're doing your laundry. So if I see a hole of ice, a threadbare sock, it goes straight away into my donation station, which is in my laundry room. Now I'm very lucky, as we've talked about before, I have a specific laundry room and I have a space where I have my donation station in there. So that goes straight into my donation station when I see the hole, but I don't have quite the same issue where we've got all the same sock. So that is where I typically get my odd sock scenario from because I throw the one away with a hole. And then what happens is that I'll have the other one, that it's it's little partner. That will be an odd sock. And then I'll leave it for a little while we're going to talk about that in a minute, aren't we in terms of odd socks? What we're going to do with them? But yeah, I certainly think that is the time to tackle holy or threadbare socks when they come out of the laundry.

Ingrid  17:53  
So do you when you declutter shops with clients? How do you do that? Do you take them all out? Or do you do it person by person? Or do you just look at the OT sock mountain? Or what what happens there? How would you tackle it?

Lesley  18:09  
I think that's a really interesting question. And good. And I think it very much depends on the client and the magnitude of the problem. And I as you have have come across huge sock problems in some clients houses who tend to be quite cluttered. And so I have used we used it, you know, as, as professional organisers, we use different strategies with different clients depending on what is suitable. But I have used the strategy many times with socks, where I tell them to gather every single sock from every single location in the house that exists, Pile them all together on a bed or on a floor, so that the client can see how big of a problem that is, and how to be honest with you ridiculous, the amount of socks is and that it needs to be tackled. And then we've gone through the process of saying, How many is a reasonable amount of socks for you in your scenario per person. Let's think about hiking socks, and ski and socks and sports socks and dressy socks and black socks and ankle socks and trainer socks and all of those things that we need to take into consideration what is cumulatively collectively then a sensible amount. And then we've started in the pair in which you know, I have done a whole five hour session with one client just on socks. That's how big of a problem it can be. And this is something that needs to be tackled, isn't it? So I definitely have if you've got a big problem, you need to confront yourself with the amounts that you've that you've got. So I've definitely used that strategy or I might go drawer by drawer. It just depends but don't be scared of confronting yourself with your volumes.

Ingrid  19:46  
You know what, it was very funny Lesley when we were talking about sorting out socks, it felt like it's like an SOS it's a cry for help. And he's like as always helped me with my socks. And then I was thinking hmm, we are using This acronym is well I'm gonna be clutter hub because we've got sorted out sentimental, haven't we? It's also an SOS and it just gave me a bit of a giggle. So in case you're thinking, what is sorting out sentimental? That is our sentimental course, isn't it? Lesley

Lesley  20:14  
once we work that out our SOS acronym we quite liked it, didn't we? So we're gonna, I feel like we were just going to genuinely look for anything that needs to clutter. And that begins with S, so we can continue to continue to use it. But for now we have sorting out socks as our podcast, then we have sorted out sentimental, which is our sentimental course. So I sentimental course is quite new. It is designed specifically for those of you those amongst you who feel that, you know, most of your house is kind of in control. You know, you don't have a huge problem on your Oh, you're just chipping away at it listening to our podcasts. And it gives you enough to go ahead and tackle small areas and keep control. But you have a real stumbling block when it comes to sentimental items, because you just can't find a way to work through those emotions with your sentimental stuff. And this is a lot of people out there that just are fine, generally. But sentimental stuff is just a complete different ballgame. So for you, we have devised our sentimental course, it's available in our membership to all our members, but it's also available as a standalone course. So go check it out. It's got 16 categories of sentimental items. It's got videos from Ingrid and I we work through all those emotions. And it's all designed to get you to a point of enjoying your sentimental items because you've got the right volumes of them, and you can use them in an appropriate way. So check it out sorted out sentimental course you'll find it in our learn with us section on Declutter. hub.com. Or you can just send Ingrid an email to support at declutter hub.com and will tell you everything that you need to know.

Ingrid  21:51  
So, really in so sorting out socks, do you think kids could help when you're decluttering? Socks? So if you're

Lesley  22:00  
Yes, yes, yes, yes. And more? Yes. What is the perfect project for kids? You know, and it teaches them volumes, it teaches them decluttering and it teaches them organisation. And it's a simple project that can while away many hours, definitely get your kids involved from a very young age, I would say,

Ingrid  22:22  
you know, it's exactly what you're saying. You can do counting extra to in the very little you can do together you can do counting, you can do colours, what's this colour was that colour you can look at look at how Big Daddy's feet are? Or how small your feet are. Look at your socks. It is really good job to get them involved, isn't it?

Lesley  22:40  
Definitely, yeah, definitely get the kids involved. I am that one of the clients that I work for has got six children. And so she did have a sock, a sock issue I was sent me you know, with six children, you're going to have to have a lot of socks anywhere. But that was quite the sock mountain that we got her family involved in sorting out. But they found that a lot of fun.

Ingrid  23:00  
What up because I was thinking we were thinking about larger families weren't we, what you could do is just give every person their own colour. That is an option, you don't have to think you either have to go, we're all wearing black, we just have them in different sizes. Or let's assign a different colour of shock to each person or just go you've got wide, you've got grey, you've got black, you've got red, just to kind of keep control of that system. So that could also be an option, couldn't it?

Lesley  23:32  
It could be an option. But the problem that we normally find with that kind of thing is that involves going back to first principles and starting from scratch. And not a lot of people want to discard all of what's gone before and start from scratch. Because that feels then wasteful, doesn't it? But if you can gradually build up to that that's possible as well. It's really hard. Honestly, it's a really hard thing to get right, isn't it? Because it involves so much organisation to get the system, right?

Ingrid  24:00  
Yeah, it's all the steps in laundry as well, isn't it? I mean, laundry is already so many steps and socks are a part of that. And because it's small, they kind of seem to disappear. And nobody knows where they are. And it's like, how did it end up with a whole random shock mountain if possible. Where did these guys disappear to It's so strange.

Lesley  24:22  
So reason is the reason this thing good is because we don't behave with our socks the same as we do with the rest of our clothes. You know, we're not going to strip off in the lounge in an evening. But we might take our socks off if we were curling up on the sofa. So the place that we take our socks off is it could be anywhere it can be if you're sitting at your office desk, it could be if you're sitting on the sofa if you can get being you know, there's loads of places and so lots of random places and they and there's a lot of socks if you were even if you just wear one pair of socks a day, that's 14 SOCKS purpose and per week. That's a lot of items to deal with.

Ingrid  24:55  
Yeah, good point. So let's talk a little bit more than about kind of organisation. So where do you keep your socks Do you have like, like one of my clients in our hallway, she's got a lot of shoes, she's got some sort of big cupboard with shoes. And she's got drawers where a lot of the socks live. Now I don't have room in my house to have that. So I actually have a bedside table with two drawers. And one of the drawers is my sock drawer. So how does it work in your house? Then where do you where do you? Where do you guys keep all their socks? Yeah, so we definitely

Lesley  25:29  
try and have socks in their own drawer, I do have I've got quite a wide drawers. So I have socks at one side and have tights and the other side. So I do have both together, I try and keep my socks to a minimum, and try and keep the kids socks to a minimum as well. But I think the organisation in terms of the socks for me has changed over the years. So as you as you guys all know, my kids are kind of grown up some of the common and go in. I've got two sons, a daughter, a husband, some more boys and girls, if that makes sense. But what I realised, you know, as the kids were growing up, and as Nathan was little, you know, Nathan was seven and Luke was 14, it was very easy for me to see. Nathan Starks as opposed to Luke sucks, if that makes sense. And also the style of Luke's socks at 14 would be different to the style of Steve socks as an adult. But as the kids have grown up, and Nathan is now 18, Luke is 25 and Steve's and grown man, then they're kind of wearing the same kind of socks. And so now what I do when I take stuff out the laundry, you know, I have this kind of copy system where I take the stuff out of the dryer or out of the laundry, when it's dry, and I give that I put it all in their own drawer, and then they take it back to their rooms. What I do is I put all of the socks together of the boys then and then need to grab their own socks because I don't know who stalks his who, why would I need to know whose socks belong to who Life's too short for that. You're all grown people, sort your own socks, our pair them up, I'll put them all together. And when you come and get the rest of your laundry, you pull out of that top drawer, your socks, because otherwise it's like they're not my socks. Mom. They're not mine. They're Luke's like what, you know, I'm not like some kind of mind reader that who knows everybody's you know, even though you think that I should have not got a handle on 70 pairs of socks and who they belong to, you know,

Ingrid  27:19  
Yeah, true. True. And it makes me think because what you're saying you've got wide drawers, you've got your tights there as well. I have small drawers. So I've got one drawer for my socks. And I've got another drawer where I keep my tights and those three pairs of sporty socks that I've never used, as you now has told have told me but everybody on the podcast, and my ski socks or with my ski gear so they're completely separate. The kids just have a baskets or a I think even one of them as a shoebox or something or a basket where they're where their socks are in in their wardrobes because they don't have really drawer. So it's just a basket in their wardrobe. And that works really well as well. So you need to think about it. Where do you want to put your socks on what makes sense, I like to have my socks ready. As soon as I get dressed in the morning, I want to grab on the way I want to grab socks, I want to have everything together. I don't want to walk downstairs to grab a pair of socks. That's not in my routine. But you need to think about what works for you. Now, next question. And lastly, the million dollar question. Rolling or folding. As you

Lesley  28:28  
know, I'm not actually that meticulous of a person, we all know this, don't we? So I'm not really I like to do things that are easy. I pull them up in a very random way. I'm better when when I go to a client who is meticulous, obviously I have to be nice. So you know, so I, I probably do better work at my clients than I do at my house where I just throw them into a bowl and chuck them in the thing and it's fine. But when I'm with a client I fold nicely if that's what the client does, and I think different, you know, I am perfectly able and capable of folding and or rolling sock in a very nice orderly way. But I don't choose to do that for myself because it's just not what makes me tick at home. And so, I am a baller. I would say I will call myself a baller. Yeah, it's that's the thing. Yeah.

Ingrid  29:12  
Yeah, yeah, for sure I do the same. I'm like, I think it's just because my mom did it that way. And I just wrote, you know, from the Tosa Roll Up we go move them over and then it's a bowl and it just put them in the drawer done. And as sometimes the ones that are in the back and move forward a bit and chuck the ones who've just come out of the laundry in the back. So you get a little bit of a first in first out system but I'm definitely not meticulous about it. With one of my other clients. She had a wide drawer she wanted to have one of those kinds of things that you can put in a drawer that you get all these little holes and she wants to have a pair of socks in each hole because she liked it that way and it was brilliant. And we put tights in as well and she had a really nice wide drawers so it was perfectly to do in that way. And she wanted to do that but That doesn't work for me either. Interesting.

Lesley  30:02  
I think it's, I think it always makes me laugh when people talk about, you know, rolling sucks. It reminds me of when Marie Kondo wrote her book and had her TV programme out a couple of years ago. And it was all about, you've got to be really kind to your socks are lost because they've got feelings. You see, that's the kind of thing I'm like, no, that's just not know, the song doesn't have a feeling and thanking your socks for their use during the day. That kind of thing just doesn't work for me, but I can understand. You know, I understand that that works for some people. And some people want to really protect some some people might have beautiful cashmere socks that cost 20 or 30 pounds. You know, I'm at Sainsbury's for 99 P, do you know what I mean? So my socks are fine. And they last as long as they last them, and they're ours. And so it just depends on what makes you tick.

Ingrid  30:51  
True. Very good point. I mean, if you've got really expensive shorts, you probably watched him separately on and watch or they might have woollen them, you might want to really fold them over gently and take really good care of them. I'll tell you, if I would have a pair of socks, that was 30 pounds, that would take care of them too. I'm like you, I just get my socks at the local supermarket or at Primark or something and fine. They last as long as their last I found an exactly type that I really, really like. And they last for ages. And then at one point, I think, oh, I need to give me some new ones. And then the out the old ones go that have holes in our thing. And then I've got a new sets. It just depends on what you want. So let me ask you a next question. Because we talked about socks and holes in like donating. Can you actually I mean, I know the answer to this question. But I'm asking you to you. Can you actually donate socks?

Lesley  31:39  
Yes, you can. So of course you can. And you can donate socks with holes. And so this may be different depending on the charity shop up shop, thrift shop. And all of the other types of donation shops out there are right across the world that you know the name of. But here in the UK, under normal circumstances in normal times, our charity shops, most of them will accept things with holes, broken zips, all of those things, because what they do is they send them for something called ragging. And they get money for them as a kind of material volume, don't they? So they're quite happy to have socks with holes in a lot of charity shops are not worried if you took that in with the general stuff that you're sending. If you're being super kind, and you have a bag that you know is rags. Sometimes you can separate that out and just label it and tell them that it's all rags, so they don't have to sort through it. But yeah, I've always sent holey socks to charity shops, no problem, and I've never had anybody come back to me. And obviously I have a good relationship with the charity shops. So they're not like let's see what you can do in a socks with holes, you know?

Ingrid  32:43  
Yeah, I think the thing is really just please don't throw them in the bin. It's really not necessary here in the UK. Definitely donate them if you can. Now to wrap up this sock sorting out socks episode is like a tongue twister as well, isn't it? What do you do with like these random socks than Lesley? So you've paired them up, but there's always some that lose their buddy that lose their friend somewhere? Somehow? It gets lost? What what how when will tell me?

Lesley  33:17  
Well, I, again, I'm quite lucky because I've got a sorting area in my laundry room. So I will take things out, as I said, for some bizarre reason that no one will ever know. They were always odd socks around. Even though I've got quite tight controls on things. I give it about two weeks of them sitting in the old sock pile. And then they go into my donation station if they've not found their partner. Because my I know my laundry is in control. I know there's not laundry dirty laundry, tucked under sofas, or I still have no idea where the socks are no idea that will always remain a mystery. But I know that I'm not going to leave in that forever. No. So they go in the donation station.

Ingrid  34:00  
Yeah, at some point, I think you just have to kind of go right? We need to start a fresh year. I can't you know, even if there's loads of black socks, but there's they're all different. At some point you have to go, I'm just going to give this up unless you're like, I'm just going to pair them because I don't care that I my black socks don't match. But at some point they have got to go because it did just build up and build up. Now. Shall I tell you one sock trick Lesley before we close this podcast, this is my this might be something that nobody knows. Maybe there are people who know this.

Lesley  34:36  
I would love to know your little trick

Ingrid  34:39  
Ingrid. Now it's funny because I'm going to demonstrate this to you and the listener is going to have to listen very carefully.

Lesley  34:45  
Now I've got an idea. I've got an idea. Tell me Ingrid's insights, which we send out every week on our on our mailing list. You will do a demo this week. Of this. You're going to tell it about it now on the podcast. Watch this space if you're subscribed to our mailing list, and if you're not subscribed to our mailing list, why not? Because it's amazing. Every way you get Ingrid's insights, you get to know all of our challenges and our podcasts and everything like that. Let's do that. Ingrid, because this needs to be visual, but that's more likely to explain it to me as well. Okay, well, perfect. So

Ingrid  35:22  
a lot of people say but especially when there's kids in different ages, right? It's less of a problem with adults. But this is mainly a very good trick when you have kids. How do I know if my kids socks fit without them having to try them on. And I'm going to teach you what my mother told me. And I was, I had never even thought about it until somebody said this to me and said, I don't even know if the socks fit now when I have the perfect thing. So if you've got a kid you think I want to see their socks fit. Let them stand in front of you and hold out their hand. They're going to make a fist of their hand. And what you do, you wrap the shock from heel to toe, around the knuckles of the hand. And if the toe and the heel, touch each other, the sock fits. If there's like a whole gaping hole between the toe and the heel around the wrist, you know the sock is too small. Or if they overlap like enormously, you know the sock is far too big. And it has to be from another kid in your house.

Lesley  36:33  
Amazing trick. I feel like you might need to you know, Peyton that Sally as a newer thing. She can make some money out of that trick, Ingrid. I know my

Ingrid  36:43  
mother used to do that. And I just thought it was a ridiculous thing when I was young until somebody said, but I didn't know when to just use your hand your fist as you went, huh? What? And I'm like, yeah, let me do it. And she's like, I can't even believe it. And it's just so helpful. I think that's a great idea. I am going to make a video about this. It's going to be the shortest video ever. But it doesn't matter because I think it is super helpful. If you're struggling with sizes. Oh my goodness. Lesley. I think I think we're now finished talking about socks, aren't we? I mean, I

Lesley  37:13  
could. There's loads more things I could say. But I feel that I'm gonna stop now. Yeah, in the sorting out socks episode. Yeah, no, I

Ingrid  37:21  
think it's true. I think we could actually talk another half an hour about socks. So anyway, that's what his app that's it for this episode. listeners. We hope you've all enjoyed listening and are inspired to do a sock declutter when you come home. And thank you so much for taking the time to listen to us. Now if you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it with others. Maybe your friends or family would like to know our sock trick to you think I have a cool thing that I want to share with you. So on the show notes page on our website, you can find all the sharing buttons. And if you'd like to get more handy tips and advice from Lesley and I, you can find us in Facebook on the Facebook page to declutter hub or in our Facebook group that declutter hub community, and we'd love to see you there. And you can also find us on Instagram, as at declutter hub. If you'd like to know more about our sorting out sentimental, please go to declutter hub.com And check out learn with us and you will see all the details there. If you don't want to miss our next podcast, subscribe to the declutter hub podcast and we'll come at your notifications each Friday. So thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Outro  38:34  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the declutter hub podcast. Check out declutterhub.com for more inspiration, and don't forget to tune in next week.
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