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.
> 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 close to population centers will be more expensive than a plain one, more remote, and/or not by a water body.
>It's completely normal even among working class to own a summer house by a lake.
Just want to understand, by normal do you mean less than 1/5 Finnish households? Going by the source below, I don't know if I'm missing something but it does not seem to be normal?
By "normal" I mean that it's .. normal, not exceptional. Nobody will bat an eyelid if you tell about your summer cottage. It's not some rare privilege.
Many summer houses have shared ownership with a wider family. Say, your parents got one and now you own it with your siblings, each getting their own time there or agreeing when to visit together.
Even when you don't own one, you will very likely have participated in the summer house culture. It's very much part of the mainstream culture like sauna is. Maybe you visit your relatives' place, or you may opt to rent a place for a week.
Personally I feel renting is the best option as you can visit different places each year and avoid the maintenance burden -- and they obviously need active maintenance. But some do prefer a familiar place where they can spend all their holidays, and in some cases all weekends too on top.
According to the same link you shared, enough people own second homes that 61% of the population has access to a friend or relatives home. That feels pretty normalized (compared to here in the US, where I live in a high-income area and only know one person with a second home (and it's a permanent tent))
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.
I’m more surprised by the seemingly lack of longevity of what he buys than by the costs.
442 euros is two pairs of dress shoes or one pair of good boots. I don’t think you can buy anything other than sneakers for £50.
My own dresser is not that far removed from his regarding to its content (I have far less blazers, don’t wear hoodies and have more suits) but I think I cycle each piece far less than he does because my annual closing budget is probably less than half his despite per unit costs in the same range.
But to be honest it’s not hard to blow though 3000€ of clothing if you replace a lot at the same time. An ok suit costs around 500€. You can double that easily if you want something fancy and you need at least three if you wear them daily. A coat will set you back between 200€ and 500€ depending of the material. A shirt is 70€-80€, dress shoes 250€. Throw in some accessories like belts or god forbids a watch and you are there. It adds up quite fast.
Agreed. High quality dress shoes and boots are very repairable. And men’s shoe fashion changes very slowly. A good pair can easily last a decade with good care. Modern sneakers are another story though.
It depends how much walking / hiking / running / whatever else you do.
A typical pair of running shoes lasts somewhere around 300-500 miles. (You could probably stretch a pair further than that, but you run much higher risk of injury once the cushioning wears down.)
If you put in a modest 5 miles a day and have two pairs in rotation, then expect to replace both pairs every 6 months (if not more often). It is not uncommon for semi-serious runners to spend $100+ on each pair of shoes. From that perspective, $500/year doesn't seem that outrageous.
I thought this, but even with efforts into my running technique I wasn't able to get rid of my knee pain until I tried Hokas. I've done all the "normie" stuff a casual would come across on youtube, do you have other tips on what I might be doing wrong or could do to get off the "cushion crutch"?
In regular training shoes I can barely run a mile without getting some pretty bad pains in the side of my knee. With good cushioned running shoes I can easily do 10-12 miles pain free.
I'm assuming it's a form thing, and that the running shoes just somehow naturally give me a better form, so I could maybe fix by learning how to run in normal non-running shoes, but I'm lazy and would rather just pay a few hundred every few months.
If it is a form thing, it might be that the running shoes naturally encourage a poor form (a form that only works with them, vs a presumably more 'natural' form of running closer to barefoot).
Doesn't matter. The main thing is you are out and running. And if that "costs" a few hundred every few months, and if you can afford it, why not?
Counterpoint: I've run 7 marathons in 7 consecutive days, whilst wearing some low-profile altras, and after the mid-way, I was switching to more cushier ones.
I'm not disputing that cushioning "feels" comfortable. So does Vicodin.
But if cushioned shoes work well for you, I wouldn't expect you to change anything. Invest in HOKA.
My audience is all the runners who have problems, and keep turning up the dial on cushioning, orthotics, etc. ... before finally giving up on running by their forties. Or they run on NSAIDs and trash their kidneys.
I understand your fascination with barefoot training, but it is a bit extremist. I too have tried VFFs and other barefoot shoes (I competed in a deadlift competition once, wearing merrell minumus), and do a lot of gym stuff without shoes, and there are pros and cons to the approach.
If there's one thing barefoot running does emphasis though, is improvements in foot strike. If you can carry that over to more cushioned shoes I believe that to be a win-win, versus a dogmatic view of barefoot or nothing.
I wear boat shoes daily, they're essentially a flat piece of rubber. Gives me the sensation of being "half barefoot" (things don't hurt but I feel every little piece of gravel and crevasse I walk on.
I'm also 78kg so I don't know if anything I wear or don't wear on my feet really matters, but it feels good and they last for ages since it's just suede/leather stitched down into rubber.
I could be biased, but I like the book Run Barefoot Run Healthy. Also Barefoot Ken Bob's book and website.
There isn't much to learn - it's mainly a question of unlearning bad habits picked up through a lifetime of wearing unnatural built-up shoes, plus allowing the feet to slowly strengthen. If an able-bodied person spent a lifetime using crutches, the adaption to walking freely would take some time.
For inspiration, google: barefoot romero caltech saxton
There isn't much to learn if you have proper (or at least bilaterally symmetric) range of motion in your muscles and joints. If, instead, you have long-term injuries, tissue damage, etc., that have led to patterns of movement that are causing degeneration and inefficient patterns of movement, then you basically need to learn how to fix those problems, then relearn to walk. There are complex sequences of neuromuscular cues that healthy people possess but don't think about consciously, just like the ability to recognize objects. I needed to learn a LOT about walking and running in every sense of the word, in addition to slowly gaining foot strength. It would not have happened if I had taken a passive approach. It was more like programming a computer to recognize objects from scratch in R or C (whichever you believe to be the pirate's favorite programming language...).
Honestly, I don't remember it being a problem when I was younger, but after taking a few years off and getting back to it, it's been an issue.
I wasn't having much luck finding the cause until a coworker recommended new shoes. Since then I haven't had a problem. I know it doesn't make sense, people ran barefoot for millenium, but for me it's been worth it.
Do you use a zero drop shoe, barefoot style shoe, or run truly barefoot? I have noticed that I have been cranking up the cushioning as I have increased my mileage, but I also have found that my favorite sandals are zero drop Bedrocks.
Another vote for Bedrocks, I had put maybe 1000 walking/hiking miles on mine before I had to glue the soles back together last week. They're the only shoes I've bought retail in the last decade, the others are all thrift store purchases. I suspect that I would want some cushioning if I were a distance runner.
Yeah, I’ll use regular sneakers until the soles fall off, but I’ve realized that with running shoes you can either take the pain in your wallet or in your feet. A hundred bucks every few months is better than not being able to move.
"Feet" doesn't cover it. "Body" is more appropriate.
Running with poor quality shoes unduly stresses your knees, hips, and lower back. Over time, this is likely to develop chronic pain, or bursitis, or other problems that can lead to long-term mobility issues.
If you're going to run regularly, you should find a way to either afford the propert shoes in good repair, or learn to run barefoot
Indeed. “Feet” was just a more pithy way of putting it. I started buying my favorite shoes no matter the sale price when my lower-quality shoes started affecting my knees, shins, and back.
I did this when I lived within 20 minutes of a long stretch of sandy beach. Would also work in an area with grass or soft soil. But now that my runs are all either poorly-maintained pavement or rocky, gravely trails, barefoot is simply not feasible.
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)
Yep, it wouldn't make sense for me to do this tracking either. It would just show me wearing one pair until it has holes in the soles. But I do acknowledge there are lots of people who are more enthusiastic about shoes than I am.
There are also plenty of people who avoid wearing the same pair two days in a row, because bacteria build up, cause foot odor, and degrade the lining of the shoe
My parents have this marvelous talent for dressing down, as casual as possible, even at church; they never go to formal events or dressy galas; my father never wears a suit or ties a tie, he lives in sweatshirts and short-sleeved polos at best. Mom surprises me sometimes at Christmas, when she dons a skirt!
They also revel in drab, shabby clothing. It's respectable, but the colors are muted, the styles are ordinary, and there are no designer labels. Mom washes everything over and over and over. The garments become threadbare, faded, but very very clean and presentable.
This belies their means and middle-class existence, and that's very Franciscan of them. Unfortunately, they raised a kid who could never settle for that.
Going to church, our pastor required a strict dress code for ministers, and so I worked tirelessly to live up to that, improve my hygiene and appearance, and cultivate some interest in men's couture, to the point of subscribing to some YouTube channels. I purchased a brand-new tuxedo in 2015. I amassed a collection of ties, some retail and some thrifty ones. I have a black 3-piece suit for funerals, if I lose weight (especially my own funeral.) Etc.
I also found that dressing appropriately for every other occasion was critical. So I doffed my shabby imprinted tee-shirts, and put some intentionality into my wardrobe.
I donated all kinds of stuff to thrift stores. I hope they were happy with very clean men's clothing in excellent condition. Once, I lost about 90 pounds and donated all the "fat clothes", which was a fatal error when I gained it 100 pounds back.
Even while donating some garments, I also destroyed some that were inappropriate or humiliating, that others had given me, that did not fit my personality. I applied intentionality to the very brands of underwear and outerwear and I went through about 3 cycles of destroying the old stuff, before I was satisfied and comfortable with the logos I was putting on. (I mostly converged on Gildan, Columbia, New Balance and Adidas, in case you're wondering.)
I've also been accessorizing with hats, gloves, bags. I really like having clean, pressed neat clothing to wear. Unfortunately, all this upscaling has gotten noticed. People on the streets and on the bus will notice rich guys in a hot minute. So now I get panhandled, and I get verbally abused, and I get disrespected at every turn, because I must be a privileged rich white cis-hetero man.
It's quite sad. I sort of want to rebuild an inventory of shabby, wrinkled, torn clothing that I can wear and go slumming. It wouldn't fool anyone, though.
I guess it depends on the usage. A pair of La Sportiva G2 SMs is about $1000, and over a 3 week expedition, let's say I wear those 10 of the days (I wouldn't wear double boots all the time), so that's $10/toe ($1000/10 days/10 toes).
I think $10/toe/year is worth more than whatever I can buy for $30 for a pair of somethings, that can keep my feet warm, allow me to wear crampons, and kick steps.
(ok ok, some of you will say if I lose all my toes, I wouldn't have to worry anymore, but hey, I like my toes!)
It is good to have different people in the world. The article starts with "Have you ever wondered whether expensive clothes are worth their price?" I have never wondered that, no. I'm 49 years old and I'm not sure I have ever purchased an expensive clothe.
I have, however, wondered whether an expensive screwdriver is worth its price, but I have not collected the data to support my Wiha habit.
You would know if you had purchased expensive clothes before. Due to autoimmune issues and a change of diet, I lost a lot of weight and could not afford retail clothes. I found a $300-retail shirt for ~$5 at a thrift in LA, and because my skin had become more sensitive, I noticed a huge difference compared to the cheap dress shirts that I had worn before. It's even more dramatic with nice wool. Perhaps an equivalent question is whether air conditioning is worth the price. Yes, if you can afford it, and it's not even close. And don't even get me started on knives...
You may be interested in the youtube channel Project Farm then - I don't know if he's specifically tested Wiha screwdrivers, but Wiha performed well in his recent pliers test video[0].
> 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!
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!
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...
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 decent pair of shoes, one set of nice clothes, a jacket, pants, and underwear. 350€ to get that stuff for ten years still sounds very tight but maybe possible.
Exactly, it's very difficult to keep the average so low.
Not impossible, I'm sure I've done it in some of my broke Eastern European years, but most people probably spend more than that on socks and underpants.
> 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.
This is mostly my style. Actually, I can keep using things well after they develop holes. The shirt I'm wearing right now has four different holes developing around one of the wrist cuffs. I'd believe $60 / year for replacement-level clothing. $3.50 / year isn't enough to replace things that develop holes.
I spend maybe $300 in a year on clothing. I ship at Goodwill and other thrift shops. I cannot imagine spending that much annually just on clothing. Would feel like such a chump.
I will buy new running shoes... And hiking boots if needed but even then I wait until I can get 40%-50% off. My last Keen boots were 55% off. My last Brooks running shoes 40% off.
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.
It's more than I spend, but you're on a tech forum full of nerdy engineers -- gaming rigs and their upgrades, hot new phones and laptops, travel, collectibles, legos, shop tools and materials, music gear, sporting and camping gear, etc each burn through that kind of budget real quick.
And nobody would call out that kind of spend were it for one of those.
Yes I would, anyone spending this kind of money regularly is a rube. Most of the shit you mentioned are up front one time costs with a minimal maintenance requirement. Anyone who is paying several grand to upkeep this stuff is an idiot and deserves to be parted with their money.
Is it? Lots of big-city gyms have memberships of $200/month or more. That's $2400 right there before you get into equipment, clothing, 1:1 coaching, sports massage, perhaps competitions, potentially travel.
(And I'm not even talking about big-ticket sports like golf, horse-riding, racing cars, etc.)
If you’re into an individual sport and you have private lessons, which are more common than you’d think, you’ll easily blow thousands of dollars per year just for half an hour or an hour per week. Almost anyone who is beyond a fairly recreational level in tennis, martial arts or fencing will be spending thousands per year.
On the other hand, 3.9k per year is a massive amount of money to spend on cheaper hobbies like hiking or painting.
It also depends a lot where you live, HN is very US centric and is full of people who are earning big money at tech companies there.
Painting can be quite an expensive hobby. Maybe not 3.9k per year expensive, but still, I'm sure I've spent more than $1k in the last 12 months. It starts cheap, but the cheap materials tend to be shite. There's always savings to be made, but they often cost time over money.
> 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.
It adds up fast.
Last year a single 2 week roadtrip on my motorcycle easily racked up around $5000 in total cost between needing new touring gear, new set of tyres, motels, etc. I have worn the touring gear once or twice since then but haven’t had a chance for any more big trips. The tyres I keep using of course.
This year a single maintenance visit came out to $2k. Just parking for my bike costs $1200/year.
Until recently when I started commuting again, my bike was purely a hobby. You could argue it’s still a hobby because I could totally BART/CalTrain to work if I hated myself enough. (it’s 60% faster by bike)
I think a lot of people on HN either aren’t honest with themselves how much hobbies cost, live in low COL areas, or both.
The awkward question is how many hours would you have to work to make $325. Because at minimum wage, that's 20. For others, that's ten, and for others, that's one. For a billionaire, they're making that much, passively, in minutes. $325/month for a hobby which gives joy, and meaning, and makes life worth living, vs rent?
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.
This is a pretty extreme form of neutral stance. Yes, it's subjective. One man's day out is another man's salary. But it's not so utterly boundless that it's noteworthy to point out that most people probably consider thousands every year on a hobby to be an "expensive hobby".
It's pretty incredible that several grand a year per year is not considered absolutely insane amounts of spend on fucking FASHION. I guess I'm not the audience for HN since everyone here seems to be insanely rich.
You hardly have to be rich to spend $300 a month on fashion, you just have to be not poor, and have it as a priority. Just because fashion isn't a priority to you doesn't mean it's the same for everyone. The same people that spend $500 a month on clothes might think buying a TV for more than $300 is unthinkable. Priorities differ.
The cues you’re picking up on here are completely incorrect. This doesn’t require you to be rich.
In fact, I would consider his wardrobe to only be small/medium sized for someone into fashion.
I’ve spent >35k USD on my wardrobe in the last ~3 years and it feels medium/large sized:
- 2 suits
- ~10 pairs of pants
- ~30 dress shirts
- ~10 knitwear pieces
- ~8 jackets
- 2 pairs of jeans
- ~15 pairs of shoes
- 2 pairs of shorts
- ~10 ties
- Plus a bunch of casual t-shirts (Mostly long-sleeve)
This is only my current wardrobe, not everything I’ve bought.
Why have I spent so much money on these things? Because I had disposable income, I like fashion and I care very much about the quality of my clothes.
Per year spend also feels misleading. I have a big enough wardrobe now that I don’t really feel like I need more. It also means I can rotate stuff very frequently, so nothing will wear out quickly.
My spending is definitely down this year, and will be down even more next year.
Good outwear is super expensive but also the most durable items. Knitwear is also expensive, but can last a long time if you take care of it.
Exactly this if it’s something you enjoy, you can easily spend magnitudes more money than you “need to” - for example I know a number of people who have spent more on power tools than many professional contractors will spend in their lives. They enjoy collecting tools they enjoy having them and they enjoy being ready for anything even if they never really use them. If you have the money and you can afford it and it’s something you enjoy who is it really hurting?
IMO most HN users, regardless of country, earn enough that they should be able to clothe themselves without relying on dubious labour or uncomfortable, stinky synthetics that will outlast them by centuries. I've started turning down 'free' conference t-shirts: I already have enough to wear for gardening or to use as rags.
Not that OP is actually doing this. They're spending a lot of money because they're buying a lot of mass produced crap. The 'luxury' of those low cost-per-wear Converse is a flat insole that will put a podiatrist's children through school and a glued outsole that fails early and predictably. And then they have 5 other white sneakers doing the same job in their wardrobe. They could have spent less overall and got even better CPW from resolable, calf leather white sneakers.
I know this isn't the point of your comment and that a pair of Converse aren't an ergonomic marvel, but I do a lot of bushwalking and I prefer not to have prominent arch support in shoes and boots. I've found that it tends to interfere with the plantar fascia.
A lot of cheaper boots have these huge foam wedges that ram into your arch. I've got a pair of Keen boots that cause crippling pain after about 5km that I should throw out, and a pair of Merrell walking shoes that are only comfortable because I swapped the insole. Meanwhile, more expensive boots have limited arch support that's less intrusive.
While it depends on foot shape, I'd rather walk longer distances in a shitty pair of Converse than an equally shitty pair of shoes which advertise arch support.
It does mean doing your own research and asking yourself what you value in clothing. The sneakers I had in mind while writing this were Thursday Boots' Premier. I haven't worn them - I don't really like white shoes - but I know about them from a(n independent) Youtube channel called Rose Anvil, who review shoes and boots from a construction and material POV. This type of simple white sneaker is available from a lot of suppliers. Thursday are at the cheaper end and most HN users will be able to find a domestic or customs-free manufacturer if they value that.
There are other Youtubers who take a similar approach to basics like jeans and t-shirts, or outerwear. Reddit is particularly good for jeans and leather footwear. Social media and fashion doesn't have to mean peer pressure and trend chasing: the values I'm advocating for aren't rare. An understandable distate for the fashion industry doesn't mean we should disengage and settle for clothes that feel bad and opt for false economy.
$95 USD for a nice dress shirt is cheap. $120-150 is normal, $170+ is expensive. I can't find dress shirts I like for $95 USD unless they're on sale for 30-40% off, and that's very rare.
Cheap shirts have terrible collars with no shape, poor cloth that doesn't drape properly or feel nice on your skin, shit buttons (Not MOP or even horn), paper thin plackets, usually boring or gauche fabrics/patterns, etc. The list goes on.
I understand this sounds insane to people who don't care about clothes, but these things matter to me. A shirt that lacks these things looks terrible to me.
I thought I didn't spend much either, but if I count shoes the scales tip a lot. I don't even wear 90% of them, I was mostly hunting for the "right" pair and it took a lot of trial and error.
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 instead, I suppose.
I've never had to buy so many clothes as after I moved to Europe, and they're never soft and fluffy anymore. It's like going back in time if you're used to North America.
My gas powered venting dryer in the US, while massively less efficient than my recirculating condenser electric dryer in Europe, seems to get way less hot and damages my clothing less.
I think there is just much less airflow in the efficient ones? Not sure. I’ve washed the identical make/model clothes many many times in both places, as I split my time between the two.
Do you have a reference for cleaning systems being harsh? Having moved countries I noticed many difference in: water hardness (will make your cloths stiffer), materials used (when you buy stuff), usage (car versus biking vs public transport), weather (some places is more rainy), washing habits (not everybody washes as often).
Overall my impression is that the quality of the clothes affects more their lasting chances than all the other aspects.
I wear the exact same outfit every day, and I have many identical copies of it, so I have a ton of experience with how it functions when cleaned differently.
> Also, for whatever reason, European clothes cleaning systems are insanely harsh, and your clothes don't last nearly as long when washed there.
Hmm. The blouse that's older than my 23 year old daughter would like a word with you. And I do wear it a lot in below 15 C weather. And I don't remember it having been particularly expensive.
Your mileage wrt to clothes just ... may vary if you ask me.
Hrm, every benchmark of top-loader machines vs modern front-loader machines I've ever seen has front-loaders doing far better in terms of limiting damage to clothes. I suppose it's possible that old-fashioned high-water-use _front-loaders_ are easier on clothes (are those still a thing in the US?)
> 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 instead, I suppose.
Wait, what? The one time I visited the US and had to use laundromats I could basically thrown away everything I’d worn on that trip because hose washing machines were so harsh.
Back home in Europe, my clothes last years and sometimes even decades.
I'm not sure whether you really spend so little on clothes, or have misunderstood the term 'order of magnitude'. If it were 3 orders of magnitude less you would be spending €3.50 on clothes per year. Even 2 orders less is €35, which I find doubtful a grown person can do (in America/Europe at least).
Did you actually mean that? As I'm surprised your socks/underwear don't cost at least €35 per year, eventually they get holes in them. Are you darning?
1 order of magnitude less means dividing a figure by 10. 3 orders of magnitude is diving it by 1,000.
> As I'm surprised your socks/underwear don't cost at least €35 per year, eventually they get holes in them. Are you darning?
I don't know if there's so much difference between countries in Europe but this year I spent about 6€ on socks at Decathlon and one pair of trousers on sale at JBC for about 10€. That's in Belgium, which is not the least expensive country of Europe. I'm not planning on buying anything else this year.
> As I'm surprised your socks/underwear don't cost at least €35 per year, eventually they get holes in them.
I figure holes in socks are heavily dependent on slipper use. I wear slippers 95% of the time indoors, and my regular-rotation socks that I wear every couple weeks seem to be lasting 15-20 years (so, say, 200-250 days/washes since I wear different socks seasonally) before their elastics fail.
The average is a bit of a weird number... e.g. I buy a couple weeks' worth of underwear at a time, and they last a decade or so. So 9 out of 10 years my cost is $0, but my yearly cost is in the $30 range.
edit: And as noted by another comenter, I hang dry my socks/underwear, which presumably contributes to longevity.
I've had years where I definitely spend less than £100 on clothing, and many years where I've spent almost £0 (I'm not counting running shoes here, or climbing shoes), those are kinda specialist, but day to day clothing definitely very very little.
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.
> The 90 euro Converse sneakers and the 30 euro Mywears have a similar CPW of 0.87 euros and 0.70 €, respectively. Their effective cost is roughly the same, which means that walking around in the cheap Mywears is roughly as expensive as walking around in Converses. In this case, money buys quality, at least when measured by durability.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the author spending a lot of money on clothes and replacing their clothes at a high velocity. If buying stuff makes you happy, buy stuff. I've certainly spent a lot of money on board games I don't play enough. Tracking the cost per use seems like a good way to control the habit.
But this paragraph makes it seem as if the author can't make themselves actually admit that's the reason, and need to find an excuse for it. No, sorry, cheap sneakers do not wear out after 43 uses or expensive ones after 104 uses. At that point I'd persinally be classifying them as indistinguishable from new. Like, at best the author got bored of them after that many uses.
Oh but there definitely are differences between cheap and expensive sneakers. The other thing is that some people might not notice them because they don't walk much, never getting to the sneaker "EOL", so to speak.
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.
Another thing Im doing is switching to 100% cotton (or just no plastic fibers). I love the breathability and light feel of cotton shirts.
> 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 shopping (and I'm prepared for a lot of frustration). Wish there was more of a cottage industry around homemade clothing!
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 grocery store in my life where this was possible.
Im sick of senseless plastic everywhere. My personal theory is our biggest sources of plastic ingestion is: clothing made of plastic slowly wearing away and inhaling treadwear from car tires on the road.
> 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.
That’s just called going to a tailor.
But honestly, if you just want coton clothes, that’s not hard to find. It’s just more expensive.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Some of the properties of synthetics are great, yeah, and I don't know to what extent I'll ever be able to get away from them for underwear and exercise gear, for those specific reasons.
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 outside in the rain require more calculus around how many days you will need to dry the clothes that got wet, so now you need to own overlap clothes for still-wearably-clean clothes too. Even worse, if you're in a cold environment then you likely can't keep wearing your wet clothes as they dry, because wet cotton loses insulation, making you feel much colder, so there's more incentive to change even before the end of the day.
Wool is a better option than cotton if you want "natural" fiber that is still wearable when wet, but that comes with the moral guilt and ecological impact of animal husbandry, so I'm not sure if it's better or worse than plastic, which at least is only made from animals and plants that died millions of years ago.
Personally I have chosen to keep cotton for underwear and tank tops for comfort, and also because I anyway own 7 of those so there is enough overlap for them to dry over the weekend when they get wet and I'm in a cold and/or humid climate. But for pants and shorts where I only own two of each (and only bring one of each when traveling) then polyester/nylon that can dry overnight in most any climate is more practical. Socks and long sleeves I've decided to go with wool despite the animal cruelty because it's the most practical. I only need a couple pairs of socks and a single long sleeve to get by in a warmer climate, and I have a polyester coat for colder climates.
It still feels a bit high impact, but as you say, most stuff lasts many years so I don't feel too bad about it when I see people buying more stuff than I have in my entire wardrobe on a single casual shopping trip.
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.
What brand are the jeans? When I think about my shirts, socks, and underwear, all of it lasts 4-6 years.. though my socks are 6 years old and I see no sign of needing to replace them any time soon.
However, I have a stack of jeans that all start coming apart in the same spot. I've started looking into how to mend jeans, as I'm sick of this being an issue. They are the most expensive thing I'm wearing (other than shoes) and seem to be the least durable. Though I do wear them 7x more often than the other articles, so I guess I should take that into account.
If that same spot is the crotch, they may just be too tight for you or hanging too low. But if it's because of poor construction, getting over the hump of a higher initial price and buying well made jeans like Iron Heart would save you money overall.
Consider 100% linen or a blend as well for hot summer days. I have a few short-sleeve linen shirts which are great for days over 28°C. Linen has a coarser weave than cotton, and breathes even better. It can handle sweat better too (dries faster when wearing).
I don't have a dryer, so all my clothes are hung to dry. Jeans tend to go in the seat first. I think I average eight years or so, wearing jeans most of the year.
People who pay up for a nice pair of selvedge jeans, such as the Levi's reproductions of early-mid 1900s denim, tend to wear the same pair every day, wear them into the shower if they're too dirty, and keep wearing them as they dry. That way, the fit conforms to your body over time, and the fabric develops a patina and becomes more comfortable with time. Modern mass-produced denim does not have this property. I own a drier that I don't use, and I am consistently amazed at how few people make the connection that the stuff in their lint trap at the end of the cycle is their clothes.
Wow. I buy one pair of jeans per year, I now have three pairs. This year I've bought exactly 2 t-shirts on vacation in Spain. I cannot imagine spending so much on clothing, that just seems.. overkill. Where do you put it all???
Maybe one thing is that price per item can vary a lot, eg a $50 coat isn’t going to take 60 times less space than a $3k coat so it’s possible to spend a lot more without using lots more space. That said, the author doesn’t seem to be buying wildly expensive items. I assume they get through with something like an ordinary sized wardrobe and chest of drawers, plus some kind of shoe storage near a door. And I guess they dispose of things that are unused or too worn.
I have one modest closet, one chest of drawers, and my wife has the same with a little more; shoes.. What struck me was that this was his clothing purchases in a single year. That's a lot of buying and disposing, which results in .. disasters like the mountain of discarded clothes you can see from space in the Chilean desert
I tracked the clothes I wear while cycling last fall and winter so I would know what to wear given the weather. I record temperature, humidity, windspeed, and level of sunshine. It’s been very useful. Even after years of outdoor biking, I still sometimes get fooled by a bright, dry, windy, 65 degree day and forget how chilly they can be, but my spreadsheet will remind me.
Clothes washers (and dryers, if they are used) seem to destroy clothing in Europe much faster than they do in North America. I'm not 100% sure why that is.
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.
This is such a fun way of visualising your everyday life. Of course, being data-driven may not always be the right answer for everything, but it will at least help you make more conscious decisions.
I can guarantee I have a blazer or two in my wardrobe with a much higher Cost Per Wear than the author's ones due to lack of use.
Scrolling through this thread, I feel like I am the only one who experienced a web page where the CSS gave me a blank rectangle on the left side, with all the content smushed narrowly to the right.
Happened to me too and was wondering whether this was on purpose or not. Figured out the blog template is probably broken. Two column layout, both equal width on 100% container... That can't go well...
I did the same thing, tracking my outfits for years, and finally decided to build an app that automatically organizes wardrobe from your photos to make it easier. Check it out if you're interested: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sparkly-personal-stylist-ai/id...
I logged in after reading this to provide the answer to the question after reading. “Nerd”. It’s glorious, I wish I could maintain the same level of consistency as this guy did in collecting this data.
> Someone once said their goal is to have a wardrobe with nothing but favorite clothes. That makes sense not only from a value perspective, but in light of my data, that may also be the best alternative in terms of cost performance.
My clothes-buying strategy has settled on "if it doesn't look great on me in the fitting room then it doesn't come home with me". Which is pretty similar. You can still end up with things that rarely get worn for other reasons but it's a good filter.
> 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.
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.
> If consumers are dumb enough to buy such machines, then that's what they should get.
In some markets they don't have much of a choice. I want a dumb TV, but good luck finding one without looking into digital signage, where it might not have built in speakers. The costs start rising extremely quickly to buy based on principle.
> inkjets have a slightly lower initial price
Most people shop on price. But it's not just the initial price, it's also the toner. I just looked up a color laser printer vs inkjet. 2 random ones near the top of Amazon's results.
Laser: $249 + $155 for more toner (Brother printer and toner)
InkJet: $199 + $22 for more ink (Epson ecotank with generic ink)
Or.. InkJet: $70 + $35 for more ink (HP printer with HP ink)
People are going to see this and think they can by a new printer for the price of just getting new toner for the laser.
The key, as I'm sure you know, is the yield on the laser refill is 3,000 sheets vs the HP's ~100 sheets. But the ink on the ecotank refill is claiming 7,500 sheets. So do they want to pay $155 for 3,000 or $22 for 7,500?
It's not so cut and dry and very few people care enough about printers to look that closely into it. They are busy with other stuff.
>It's not so cut and dry and very few people care enough about printers to look that closely into it. They are busy with other stuff.
The problem I've seen is that, even when you try to tell these not-so-knowledgeable people about this stuff and point out how they can save money with better choices, they really don't want to hear it.
>But the ink on the ecotank refill is claiming 7,500 sheets. So do they want to pay $155 for 3,000 or $22 for 7,500?
That's not what they're buying though: they're buying the HP, not the ecotank printer.
>In some markets they don't have much of a choice. I want a dumb TV
This is true: your choices are shaped by the choices of all the other consumers, because the whole reason you can buy a huge 65" TV for $750 and not $75,000 is because of massive quantities of scale. Mfgrs can only offer so many different models cost-effectively, so they make stuff that consumers will buy. Given a choice between a smart TV that lets them watch Netflix/YouTube without any extra hardware at all, or a dumb TV that doesn't and needs an additional device (and remote control), and similar prices for the two (thanks to the mfgrs getting subsidies from advertisers on the smart TVs), 99% of the consumers are going to pick the smart TV.
At least with laser printers, there's enough consumers out there who demand home/small office laser printers that there's plenty of choices for them, and consumer-friendly prices. But there's still tons of people who go for the $70 POS HP with absurdly-priced 100-page refills.
The digital signage devices probably suck for watching movies too, if you care at all about color accuracy. Those devices aren't meant for watching 4k movies at home for a few hours per day, they're meant for displaying public information in public areas with possibly bright (or even natural) lighting, and doing so 24x7.
Tracking all this data is pointless. How many clothes can you buy if you put that energy into making money instead? Buy what you like and what you intuitively know is working well for you. As for the analysis, the prices are subject to random inflation, and the actual wear and tear is highly variable. Even the quality of the same product bought years apart can be different enough to mess up the analysis.
> Buy what you like and what you intuitively know is working well for you.
Nearly every time I actually look at the data for something, I'm surprised by at least one result. Our intuition is often swayed by our emotion.
Sometimes people do things just because they find it interesting. Hobbies and projects are good. They don't all have to be "productive" in the traditional sense. And until the data is in, it's impossible to know how productive it might be.
>And until the data is in, it's impossible to know how productive it might be.
If you know how much you spend on clothes, you do have a cap on how much you can save. If that number is not huge, and the results non-obvious, then you really can conclude that it's a waste of time. Moreover, if you have lived a long time and experienced a variety of different clothes already, the data is likely to just confirm what you thought was obvious.
If you are in the business of making clothes, then the situation is different. You may be trying to optimize a design and thus experiments in your own life could be helpful. But even then, a lot of things are pretty obvious.
I can appreciate that he put the analysis out but you can bet that he didn't do it to help other people. He did it to portray himself in a certain light. As I said there are many reasons why this is not helpful. Those are the thoughts that the blog post provoked in my mind, and I am one to geek out on the arcane sometimes too.
I didn't say I was the keeper of his time or that he's smoking weed and playing games daily, or that he should. I don't smoke weed or play games either. I'm just saying he should put all that energy into something better.
20 to 25 uses for an undershirt seems terrible. Once per week for church and it is worn out in 6 months. Heaven forbid you dress formally for work and it is gone after a month of use…? (spread out by the other shirts in the inventory, but still.)
An average of 102 USD for a pair of shorts¹ is something else though, and like other people in the thread note, … Larry, I'm on DuckTales. (171 USD, real / pair of shoes.) (Board member/CEO/VP/etc., if you're curious what profession gets one such a lifestyle.)
I … I struggle to find enough time in my life to keep the fuel efficiency spreadsheet for my car up to date. (Though even that did reveal some findings: we get better fuel economy when the bike rack isn't attached. Not a terribly surprising conclusion, and the difference really wasn't that great.) I'd like to have this for some things in my life, … but it's never clear whether it's worth it.
Especially for clothing. This tells you post facto whether a purchasing decision was good, or not. What good does that do me…? Unless it is something I'll purchase again, but I feel like for clothing that is rare to begin with, and even where I do, it's dominated by more mundane filters like "is there even another supplier that I know of in this area?" Shoes³ are a good example: most stores' stock is so utterly pathetic that the answer is "the store has exactly 1 pair in your size" (and it's hideous, or doesn't actually fit, etc.) (Same problem with dress shirts, jeans. I have gotten the impression that this is mostly a me problem — my build is suffering reverse economies of scale as most of America outweighs me substantially.)
At purchase time is when I need the data … and there, reviews are terrible. I'd truly love to ban reviewers who fail to give me the trifecta of "what size are you, what size did you purchase, and how did it fit?", esp. on Amazon. "It fits" does little good if I have no idea what size you are. Did you buy "your typical size" or did you buy based on your measurements? Etc. Lots of reviews, but next to no data. Compound with false advertising (e.g., "Silk" items made of polyester: my top hit on "silk pajamas²" is 95%/5% poly/span, i.e., 0% silk, and has silk in the title; multiple material listings that contradict each other etc.)
¹7 shorts at an inventory value of 535 EUR. 535/7 = 76.42 EUR. 76.42 EUR to USD (at today's exchange rates; this is a bit wrong I know) => 85.31 USD. Adjust for inflation (the article is (2021)) => 102.66 USD
²I choose silk as, given its luxuriousness, it is more susceptible to this. If you ask for polyester, I'm pretty sure you'll get true to the word there. With silk in particular, there's also a lot of preying on consumers probably not understanding the difference between silk and satin.
³Ironically one of my most recent shoe purchases was via Amazon, and a real risk given how low the price was. Astoundingly they fit not too bad (not perfect) but the low cost means they definitely have a low CPW, and they've seen a fair bit of use with little degradation. The old adage about the better pair of boots … IDK. I'll pay up for shoes, but that pair is providing a stark counter-example to "you get what you pay for". But, I have a mid-range pair from Amazon too that degraded after a few wears. (I repaired it, but still. It was much too young, and it was basically that the lining was not well attached. But it makes me still wary that the good pair was one-off stroke of luck that I can't replicate.)
And perhaps that's the problem: they're 4 to 6 times more expensive than decent stores (Old Navy runs ~$40, on jeans, for example, vs. the $200-$300 base price on Proper Cloth), which themselves are a few times more expensive than the drop-shipped junk bin of Amazon.
There's not enough "slack" in a (normal? middle class?) person's budget to support that. (There's no slack, really / I don't think I can justify living at such a price point.)
I feel like MTM jeans are pretty rare, and $200-300 isn’t actually that much for nice denim.
I don’t think price is the main problem though. Most people could probably spend that if they wanted, they just don’t care about clothes enough to do so, which is completely fair.
Unfortunately it seems like people balk at even spending $100 on a piece of clothing.
Also, Old Navy is a Gap brand. I would consider it fast fashion. Nudie and Naked & Famous are a couple of denim brands I would consider good.
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.
> 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 close to population centers will be more expensive than a plain one, more remote, and/or not by a water body.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lakes_of_Finland
>It's completely normal even among working class to own a summer house by a lake.
Just want to understand, by normal do you mean less than 1/5 Finnish households? Going by the source below, I don't know if I'm missing something but it does not seem to be normal?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01692....
By "normal" I mean that it's .. normal, not exceptional. Nobody will bat an eyelid if you tell about your summer cottage. It's not some rare privilege.
Many summer houses have shared ownership with a wider family. Say, your parents got one and now you own it with your siblings, each getting their own time there or agreeing when to visit together.
Even when you don't own one, you will very likely have participated in the summer house culture. It's very much part of the mainstream culture like sauna is. Maybe you visit your relatives' place, or you may opt to rent a place for a week.
Personally I feel renting is the best option as you can visit different places each year and avoid the maintenance burden -- and they obviously need active maintenance. But some do prefer a familiar place where they can spend all their holidays, and in some cases all weekends too on top.
According to the same link you shared, enough people own second homes that 61% of the population has access to a friend or relatives home. That feels pretty normalized (compared to here in the US, where I live in a high-income area and only know one person with a second home (and it's a permanent tent))
I think you’ll find quite a few people have access to vacation lodging, but they don’t talk about it for one reason or another.
I think the point is that it’s not just the wealthy households. Not everyone wants a cabin but most people can afford one.
Less then 1/5 is still super normal.
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.
I’m more surprised by the seemingly lack of longevity of what he buys than by the costs.
442 euros is two pairs of dress shoes or one pair of good boots. I don’t think you can buy anything other than sneakers for £50.
My own dresser is not that far removed from his regarding to its content (I have far less blazers, don’t wear hoodies and have more suits) but I think I cycle each piece far less than he does because my annual closing budget is probably less than half his despite per unit costs in the same range.
But to be honest it’s not hard to blow though 3000€ of clothing if you replace a lot at the same time. An ok suit costs around 500€. You can double that easily if you want something fancy and you need at least three if you wear them daily. A coat will set you back between 200€ and 500€ depending of the material. A shirt is 70€-80€, dress shoes 250€. Throw in some accessories like belts or god forbids a watch and you are there. It adds up quite fast.
Agreed. High quality dress shoes and boots are very repairable. And men’s shoe fashion changes very slowly. A good pair can easily last a decade with good care. Modern sneakers are another story though.
It depends how much walking / hiking / running / whatever else you do.
A typical pair of running shoes lasts somewhere around 300-500 miles. (You could probably stretch a pair further than that, but you run much higher risk of injury once the cushioning wears down.)
If you put in a modest 5 miles a day and have two pairs in rotation, then expect to replace both pairs every 6 months (if not more often). It is not uncommon for semi-serious runners to spend $100+ on each pair of shoes. From that perspective, $500/year doesn't seem that outrageous.
I'm not convinced you need cushioning.
I spend zero on running shoes, and I've run two marathons like this.
I thought this, but even with efforts into my running technique I wasn't able to get rid of my knee pain until I tried Hokas. I've done all the "normie" stuff a casual would come across on youtube, do you have other tips on what I might be doing wrong or could do to get off the "cushion crutch"?
In regular training shoes I can barely run a mile without getting some pretty bad pains in the side of my knee. With good cushioned running shoes I can easily do 10-12 miles pain free.
I'm assuming it's a form thing, and that the running shoes just somehow naturally give me a better form, so I could maybe fix by learning how to run in normal non-running shoes, but I'm lazy and would rather just pay a few hundred every few months.
If it is a form thing, it might be that the running shoes naturally encourage a poor form (a form that only works with them, vs a presumably more 'natural' form of running closer to barefoot).
Doesn't matter. The main thing is you are out and running. And if that "costs" a few hundred every few months, and if you can afford it, why not?
Optimize for joy.
Counterpoint: I've run 7 marathons in 7 consecutive days, whilst wearing some low-profile altras, and after the mid-way, I was switching to more cushier ones.
I'm not disputing that cushioning "feels" comfortable. So does Vicodin.
But if cushioned shoes work well for you, I wouldn't expect you to change anything. Invest in HOKA.
My audience is all the runners who have problems, and keep turning up the dial on cushioning, orthotics, etc. ... before finally giving up on running by their forties. Or they run on NSAIDs and trash their kidneys.
I understand your fascination with barefoot training, but it is a bit extremist. I too have tried VFFs and other barefoot shoes (I competed in a deadlift competition once, wearing merrell minumus), and do a lot of gym stuff without shoes, and there are pros and cons to the approach.
If there's one thing barefoot running does emphasis though, is improvements in foot strike. If you can carry that over to more cushioned shoes I believe that to be a win-win, versus a dogmatic view of barefoot or nothing.
That's rather patronizing.
I'm not "fascinated" with running barefoot - I do run barefoot when I otherwise would not be running, due to chronic injuries.
And I'm still running when many of my peers no longer run - they complain about their knees or whatever.
I wear boat shoes daily, they're essentially a flat piece of rubber. Gives me the sensation of being "half barefoot" (things don't hurt but I feel every little piece of gravel and crevasse I walk on.
I'm also 78kg so I don't know if anything I wear or don't wear on my feet really matters, but it feels good and they last for ages since it's just suede/leather stitched down into rubber.
I'm convinced you don't need it, but my shin splints disagree, and I'm happy to buy new shoes after 300-500 miles.
Interesting you mention shin splits - those (and ITBS) were my crippling complaint for 15 years, before I tried barefooting, basically in desperation.
Can you recommend any good resource on how to start seriously with barefoot running or walking?
I could be biased, but I like the book Run Barefoot Run Healthy. Also Barefoot Ken Bob's book and website.
There isn't much to learn - it's mainly a question of unlearning bad habits picked up through a lifetime of wearing unnatural built-up shoes, plus allowing the feet to slowly strengthen. If an able-bodied person spent a lifetime using crutches, the adaption to walking freely would take some time.
For inspiration, google: barefoot romero caltech saxton
There isn't much to learn if you have proper (or at least bilaterally symmetric) range of motion in your muscles and joints. If, instead, you have long-term injuries, tissue damage, etc., that have led to patterns of movement that are causing degeneration and inefficient patterns of movement, then you basically need to learn how to fix those problems, then relearn to walk. There are complex sequences of neuromuscular cues that healthy people possess but don't think about consciously, just like the ability to recognize objects. I needed to learn a LOT about walking and running in every sense of the word, in addition to slowly gaining foot strength. It would not have happened if I had taken a passive approach. It was more like programming a computer to recognize objects from scratch in R or C (whichever you believe to be the pirate's favorite programming language...).
Anatomy for Runners by Dicharry
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Honestly, I don't remember it being a problem when I was younger, but after taking a few years off and getting back to it, it's been an issue.
I wasn't having much luck finding the cause until a coworker recommended new shoes. Since then I haven't had a problem. I know it doesn't make sense, people ran barefoot for millenium, but for me it's been worth it.
Do you use a zero drop shoe, barefoot style shoe, or run truly barefoot? I have noticed that I have been cranking up the cushioning as I have increased my mileage, but I also have found that my favorite sandals are zero drop Bedrocks.
Another vote for Bedrocks, I had put maybe 1000 walking/hiking miles on mine before I had to glue the soles back together last week. They're the only shoes I've bought retail in the last decade, the others are all thrift store purchases. I suspect that I would want some cushioning if I were a distance runner.
I run without anything on my feet.
I tried everything else before arriving at this, and it's worked for 10+ years and two marathons.
Running form: think unicycle, not pogo stick.
Yeah, I’ll use regular sneakers until the soles fall off, but I’ve realized that with running shoes you can either take the pain in your wallet or in your feet. A hundred bucks every few months is better than not being able to move.
"Feet" doesn't cover it. "Body" is more appropriate.
Running with poor quality shoes unduly stresses your knees, hips, and lower back. Over time, this is likely to develop chronic pain, or bursitis, or other problems that can lead to long-term mobility issues.
If you're going to run regularly, you should find a way to either afford the propert shoes in good repair, or learn to run barefoot
Indeed. “Feet” was just a more pithy way of putting it. I started buying my favorite shoes no matter the sale price when my lower-quality shoes started affecting my knees, shins, and back.
> learn to run barefoot
Finally someone with the right idea!
I did this when I lived within 20 minutes of a long stretch of sandy beach. Would also work in an area with grass or soft soil. But now that my runs are all either poorly-maintained pavement or rocky, gravely trails, barefoot is simply not feasible.
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)
Yep, it wouldn't make sense for me to do this tracking either. It would just show me wearing one pair until it has holes in the soles. But I do acknowledge there are lots of people who are more enthusiastic about shoes than I am.
There are also plenty of people who avoid wearing the same pair two days in a row, because bacteria build up, cause foot odor, and degrade the lining of the shoe
Sure. I guess it's interesting how differently people can interpret the phrase "buy what you need".
~~"buy what you need"~~
"do not go shopping until after something has a hole in it, then when you are there, replace only that"
My parents have this marvelous talent for dressing down, as casual as possible, even at church; they never go to formal events or dressy galas; my father never wears a suit or ties a tie, he lives in sweatshirts and short-sleeved polos at best. Mom surprises me sometimes at Christmas, when she dons a skirt!
They also revel in drab, shabby clothing. It's respectable, but the colors are muted, the styles are ordinary, and there are no designer labels. Mom washes everything over and over and over. The garments become threadbare, faded, but very very clean and presentable.
This belies their means and middle-class existence, and that's very Franciscan of them. Unfortunately, they raised a kid who could never settle for that.
Going to church, our pastor required a strict dress code for ministers, and so I worked tirelessly to live up to that, improve my hygiene and appearance, and cultivate some interest in men's couture, to the point of subscribing to some YouTube channels. I purchased a brand-new tuxedo in 2015. I amassed a collection of ties, some retail and some thrifty ones. I have a black 3-piece suit for funerals, if I lose weight (especially my own funeral.) Etc.
I also found that dressing appropriately for every other occasion was critical. So I doffed my shabby imprinted tee-shirts, and put some intentionality into my wardrobe.
I donated all kinds of stuff to thrift stores. I hope they were happy with very clean men's clothing in excellent condition. Once, I lost about 90 pounds and donated all the "fat clothes", which was a fatal error when I gained it 100 pounds back.
Even while donating some garments, I also destroyed some that were inappropriate or humiliating, that others had given me, that did not fit my personality. I applied intentionality to the very brands of underwear and outerwear and I went through about 3 cycles of destroying the old stuff, before I was satisfied and comfortable with the logos I was putting on. (I mostly converged on Gildan, Columbia, New Balance and Adidas, in case you're wondering.)
I've also been accessorizing with hats, gloves, bags. I really like having clean, pressed neat clothing to wear. Unfortunately, all this upscaling has gotten noticed. People on the streets and on the bus will notice rich guys in a hot minute. So now I get panhandled, and I get verbally abused, and I get disrespected at every turn, because I must be a privileged rich white cis-hetero man.
It's quite sad. I sort of want to rebuild an inventory of shabby, wrinkled, torn clothing that I can wear and go slumming. It wouldn't fool anyone, though.
I guess it depends on the usage. A pair of La Sportiva G2 SMs is about $1000, and over a 3 week expedition, let's say I wear those 10 of the days (I wouldn't wear double boots all the time), so that's $10/toe ($1000/10 days/10 toes).
I think $10/toe/year is worth more than whatever I can buy for $30 for a pair of somethings, that can keep my feet warm, allow me to wear crampons, and kick steps.
(ok ok, some of you will say if I lose all my toes, I wouldn't have to worry anymore, but hey, I like my toes!)
It is good to have different people in the world. The article starts with "Have you ever wondered whether expensive clothes are worth their price?" I have never wondered that, no. I'm 49 years old and I'm not sure I have ever purchased an expensive clothe.
I have, however, wondered whether an expensive screwdriver is worth its price, but I have not collected the data to support my Wiha habit.
You would know if you had purchased expensive clothes before. Due to autoimmune issues and a change of diet, I lost a lot of weight and could not afford retail clothes. I found a $300-retail shirt for ~$5 at a thrift in LA, and because my skin had become more sensitive, I noticed a huge difference compared to the cheap dress shirts that I had worn before. It's even more dramatic with nice wool. Perhaps an equivalent question is whether air conditioning is worth the price. Yes, if you can afford it, and it's not even close. And don't even get me started on knives...
Same here. I've never cared about expensive clothes. I've probably spent less than $500 on all my clothes for the last 5 years.
On the other hand I've spent at least $30K on computers and camera gear the last 10 years and bought a car for $65,000 last year.
You may be interested in the youtube channel Project Farm then - I don't know if he's specifically tested Wiha screwdrivers, but Wiha performed well in his recent pliers test video[0].
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUklhL1cGqY
> 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!
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...
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.
I doubt anyone is spending 3 bucks per year on average on clothing.
Unless you're in Bangladesh or something.
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 decent pair of shoes, one set of nice clothes, a jacket, pants, and underwear. 350€ to get that stuff for ten years still sounds very tight but maybe possible.
Buying second hand actually makes things even cheaper as well. The second hand culture is growing really strong in the country I live.
Exactly, it's very difficult to keep the average so low.
Not impossible, I'm sure I've done it in some of my broke Eastern European years, but most people probably spend more than that on socks and underpants.
> 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.
This is mostly my style. Actually, I can keep using things well after they develop holes. The shirt I'm wearing right now has four different holes developing around one of the wrist cuffs. I'd believe $60 / year for replacement-level clothing. $3.50 / year isn't enough to replace things that develop holes.
I spend maybe $300 in a year on clothing. I ship at Goodwill and other thrift shops. I cannot imagine spending that much annually just on clothing. Would feel like such a chump.
I will buy new running shoes... And hiking boots if needed but even then I wait until I can get 40%-50% off. My last Keen boots were 55% off. My last Brooks running shoes 40% off.
Have you tried shopgoodwill.com? Phenomenal athleisure selection, if you're not in a rush.
Running shoes - you know what they say: Run Barefoot Run Healthy!
this is not good general advice. For anyone interested in barefoot running, please do your research on how to phase this in appropriately and safely.
Read the book. As I wrote above.
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.
It's more than I spend, but you're on a tech forum full of nerdy engineers -- gaming rigs and their upgrades, hot new phones and laptops, travel, collectibles, legos, shop tools and materials, music gear, sporting and camping gear, etc each burn through that kind of budget real quick.
And nobody would call out that kind of spend were it for one of those.
Yes I would, anyone spending this kind of money regularly is a rube. Most of the shit you mentioned are up front one time costs with a minimal maintenance requirement. Anyone who is paying several grand to upkeep this stuff is an idiot and deserves to be parted with their money.
> Most of the shit you mentioned are up front one time costs with a minimal maintenance requirement.
Are you kidding me?
> gaming rigs and their upgrades
Oh cool the newest NVDIA GPU is out, that'll be a $500-1500 cost!
> collectibles, legos
Yup - this hobby is all about upfront one-time costs
> shop tools and materials, music gear
Have you met anyone with a machine shop or who is into playing gigs?
> sporting and camping gear
lol..outdoors people love accumulating gear for each trip
The economy needs those people, though.
If you are buying all those, then you are buying massively more then you even have a chance to use.
What are you talking about? Someone can't play videogames and go camping?
Is it? Lots of big-city gyms have memberships of $200/month or more. That's $2400 right there before you get into equipment, clothing, 1:1 coaching, sports massage, perhaps competitions, potentially travel.
(And I'm not even talking about big-ticket sports like golf, horse-riding, racing cars, etc.)
In the UK I spend $30/month for the gym. Never heard of them costing that much.
Maybe it depends where you live and what you're looking for in a gym.
I used to do BJJ, which is a popular adult sport. I just googled: london bjj
My top hit was for Roger Gracie, which costs £179/month.
I think it really depends on what the hobby is.
If you’re into an individual sport and you have private lessons, which are more common than you’d think, you’ll easily blow thousands of dollars per year just for half an hour or an hour per week. Almost anyone who is beyond a fairly recreational level in tennis, martial arts or fencing will be spending thousands per year.
On the other hand, 3.9k per year is a massive amount of money to spend on cheaper hobbies like hiking or painting.
It also depends a lot where you live, HN is very US centric and is full of people who are earning big money at tech companies there.
Painting can be quite an expensive hobby. Maybe not 3.9k per year expensive, but still, I'm sure I've spent more than $1k in the last 12 months. It starts cheap, but the cheap materials tend to be shite. There's always savings to be made, but they often cost time over money.
That's MacBook Pro money
It's quite a number, but I am sure that anyone bitten by a GAS bug (gear/guitar acquisition syndrome) can burn through a lot more money in a year.
> 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.
It adds up fast.
Last year a single 2 week roadtrip on my motorcycle easily racked up around $5000 in total cost between needing new touring gear, new set of tyres, motels, etc. I have worn the touring gear once or twice since then but haven’t had a chance for any more big trips. The tyres I keep using of course.
This year a single maintenance visit came out to $2k. Just parking for my bike costs $1200/year.
Until recently when I started commuting again, my bike was purely a hobby. You could argue it’s still a hobby because I could totally BART/CalTrain to work if I hated myself enough. (it’s 60% faster by bike)
I think a lot of people on HN either aren’t honest with themselves how much hobbies cost, live in low COL areas, or both.
The awkward question is how many hours would you have to work to make $325. Because at minimum wage, that's 20. For others, that's ten, and for others, that's one. For a billionaire, they're making that much, passively, in minutes. $325/month for a hobby which gives joy, and meaning, and makes life worth living, vs rent?
> 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.
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.
No. I have expensive hobbies, and this is a hilarious amount of money to spend, wow.
I Scuba and my gear (dive com, suit, tank) cost less than 3k and its meant to keep me alive, versus win instagram points and it will last me a decade.
There are lots of people that will take one or more scuba oriented vacations for $3k per year.
Relatedly, sailing or owning a boat is a much more expensive hobby.
You don’t have “expensive hobbies.” You have hobbies that you feel are expensive.
There will be people who perceive your hobbies as quaint and austere, and there will be people who think you’re being outrageously opulent.
There is no objective “my hobbies are expensive. Their hobbies are outrageous.”
This is a pretty extreme form of neutral stance. Yes, it's subjective. One man's day out is another man's salary. But it's not so utterly boundless that it's noteworthy to point out that most people probably consider thousands every year on a hobby to be an "expensive hobby".
It's pretty incredible that several grand a year per year is not considered absolutely insane amounts of spend on fucking FASHION. I guess I'm not the audience for HN since everyone here seems to be insanely rich.
You hardly have to be rich to spend $300 a month on fashion, you just have to be not poor, and have it as a priority. Just because fashion isn't a priority to you doesn't mean it's the same for everyone. The same people that spend $500 a month on clothes might think buying a TV for more than $300 is unthinkable. Priorities differ.
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The cues you’re picking up on here are completely incorrect. This doesn’t require you to be rich.
In fact, I would consider his wardrobe to only be small/medium sized for someone into fashion.
I’ve spent >35k USD on my wardrobe in the last ~3 years and it feels medium/large sized:
- 2 suits
- ~10 pairs of pants
- ~30 dress shirts
- ~10 knitwear pieces
- ~8 jackets
- 2 pairs of jeans
- ~15 pairs of shoes
- 2 pairs of shorts
- ~10 ties
- Plus a bunch of casual t-shirts (Mostly long-sleeve)
This is only my current wardrobe, not everything I’ve bought.
Why have I spent so much money on these things? Because I had disposable income, I like fashion and I care very much about the quality of my clothes.
Per year spend also feels misleading. I have a big enough wardrobe now that I don’t really feel like I need more. It also means I can rotate stuff very frequently, so nothing will wear out quickly.
My spending is definitely down this year, and will be down even more next year.
Good outwear is super expensive but also the most durable items. Knitwear is also expensive, but can last a long time if you take care of it.
Exactly this if it’s something you enjoy, you can easily spend magnitudes more money than you “need to” - for example I know a number of people who have spent more on power tools than many professional contractors will spend in their lives. They enjoy collecting tools they enjoy having them and they enjoy being ready for anything even if they never really use them. If you have the money and you can afford it and it’s something you enjoy who is it really hurting?
IMO most HN users, regardless of country, earn enough that they should be able to clothe themselves without relying on dubious labour or uncomfortable, stinky synthetics that will outlast them by centuries. I've started turning down 'free' conference t-shirts: I already have enough to wear for gardening or to use as rags.
Not that OP is actually doing this. They're spending a lot of money because they're buying a lot of mass produced crap. The 'luxury' of those low cost-per-wear Converse is a flat insole that will put a podiatrist's children through school and a glued outsole that fails early and predictably. And then they have 5 other white sneakers doing the same job in their wardrobe. They could have spent less overall and got even better CPW from resolable, calf leather white sneakers.
I know this isn't the point of your comment and that a pair of Converse aren't an ergonomic marvel, but I do a lot of bushwalking and I prefer not to have prominent arch support in shoes and boots. I've found that it tends to interfere with the plantar fascia.
A lot of cheaper boots have these huge foam wedges that ram into your arch. I've got a pair of Keen boots that cause crippling pain after about 5km that I should throw out, and a pair of Merrell walking shoes that are only comfortable because I swapped the insole. Meanwhile, more expensive boots have limited arch support that's less intrusive.
While it depends on foot shape, I'd rather walk longer distances in a shitty pair of Converse than an equally shitty pair of shoes which advertise arch support.
Where to find those clothes though..
It does mean doing your own research and asking yourself what you value in clothing. The sneakers I had in mind while writing this were Thursday Boots' Premier. I haven't worn them - I don't really like white shoes - but I know about them from a(n independent) Youtube channel called Rose Anvil, who review shoes and boots from a construction and material POV. This type of simple white sneaker is available from a lot of suppliers. Thursday are at the cheaper end and most HN users will be able to find a domestic or customs-free manufacturer if they value that.
There are other Youtubers who take a similar approach to basics like jeans and t-shirts, or outerwear. Reddit is particularly good for jeans and leather footwear. Social media and fashion doesn't have to mean peer pressure and trend chasing: the values I'm advocating for aren't rare. An understandable distate for the fashion industry doesn't mean we should disengage and settle for clothes that feel bad and opt for false economy.
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
$95 USD for a nice dress shirt is cheap. $120-150 is normal, $170+ is expensive. I can't find dress shirts I like for $95 USD unless they're on sale for 30-40% off, and that's very rare.
Cheap shirts have terrible collars with no shape, poor cloth that doesn't drape properly or feel nice on your skin, shit buttons (Not MOP or even horn), paper thin plackets, usually boring or gauche fabrics/patterns, etc. The list goes on.
I understand this sounds insane to people who don't care about clothes, but these things matter to me. A shirt that lacks these things looks terrible to me.
I thought I didn't spend much either, but if I count shoes the scales tip a lot. I don't even wear 90% of them, I was mostly hunting for the "right" pair and it took a lot of trial and error.
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 instead, I suppose.
I've never had to buy so many clothes as after I moved to Europe, and they're never soft and fluffy anymore. It's like going back in time if you're used to North America.
My new European heat pump energy efficient tree hugging liberal dryer only heats to about 47c (sorry not sure what that is in futuristic values)
Edit:
but I do understand about clothes. I think it has a lot to do with the decline in the quality of clothes more than anything.
Agitation is quite central to the cleaning process no? Top loaders agitate too? I can't imagine there is much in it
I'm not even sure US-style hot dryers are allowed in the EU? Everyone I know that has one has a low-temperature heat pump dryer.
Condenser dryers? Still available in UK and fairly sure most of EU
Alright, condenser dryers are the missing link I had forgotten between dryers that vent outside like in the US and the modern heat pump dryers.
My gas powered venting dryer in the US, while massively less efficient than my recirculating condenser electric dryer in Europe, seems to get way less hot and damages my clothing less.
I think there is just much less airflow in the efficient ones? Not sure. I’ve washed the identical make/model clothes many many times in both places, as I split my time between the two.
Fwiw I'm in the UK. We have 20% VAT. I hang dry everything though, mayb that does make a difference.
Do you have a reference for cleaning systems being harsh? Having moved countries I noticed many difference in: water hardness (will make your cloths stiffer), materials used (when you buy stuff), usage (car versus biking vs public transport), weather (some places is more rainy), washing habits (not everybody washes as often).
Overall my impression is that the quality of the clothes affects more their lasting chances than all the other aspects.
I wear the exact same outfit every day, and I have many identical copies of it, so I have a ton of experience with how it functions when cleaned differently.
> Also, for whatever reason, European clothes cleaning systems are insanely harsh, and your clothes don't last nearly as long when washed there.
Hmm. The blouse that's older than my 23 year old daughter would like a word with you. And I do wear it a lot in below 15 C weather. And I don't remember it having been particularly expensive.
Your mileage wrt to clothes just ... may vary if you ask me.
Hrm, every benchmark of top-loader machines vs modern front-loader machines I've ever seen has front-loaders doing far better in terms of limiting damage to clothes. I suppose it's possible that old-fashioned high-water-use _front-loaders_ are easier on clothes (are those still a thing in the US?)
> 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 instead, I suppose.
Wait, what? The one time I visited the US and had to use laundromats I could basically thrown away everything I’d worn on that trip because hose washing machines were so harsh.
Back home in Europe, my clothes last years and sometimes even decades.
I'm not sure whether you really spend so little on clothes, or have misunderstood the term 'order of magnitude'. If it were 3 orders of magnitude less you would be spending €3.50 on clothes per year. Even 2 orders less is €35, which I find doubtful a grown person can do (in America/Europe at least).
Did you actually mean that? As I'm surprised your socks/underwear don't cost at least €35 per year, eventually they get holes in them. Are you darning?
1 order of magnitude less means dividing a figure by 10. 3 orders of magnitude is diving it by 1,000.
> As I'm surprised your socks/underwear don't cost at least €35 per year, eventually they get holes in them. Are you darning?
I don't know if there's so much difference between countries in Europe but this year I spent about 6€ on socks at Decathlon and one pair of trousers on sale at JBC for about 10€. That's in Belgium, which is not the least expensive country of Europe. I'm not planning on buying anything else this year.
> As I'm surprised your socks/underwear don't cost at least €35 per year, eventually they get holes in them.
I figure holes in socks are heavily dependent on slipper use. I wear slippers 95% of the time indoors, and my regular-rotation socks that I wear every couple weeks seem to be lasting 15-20 years (so, say, 200-250 days/washes since I wear different socks seasonally) before their elastics fail.
The average is a bit of a weird number... e.g. I buy a couple weeks' worth of underwear at a time, and they last a decade or so. So 9 out of 10 years my cost is $0, but my yearly cost is in the $30 range.
edit: And as noted by another comenter, I hang dry my socks/underwear, which presumably contributes to longevity.
I've had years where I definitely spend less than £100 on clothing, and many years where I've spent almost £0 (I'm not counting running shoes here, or climbing shoes), those are kinda specialist, but day to day clothing definitely very very little.
I loathe clothes shopping.
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.
>> This person lives differently to me.
Yup. The rich are different. They have more money.
> The 90 euro Converse sneakers and the 30 euro Mywears have a similar CPW of 0.87 euros and 0.70 €, respectively. Their effective cost is roughly the same, which means that walking around in the cheap Mywears is roughly as expensive as walking around in Converses. In this case, money buys quality, at least when measured by durability.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the author spending a lot of money on clothes and replacing their clothes at a high velocity. If buying stuff makes you happy, buy stuff. I've certainly spent a lot of money on board games I don't play enough. Tracking the cost per use seems like a good way to control the habit.
But this paragraph makes it seem as if the author can't make themselves actually admit that's the reason, and need to find an excuse for it. No, sorry, cheap sneakers do not wear out after 43 uses or expensive ones after 104 uses. At that point I'd persinally be classifying them as indistinguishable from new. Like, at best the author got bored of them after that many uses.
It would be better to track shoe (and sock) use with a pedometer.
Oh but there definitely are differences between cheap and expensive sneakers. The other thing is that some people might not notice them because they don't walk much, never getting to the sneaker "EOL", so to speak.
I've gone from a $400 shoe preference to $20 over the years.
Comfortable cheap ones are harder to find and they don't last as long but in practice it's more like 40-70% as long.
So I just buy 2-3 after I find a good one and still walk away saving a bunch
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.
Another thing Im doing is switching to 100% cotton (or just no plastic fibers). I love the breathability and light feel of cotton shirts.
> 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 shopping (and I'm prepared for a lot of frustration). Wish there was more of a cottage industry around homemade clothing!
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 grocery store in my life where this was possible.
Im sick of senseless plastic everywhere. My personal theory is our biggest sources of plastic ingestion is: clothing made of plastic slowly wearing away and inhaling treadwear from car tires on the road.
> 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.
That’s just called going to a tailor.
But honestly, if you just want coton clothes, that’s not hard to find. It’s just more expensive.
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.
Shampoo is harder, but making your own soap is easy and satisfying and it works better than store-bought.
I'd think that most ingested plastic comes from food packaging.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
Some of the properties of synthetics are great, yeah, and I don't know to what extent I'll ever be able to get away from them for underwear and exercise gear, for those specific reasons.
Cotton is generally far worse for the environment than other natural fibers like linen and wool, as well as most synthetic fibers.
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 outside in the rain require more calculus around how many days you will need to dry the clothes that got wet, so now you need to own overlap clothes for still-wearably-clean clothes too. Even worse, if you're in a cold environment then you likely can't keep wearing your wet clothes as they dry, because wet cotton loses insulation, making you feel much colder, so there's more incentive to change even before the end of the day.
Wool is a better option than cotton if you want "natural" fiber that is still wearable when wet, but that comes with the moral guilt and ecological impact of animal husbandry, so I'm not sure if it's better or worse than plastic, which at least is only made from animals and plants that died millions of years ago.
Personally I have chosen to keep cotton for underwear and tank tops for comfort, and also because I anyway own 7 of those so there is enough overlap for them to dry over the weekend when they get wet and I'm in a cold and/or humid climate. But for pants and shorts where I only own two of each (and only bring one of each when traveling) then polyester/nylon that can dry overnight in most any climate is more practical. Socks and long sleeves I've decided to go with wool despite the animal cruelty because it's the most practical. I only need a couple pairs of socks and a single long sleeve to get by in a warmer climate, and I have a polyester coat for colder climates.
It still feels a bit high impact, but as you say, most stuff lasts many years so I don't feel too bad about it when I see people buying more stuff than I have in my entire wardrobe on a single casual shopping trip.
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.
What brand are the jeans? When I think about my shirts, socks, and underwear, all of it lasts 4-6 years.. though my socks are 6 years old and I see no sign of needing to replace them any time soon.
However, I have a stack of jeans that all start coming apart in the same spot. I've started looking into how to mend jeans, as I'm sick of this being an issue. They are the most expensive thing I'm wearing (other than shoes) and seem to be the least durable. Though I do wear them 7x more often than the other articles, so I guess I should take that into account.
If that same spot is the crotch, they may just be too tight for you or hanging too low. But if it's because of poor construction, getting over the hump of a higher initial price and buying well made jeans like Iron Heart would save you money overall.
It is in the crotch area. Maybe they are hanging too low, but I’m not too interested in going with tighter jeans.
I'm saying you should go for looser jeans
Consider 100% linen or a blend as well for hot summer days. I have a few short-sleeve linen shirts which are great for days over 28°C. Linen has a coarser weave than cotton, and breathes even better. It can handle sweat better too (dries faster when wearing).
I don't have a dryer, so all my clothes are hung to dry. Jeans tend to go in the seat first. I think I average eight years or so, wearing jeans most of the year.
People who pay up for a nice pair of selvedge jeans, such as the Levi's reproductions of early-mid 1900s denim, tend to wear the same pair every day, wear them into the shower if they're too dirty, and keep wearing them as they dry. That way, the fit conforms to your body over time, and the fabric develops a patina and becomes more comfortable with time. Modern mass-produced denim does not have this property. I own a drier that I don't use, and I am consistently amazed at how few people make the connection that the stuff in their lint trap at the end of the cycle is their clothes.
If you're ever wet (from rain or sweat), "cotton is rotten."
Try wool. Overwhelmingly more comfortable.
I’m switching over to merino wool whenever it goes on sale. Socks first and it’s been a huge change in quality for me. My feet are much happier.
Wow. I buy one pair of jeans per year, I now have three pairs. This year I've bought exactly 2 t-shirts on vacation in Spain. I cannot imagine spending so much on clothing, that just seems.. overkill. Where do you put it all???
Maybe one thing is that price per item can vary a lot, eg a $50 coat isn’t going to take 60 times less space than a $3k coat so it’s possible to spend a lot more without using lots more space. That said, the author doesn’t seem to be buying wildly expensive items. I assume they get through with something like an ordinary sized wardrobe and chest of drawers, plus some kind of shoe storage near a door. And I guess they dispose of things that are unused or too worn.
I have one modest closet, one chest of drawers, and my wife has the same with a little more; shoes.. What struck me was that this was his clothing purchases in a single year. That's a lot of buying and disposing, which results in .. disasters like the mountain of discarded clothes you can see from space in the Chilean desert
https://www.wired.com/story/fashion-disposal-environment/
When you spend this much money on clothes and shoes it’s not for functional reasons.
Also, you keep it in your wardrobe. Do you not have a wardrobe?
I tracked the clothes I wear while cycling last fall and winter so I would know what to wear given the weather. I record temperature, humidity, windspeed, and level of sunshine. It’s been very useful. Even after years of outdoor biking, I still sometimes get fooled by a bright, dry, windy, 65 degree day and forget how chilly they can be, but my spreadsheet will remind me.
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.
I wear them until they have holes and then use them as shop rags, etc.
Similar, but I keep old clothes to use as test fabric for machine embroidery.
Underwear shirts are usually thiner than tee shirts and are made to be worn under a shirt. You can’t really compare.
The issue here is that he buys them too cheap. Cheap underwear die incredibly fast because underwear tend to go through more wash cycles.
Clothes washers (and dryers, if they are used) seem to destroy clothing in Europe much faster than they do in North America. I'm not 100% sure why that is.
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.
Love it.
This is such a fun way of visualising your everyday life. Of course, being data-driven may not always be the right answer for everything, but it will at least help you make more conscious decisions.
I can guarantee I have a blazer or two in my wardrobe with a much higher Cost Per Wear than the author's ones due to lack of use.
Scrolling through this thread, I feel like I am the only one who experienced a web page where the CSS gave me a blank rectangle on the left side, with all the content smushed narrowly to the right.
Happened to me too and was wondering whether this was on purpose or not. Figured out the blog template is probably broken. Two column layout, both equal width on 100% container... That can't go well...
Discussed at the time:
I’ve tracked every piece of clothing I’ve worn for three years - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25869464 - Jan 2021 (100 comments)
I did the same thing, tracking my outfits for years, and finally decided to build an app that automatically organizes wardrobe from your photos to make it easier. Check it out if you're interested: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sparkly-personal-stylist-ai/id...
I logged in after reading this to provide the answer to the question after reading. “Nerd”. It’s glorious, I wish I could maintain the same level of consistency as this guy did in collecting this data.
> Someone once said their goal is to have a wardrobe with nothing but favorite clothes. That makes sense not only from a value perspective, but in light of my data, that may also be the best alternative in terms of cost performance.
My clothes-buying strategy has settled on "if it doesn't look great on me in the fitting room then it doesn't come home with me". Which is pretty similar. You can still end up with things that rarely get worn for other reasons but it's a good filter.
> 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.
Also, if I was tracking usage like OP I'm confident it would change what I decided to wear.
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
:D They probably didn't have any good ones and were afraid to tell the truth.
Seriously though, anything handmade with leather has a chance to last for a long time (or be repairable!). It will be expensive though.
28 wears for an undershirt? I have many that are over a decade old. I have a feeling that the author and I live dramatically different lifestyles.
The first app for that: [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNDubWJU0aU
Oh, thank you for the validation! For three years I've been measuring, weighing, logging all my nails and hair and poop, and I thought I was alone!
What is the average weight of your poops?
Are you storing and cataloging them all in a deep freezer?
Um, I don’t know if that’s the same sort of thing, but if it makes you feel better…
Once again, humor/sarcasm does not survive being compressed into text on the internet.
Fair. Seems safer to take someone seriously unless you include the /s given what I’ve seen irl ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What an interesting analysis. It actually got me thinking about which of my clothes I actually wear, and which should probably be divested.
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.
Just thinking a washing machine bought in 2027 will be able to last long enough to track data for another 3 years is optimistic.
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.
> If consumers are dumb enough to buy such machines, then that's what they should get.
In some markets they don't have much of a choice. I want a dumb TV, but good luck finding one without looking into digital signage, where it might not have built in speakers. The costs start rising extremely quickly to buy based on principle.
> inkjets have a slightly lower initial price
Most people shop on price. But it's not just the initial price, it's also the toner. I just looked up a color laser printer vs inkjet. 2 random ones near the top of Amazon's results.
Laser: $249 + $155 for more toner (Brother printer and toner)
InkJet: $199 + $22 for more ink (Epson ecotank with generic ink)
Or.. InkJet: $70 + $35 for more ink (HP printer with HP ink)
People are going to see this and think they can by a new printer for the price of just getting new toner for the laser.
The key, as I'm sure you know, is the yield on the laser refill is 3,000 sheets vs the HP's ~100 sheets. But the ink on the ecotank refill is claiming 7,500 sheets. So do they want to pay $155 for 3,000 or $22 for 7,500?
It's not so cut and dry and very few people care enough about printers to look that closely into it. They are busy with other stuff.
>It's not so cut and dry and very few people care enough about printers to look that closely into it. They are busy with other stuff.
The problem I've seen is that, even when you try to tell these not-so-knowledgeable people about this stuff and point out how they can save money with better choices, they really don't want to hear it.
>But the ink on the ecotank refill is claiming 7,500 sheets. So do they want to pay $155 for 3,000 or $22 for 7,500?
That's not what they're buying though: they're buying the HP, not the ecotank printer.
>In some markets they don't have much of a choice. I want a dumb TV
This is true: your choices are shaped by the choices of all the other consumers, because the whole reason you can buy a huge 65" TV for $750 and not $75,000 is because of massive quantities of scale. Mfgrs can only offer so many different models cost-effectively, so they make stuff that consumers will buy. Given a choice between a smart TV that lets them watch Netflix/YouTube without any extra hardware at all, or a dumb TV that doesn't and needs an additional device (and remote control), and similar prices for the two (thanks to the mfgrs getting subsidies from advertisers on the smart TVs), 99% of the consumers are going to pick the smart TV.
At least with laser printers, there's enough consumers out there who demand home/small office laser printers that there's plenty of choices for them, and consumer-friendly prices. But there's still tons of people who go for the $70 POS HP with absurdly-priced 100-page refills.
The digital signage devices probably suck for watching movies too, if you care at all about color accuracy. Those devices aren't meant for watching 4k movies at home for a few hours per day, they're meant for displaying public information in public areas with possibly bright (or even natural) lighting, and doing so 24x7.
I live in america and my jeans are $20 and if something happens to them it's cheaper to get a new pair :) :( :)
Then $20 only represents part of the cost to you and your planet.
This is great, well done :)
Tracking all this data is pointless. How many clothes can you buy if you put that energy into making money instead? Buy what you like and what you intuitively know is working well for you. As for the analysis, the prices are subject to random inflation, and the actual wear and tear is highly variable. Even the quality of the same product bought years apart can be different enough to mess up the analysis.
> Buy what you like and what you intuitively know is working well for you.
Nearly every time I actually look at the data for something, I'm surprised by at least one result. Our intuition is often swayed by our emotion.
Sometimes people do things just because they find it interesting. Hobbies and projects are good. They don't all have to be "productive" in the traditional sense. And until the data is in, it's impossible to know how productive it might be.
>And until the data is in, it's impossible to know how productive it might be.
If you know how much you spend on clothes, you do have a cap on how much you can save. If that number is not huge, and the results non-obvious, then you really can conclude that it's a waste of time. Moreover, if you have lived a long time and experienced a variety of different clothes already, the data is likely to just confirm what you thought was obvious.
If you are in the business of making clothes, then the situation is different. You may be trying to optimize a design and thus experiments in your own life could be helpful. But even then, a lot of things are pretty obvious.
> Tracking all this data is pointless.
Did you read the blog?
He does some very interesting analysis.
I lost interest part of the way through. I don't need to read the whole thing to know he could be doing something better with his time.
Why so negative?
You're not the keeper of his time. Maybe he doesn't smoke weed or play five hours of video games daily.
Why can't you appreciate that he put effort into writing up a thought-provoking analysis that also helps other people?
I can appreciate that he put the analysis out but you can bet that he didn't do it to help other people. He did it to portray himself in a certain light. As I said there are many reasons why this is not helpful. Those are the thoughts that the blog post provoked in my mind, and I am one to geek out on the arcane sometimes too.
I didn't say I was the keeper of his time or that he's smoking weed and playing games daily, or that he should. I don't smoke weed or play games either. I'm just saying he should put all that energy into something better.
> Those are the thoughts that the blog post provoked in my mind
I didn't have any of those negative thoughts. Even though I'm nothing like the guy in terms of either data collection or dressing myself.
Ask yourself why you are being so triggered by a typically HN-geeky blog post that hurts no one.
20 to 25 uses for an undershirt seems terrible. Once per week for church and it is worn out in 6 months. Heaven forbid you dress formally for work and it is gone after a month of use…? (spread out by the other shirts in the inventory, but still.)
An average of 102 USD for a pair of shorts¹ is something else though, and like other people in the thread note, … Larry, I'm on DuckTales. (171 USD, real / pair of shoes.) (Board member/CEO/VP/etc., if you're curious what profession gets one such a lifestyle.)
I … I struggle to find enough time in my life to keep the fuel efficiency spreadsheet for my car up to date. (Though even that did reveal some findings: we get better fuel economy when the bike rack isn't attached. Not a terribly surprising conclusion, and the difference really wasn't that great.) I'd like to have this for some things in my life, … but it's never clear whether it's worth it.
Especially for clothing. This tells you post facto whether a purchasing decision was good, or not. What good does that do me…? Unless it is something I'll purchase again, but I feel like for clothing that is rare to begin with, and even where I do, it's dominated by more mundane filters like "is there even another supplier that I know of in this area?" Shoes³ are a good example: most stores' stock is so utterly pathetic that the answer is "the store has exactly 1 pair in your size" (and it's hideous, or doesn't actually fit, etc.) (Same problem with dress shirts, jeans. I have gotten the impression that this is mostly a me problem — my build is suffering reverse economies of scale as most of America outweighs me substantially.)
At purchase time is when I need the data … and there, reviews are terrible. I'd truly love to ban reviewers who fail to give me the trifecta of "what size are you, what size did you purchase, and how did it fit?", esp. on Amazon. "It fits" does little good if I have no idea what size you are. Did you buy "your typical size" or did you buy based on your measurements? Etc. Lots of reviews, but next to no data. Compound with false advertising (e.g., "Silk" items made of polyester: my top hit on "silk pajamas²" is 95%/5% poly/span, i.e., 0% silk, and has silk in the title; multiple material listings that contradict each other etc.)
¹7 shorts at an inventory value of 535 EUR. 535/7 = 76.42 EUR. 76.42 EUR to USD (at today's exchange rates; this is a bit wrong I know) => 85.31 USD. Adjust for inflation (the article is (2021)) => 102.66 USD
²I choose silk as, given its luxuriousness, it is more susceptible to this. If you ask for polyester, I'm pretty sure you'll get true to the word there. With silk in particular, there's also a lot of preying on consumers probably not understanding the difference between silk and satin.
³Ironically one of my most recent shoe purchases was via Amazon, and a real risk given how low the price was. Astoundingly they fit not too bad (not perfect) but the low cost means they definitely have a low CPW, and they've seen a fair bit of use with little degradation. The old adage about the better pair of boots … IDK. I'll pay up for shoes, but that pair is providing a stark counter-example to "you get what you pay for". But, I have a mid-range pair from Amazon too that degraded after a few wears. (I repaired it, but still. It was much too young, and it was basically that the lining was not well attached. But it makes me still wary that the good pair was one-off stroke of luck that I can't replicate.)
This is why I put a lot of energy into finding brands that are transparent with their materials and that I can trust for quality.
Once you find these brands you can buy stuff without worrying about whether it’s going to suck.
For dress shirts, definitely do Made-To-Measure (MTM). There are a bunch of brands that do good MTM shirts. Look on styleforum.net.
I like Proper Cloth, but have heard good things about Luxuire and Collaro as well. Kamakura as well, but I don’t think they do MTM.
Proper Cloth actually does MTM jeans as well.
And perhaps that's the problem: they're 4 to 6 times more expensive than decent stores (Old Navy runs ~$40, on jeans, for example, vs. the $200-$300 base price on Proper Cloth), which themselves are a few times more expensive than the drop-shipped junk bin of Amazon.
There's not enough "slack" in a (normal? middle class?) person's budget to support that. (There's no slack, really / I don't think I can justify living at such a price point.)
I feel like MTM jeans are pretty rare, and $200-300 isn’t actually that much for nice denim.
I don’t think price is the main problem though. Most people could probably spend that if they wanted, they just don’t care about clothes enough to do so, which is completely fair.
Unfortunately it seems like people balk at even spending $100 on a piece of clothing.
Also, Old Navy is a Gap brand. I would consider it fast fashion. Nudie and Naked & Famous are a couple of denim brands I would consider good.