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 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.
> 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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
He's paying $95 per shirt, $13 for a undershirt, $10 per underwear.
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.
>> This person lives differently to me.
Yup. The rich are different. They have more money.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
If you're ever wet (from rain or sweat), "cotton is rotten."
Try wool. Overwhelmingly more comfortable.
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.
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???
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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...
> 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.
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!
The first app for that: [1]
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.
What an interesting analysis. It actually got me thinking about which of my clothes I actually wear, and which should probably be divested.
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.
I live in america and my jeans are $20 and if something happens to them it's cheaper to get a new pair :) :( :)
This is great, well done :)
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.)