Question for those who track wears

nemosmom

For those of you who track wears:
When you do a 1:1 replacement of an item, or buy a backup of an essential item, do you count each item individually by purchase? Or, by item type?

I have a beloved pair of joggers that have just reached 134 wears in 409 days. Besides the fact that I am completely lazy and should really force myself to put on a different pair of pants, I would like to duplicate them. But, once the new pair are in rotation will it be more informative to know how many wears I got out of each pair? Or, just how many times I wore a pair of black joggers?

I am sure I am overthinking it, like I do.

4 years ago

Dressing

11 replies

Latest reply was from Helena

Runcarla

Veteran

Hmmm.... It’s been a long time since I’ve had two identical items, and I wonder if I did go out and source an exact twin, would I know one was older and either wear the old favourite or eschew the older item for it’s replacement?

DH and the DS’s have some ‘twinning’ items that could get mixed up in the wash. I marked the tags with a sharpie to keep them straight when they go through the laundry together. You might want to mark the items with date of purchase. It would be an interesting experiment to see which of the identical items you reached for most frequently - if there is some sort of a bias in your choice?

4 years ago

Anonymous

Following with interest, as I find myself wondering the same thing while waiting for a duplicate pair of fleece-lined leggings to arrive....

4 years ago

nemosmom

Veteran

@Carla - this would be an exact dupe. The only time I have bought a "twin" was my magical Madewell jeans in the spring - they've had 24 wears in six months. I put the twin in a dresser drawer as a "backup".
The joggers keep hitting a laundry bottleneck, so I suspect they would go into immediate rotation.

@silver - that's what my joggers are! Fleece lined and so warm... What did you order?

4 years ago

rachylou

Veteran

I’d track separately and then do a secondary calculation summing the wears... that way you get an idea of wear-and-tear as well as utility...

4 years ago

Jaime

(website)

Veteran

Not a tracker but you raise a side issue - it sounds like you would immediately put the new pair into rotation. I think I would save the new one until the old one is worn out - otherwise I would always grab the new and never "use up" the original pair.

4 years ago

Lucy

Veteran

I would track separately. I like to get a sense of how many wears I get from an item, quality wise. Eg if a tshirt gets 20-30 washes, I'm pretty happy and would buy another.

As Rachy has said, you can always add the numbers together, to get a sense of the item wear total.

4 years ago

Jenni NZ

Veteran

I did exactly this in 2018. I wanted more scoop-neck 3/4 sleeved black tops and searched online initially quite extensively. When I saw that a store I had used before for a favourite teal top which was exactly the same style, had black, I went to get one. But it was buy one, second one half price... so I bought two, $18.74 each.
In my tracking I chose to use one first, when it hit 30 wears in July this year I started using the second one, which has now had 17 wears. Once they have both had 30 wears ( will be next year now as we are in spring and they will be too warm) then I probably won’t worry which one is getting worn as the wear will be even. The first one has worn like iron, after 30 wears you can’t even tell that it has been worn at all really.
I suspect I am doing it like that due to my obsessional nature so don’t at all feel you need to follow my example!

4 years ago

Anonymous

@nemosmom - they are these leggings from Soma: https://www.soma.com/store/pro.....tId=search

So soft, so warm, so comfy. I’m just trying to avoid the laundry bottleneck, too. But I’m a Stylebook user, and not sure how I’d enter these let alone track. Add me to Team Overthink

4 years ago

Stagiaire Fash

Veteran

Silver, those look good. I'm wearing Uniqlo's airism soft leggings today. Just got them last week, don't know why I'd wear anything else for the next 6 months. When I tried to do a find on a US store, I couldn't find the ones I have, just the same thing WITH POCKETS. Be still, my heart!

Nemosmom, I'm not a tracker, but think the answer to your question could depend on your reason for tracking. You want to prevent laundry bottlenecks, so using up one pair before you break out the next doesn't really make sense. If you want to know total wears for each pair, you can divide the total number of wears since you got the second pair by two. It won't be exact, but will give you an idea of whether they are wearing out too soon.

4 years ago

anchie

Veteran

Definitely separately. You will learn how much wear each got, and have more accurate cost per wear if you care about that. If they are identical and you wear them both, you will need to mark them somehow to distinguish. But if that is too much work and you only want to know how much you wear this particular type of item, combining them is easier. It depends what is your tracking goal.

4 years ago

Helena

Veteran

I agree with FI - if the purpose of the second pair is an exact dupe to alleviate the laundry bottleneck, presumably you'll always reach for the clean pair ... so tracking individually might not add value. It will be interesting to see if you wear "black joggers" more often once you don't have the laundry issue stopping you!

4 years ago

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