Tough call. It kind of depends on what kind of things you do & how you need to dress for work.

If you're an athlete, you need socks for that. If you wear a suit to work, you'll need a full range of work socks. If your work attire is jeans & a T-shirt, your work socks can be your fun socks too.

Even if you need separate work and non-work footwear, I think you'll be able to reduce your aresenal quite a bit from 60 pairs, unless you really hate doing laundry.

I would say, at a minimum, 10 pairs of athletic socks and 10 pairs of work/dress socks. I sometimes go through 2 pair of athletic socks per day so you might want to bump that number up to 15.

Some knitters will create socks that look alike, but don't match exactly (stripe pattern, etc.) so, in an emergency, you have two that coordinate, if nothing else. A little pile of just-in-cases. :)

My aversion to laundry on the weekends (only time home) must have been the driver for my "scadload" of socks. Now the drudgery of trying to find matching pairs and the realizaiton that the pile has morphed into 60 paris brought me to admit my shame.

I'm glad I'm not alone.

Since my origianl post I've dropped to 23 pairs. 10 for work, 10 athletic, and 3 hiking. So far so good...

Now if only I could knit my own I'd save some loot...I'm addicted to expensive SmartWool socks.

I don't know the perfect number, but I know it's an even, non-negative integer. :)

20 work 10 sports 10 “special” purple, disney, or just polka-dot

and just in case (keep these unwraped) +5 work +5 sports

Now I don’t keep track on how many I got now, but as soon as the sock gnomes get me missing some or I just bust/wear out 1 or more I instantly unwrap a fresh pair. The day I use up the +5 stack I buy a some more.

If you are getting ready for ww3 or you just hate to buy socks every 2-4 months get moar then those +5 stacks.

P.S. Just don’t get all freaky and buy +500, curl them all in balls and sleep in their multicolored glory ^^