My mother gave us a great idea for the sock issue! Since all our children are reletively the same size we buy the large packs of the one size fits 4 or 5 shoe sizes white socks. All five kids wear the same socks, white goes with most all their cloths and there is no need to pair! And the sock eating washer causes us less issue. If you have 5 pairs of white socks and loose a sock you have 4 pairs loose another you still have 4, instead of having 3 and two odd socks out! We keep them in a basket in the closet with the shoes.