I am a fan of LL. Bean’s washable wool dress pants as I wear fancy pants to my office job.
LL Bean is known for durable easy care high quality items. Their dress pants are a mix of wool and polyester which results in torrent of financial savings for the office dweller like me. Recently, a relatively new pair had the hem come undone and flapping in the breeze.
Think Before You Toss ‘Em
LL Bean Washable Wool Pants.
Normally I would have tossed it in the Goodwill bag and gotten a new one. More on that in a minute. First, a little more about these productive pants.
Their secret super power is that you can wash and hang them and they come out looking great without a trip to the dry cleaner. They can be more expensive up front, but as you have already learned sometimes it make sense to pay more up front.
The Savings
Let’s take a closer look at the numbers.
| LL Bean Washable Wool | Dry Clean Only Pants | |
| Cost of pants | $119 | $119 |
| Dry cleaning cost per wash | 0 | $5 |
| Water cost per year | $4 | 0 |
| Number of times worn over 3 years | 156 | 156 |
| Gas cost of driving back and forth | 0 | 1 |
| Dryer costs | 0 (we hang these on a dryer rack) | 0 |
| Hassle factor | Low | High |
| Total cost | $124 | $899 |
| Cost per wear | 80 cents | $5.76 |
What? And that is just for one pair of pants. Assuming you wear dress pants 5 days a week the fancy drying clean only pants will cost you $4495 over 3 years. And this is before you consider shirts.
Surprisingly, we have found that doing this ourselves saves time as well. There is no driving and parking needed. And there is rarely a line at our drying rack.
$5000. And time saved. And it is better for the environment.
Back to the unfurling pants. My wife took up the hobby of sowing. She took one look at the unfolded hem on my near new pants and a moment later had them back in order. No need to ditch them.
Another $119 saved that can be added to the $5000 to use for tuition costs.
You can do this.
January 19, 2018 at 1:24 pm
Good tips, the best value is often not the lowest price in a huge array of items. I have to say though the main enjoyment I got out of reading this was how I kept reminding myself, as I sit here in jeans and a comfy casual sweater, that except for maybe one day a week of side giging face to face with clients I just don’t have to wear fancy pants at all since I left my 9 to 5 behind! OK, sorry to rub it in like that but it is a huge benefit of early retirement that you get to dress any way you want most of the time.