Hey Nerds,
Are you missing live sports yet? We sure are here in our nerdhold. Presently, we’re rewatching college football games from 2010 on YouTube, because why not? Will all of this watching of sportsball, it got me thinking of one of our favorite life hacks: buying youth-sized clothing!
As you may have caught on, we have two nerds living in this household. It’s one male and one female of vary different size (there’s a 13 inch height differential between the two of us). So this life hack is for the ladies out there. We have found that our lady nerd can EASILY wear youth-sized shirts, pants, and shoes. We know, we know. This sounds weird. Honestly, we find it hilarious. One Christmas the gentlenerd bought the lady nerd Youth XL pajama pants bedecked with their college logo and I kid you not they were easily 6 inches too long! She has to roll up the pants or roll down the waist band to not trip in the pants.
Fun Fact: The average height of a 14 year-old-boy is 5′ 4.25″. The height our lady nerd? 5′ 4.75″. <insert wide eyed emoji>
I promise there’s a good reason we wanted to share this info with you all–it’s major cost savings! OK, so this is how it ties in to sports. We LOVE sports. And we want to rep our teams. (Go Chiefs!) With that support, you obviously buy jerseys. Because again, Go Chiefs! But have you looked at the prices of jerseys lately? Heck, look at the price of this women’s NFL jersey for Bills defensive end, Jerry Hughes.
Holy moly, $100 for a jersey? That’s easily our water and gas bills for a month in the spring!
Fun Fact #2 (our first ever!): here in our nerdhold (that’s a nerd household), we look at expenses in terms of how it equates to a bill. You think $300 for a Nintendo Switch Lite bundle is reasonable? Are you OK with that covering three summer electric bills in Texas for a small house? Want those $60 BALLER two tone riding boots on ThredUp? That’s two months of gas bills. You know what, for some people that’s totally worth it. But YOU have to make that decision for yourself and what works best for your budget.
Let’s say $100 isn’t quite on budget. Let’s look at the Youth equivalent.
$75! That’s a 25% price cut if you’re willing to wear a slightly less form-fitting jersey to rep your team.
Wondering what’s the comparison in size? Let’s show you off the jerseys in one of our closets. For your viewing pleasure, we present to you a women’s small jersey (Alex Smith!) and a youth large jersey (MAHOMES!).
Could I have done a better job lining them up, yeah. But they are pretty comparable in length. The women’s jersey is, again, more form fitting. They cut it to have a more flattering fit on a female fan. The sleeve length is also a little shorter. Let’s look at them one on top of the other.
Yeah the length is darn near identical, but look at those sleeves!
Here’s the thing, football season starts at the tail end of summer. Summer in Texas is hot as Hades. For the women out there who don’t sweat gracefully, our lady nerd readily admits she ugly sweats, the youth large also gives you a little more room to air out and try to avoid sweating through your jersey. (Let’s get real, it’ll probably still happen. BUT you’ll have the increased possibility of diminishing the sweat stains and airing out if there’s a stiff breeze.)
And you know what? This isn’t limited to clothing, you can buy youth sized shoes! A women’s size 7 is a youth size 5. (We’ve seen 2 different conversions. Some say you can subtract 2 from your women’s size and that is the youth size. Some say 1.5. We personally find shoes 2 sizes smaller fits the nerdy female feet in our home.) Keep in mind that youth sizes go up to 7, so ladies up to size 9 are set.
You’re probably thinking, why would I want youth shoes? I’m a grown ass woman. One word: TOMS. Have you bought a pair of TOMS lately? A printed pair of slip on TOMS for women is like $54.95. (Hello gas bill for a month.) With youth sizing you can snag a pair for $35.95. (You should know TOMS goes up to youth size 6.)
Or let’s say you live in a state where cowboy boots are not a novelty but a fashion essential. Youth boots don’t break the bank priced anywhere between $50-100. Women’s boots? Don’t even look. You’ll cry.
So if we’ve learned anything from our discovery, it’s that you can cut some major costs by shopping for you or a lady in your life (mom, sister, partner, friend, Secret Santa recipient) in the youth section. Take a look; you can save some bucks and still get some pretty rad stylish clothes. Or screw it and get sneakers that light up when you walk! You do you.
Cheers,
Head Nerd