It is a new year and time to pick back up the Simple Budgeting Series. You can go back to last year’s series to ask yourself “What is your budget?” and learn A Little Math.
When I say small, think small.
Your purse …
Your junk drawer …
Your makeup in the bathroom …
One drawer or area of your desk (not the whole desk!) …
One cabinet in your kitchen …
One drawer of your dresser …
One like item in your closet (like your shoes) …
Got your one place? Now go organize it. Sort out the trash, the donate, the sell, and the keep items. Yes, four piles. Now maybe in your purse you don’t have all four items but if you clean out your shoes you might! After you do that figure out what to do with your donate and sell items. List them online or find a consignment shop if they are sell items. If they are donate items, head to the local charity of your choice and drop them off. Don’t let them collect up until you have a big pile though.
Why is this the topic for this year? This isn’t budgeting.
Remember the posts last year Knowing What You Have and Using What You Have. This is apparently a big problem and I run into here at my house too. I had some folks tell me they can’t organize because they don’t have money to spend on organizing tubs or other supplies … guess what … you don’t need them!! Use what you have. Get creative. Maybe you use cardboard boxes with the lid cut off or shoe boxes that are labeled. Wrap them in wrapping paper for a festive but ubber cheap nice look!
As I researched for this post, I was amazed at the site and services that offered to get you organized. They aren’t cheap at all. What do they give you? Most of them give you a list. So you pay for a list. No supplies or even someone else’s one-on-one time. A list. I am betting you can find a scrap of paper and make a list. Am I right on that?
This is also brought on by my recent organizing efforts. I recently went through my shoes (gasp!). I can now get to all of my shoes and I have had a lot of fun wearing some of the ones that were buried in chaos just recently. I also went through my sweaters and picked out the ones I didn’t wear and the ones that were too big. That felt really good. Unfortunately, the consignment shop stopped taking winter items already so I will have to save this until next fall. That is OK though because they are labeled and stored next to the kids’ clothes that will go then too.
Next on my list … my little dude’s closet which doesn’t count as a small space but it is the next space on my list. It is next because I can conquer it without spending money. The girls’ closet will cost me a little bit as I need to take down that horrible organizer thing (if you even dare to call it that!) the previous owners graced us with. aye.
So tell me what you organize and how it makes you feel. Do you feel like you can know what you have and use what you have better? Did that SMALL step make a difference?
Do you have a budget question/idea/topic/blog post? Let me know in a comment or email to simplybudgeted at gmail.com.
I need to organize my kitchen drawers~ One drawer at a time, I'll get there!
Sara – your kitchen drawers are a great place to start. My husband went through the ones in our kitchen last summer. He removed duplicates and stuff he didn't use … wouldn't you know that was the FIRST stuff that sold when we held the neighborhood yard sale!