Organizing- Time really is money

One of the things I've been doing lately is "nesting", which I think is a nice way of alerting the other person in the relationship- "Watch out, the preggo lady is going to go crazy and start cleaning!!"

GUILTY.

There were a lot of things that i had wanted to do for a while, but now seemed like a good time, since I had 2 3-day weekends in a row.

If you don't know what you have in your house, you won't save as much time or money as you would if you were organzied.

Example-  If your pantry is a jumble, when you peer into it to prep for your grocery trip (because in this scenario you are making a list to take to the store, which you always should), you won't see the 26 cans of Ro*tel tomatoes that you have.  You'll think you're out and buy more.  Eventually you will eat them, but if your pantry was organized you'd see them all in a row and know that you're good.

As part of my goal to use our family binder (more on this in my next post), I printed pantry and freezer inventory sheets.  Instead of carrying them with me at all times, I have placed them in plastic page protectors with a pen and taped one to the inside of my pantry, and one to the outside of my freezer.  Now I know what we have in stock at a glance.It also makes prepping my grocery list a breeze!

This pic was taken about a week or so ago, before I went to the grocery store for January.

 

Now the freezer is full, but I still have the lone Hot Pocket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I plan on making an inventory of our HBA as well. I recently cleaned out our HBA stockpiles, getting rid of stuff that we didn't like or would never use.  I traded a large flat rate box full of HBA for a huge coupon pot luck, and the 2nd large box of HBA was traded to a friend for make-up products that she makes and sells (I plan on using some of this for prizes at my shower)

I also organized the tupperware/rubbermade/gladware/ziploc re-usables that we put leftovers in.  Before (thankfully, there are no pics, 'cause WHOAH was it awful!), lids and bowls were just tossed up on top of the fridge, willy nilly.  If they got too close to the edge and we opened the freezer door, they'd fall on us. LAME.

 

A quick trip to 99 Cents Only, and $4.o0 later, the lids and bowls were separated into green baskets that fit on top of the fridge. 2 baskets for lids, and 2 for the bowls.

[caption id="attachment_832" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The lids!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_831" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="After- Doesn't it look much better?"][/caption]

 

 

It is much easier to navigate... and also, nothing falls on me when I open the freezer.

Now doing my once a week lunch and dinner prep is so much easier, all of the lids and bowls fit together- no more orphans.  I threw a bunch of lids missing bowls and vice versa into the recycling.

 

 

 

 

The linen closet- the final frontier of my mad organizing skills.

Before, much like the top of my fridge- Towels crammed in (not folded), flat sheets mixed with fitted sheets, wash cloths everywhere. It was chaos.  Once again, we trotted off to  99 Cents only and picked up some baskets.  These are black.

One basket for wash cloths and hand towels, one for pillow cases, 2 for flat sheets, two for fitted sheets.  That takes up half the linen closet.  The other half are blankets, flannel sheets for my massage table, the top sheet of our polar fleece sheets (they are so snuggly, but it is never *that* cold here), laundry soap, dryer sheets and some misc. exercise equipment ( Elastic bands and the pump for our exercise ball, that I use for a desk chair) and the larger towels (bath sheets).  We are big, tall people, so we use larger towels.

 

[caption id="attachment_833" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="What lurks inside???"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_834" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="That's a lot of towels..."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_835" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="The Baskets- and yes, so many more towels!"][/caption]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, it's so much a lot easier to find everything (especially pillow cases!).  And because everything is put away in the linen closet, there aren't a pile of towels sitting in my room in a basket, that DH washes over and over again, even though they are clean.  Because- if it's in a laundry basket, it's obviously dirty.  Even if it smells clean and is folded.  That by itself will save me money- we have a coin op. laundry in our building.

I also cleaned off the shelf and re-organized the photos, and added a few more.

The sewing machine and the pile of mending on top of it will be tackled tomorrow!  Most of it is sewing new buttons on DH's pants and fixing fallen hems.  Doing your own clothing repairs is also a great way to save money.  Learn to sew on a button or fix a fallen hem and you'll save $20-$100/year by avoiding paying the local tailor or dry cleaner to do it. You can pick up an inexpensive sewing kit at most mass-merchandisers.