How many times have you looked at magazines and found all of the neat little products that help to organize your home and thought, "I could be organized if I had this, but I can't afford it?" Everyone at one point or another has thought this way. The true reaction of anyone wanting to be organized, looking for a way to get all of their belongings under control and someone that really cares what their home looks like. I just thought that I would let you know that you can afford to be organized! Sure, it would be nice to have all of the cutsey things and the matching containers and all of the nice divider containers, but it isn't necessary in order for organization to take place.
The best way to get organized and to stay that way is to take your time, use what you already have or purchase the minimal items that you need and then evaluate what you would like to use to permanently organize it. I have had people go through countless different sizes of Rubbermaid containers just to find out that they didn't need half of what they bought and now they have to figure out how to organize the containers. Sure seems like a long way around to achieve an objective, especially when the objective is to organize and save money. Let's just take a linen closet as an example; we want to organize everything according to item and size. We have towels, sheets, tablecloths, doilies and blankets in our closet that are falling off of the shelves. Gosh, where do we start.
It's a mess and it is impossible to see how it is going to look any better without spending a lot of money. You are wrong!! First, we need to take everything out of the closet and put it in 'like' piles. What are 'like' items? Let's start with the sheets; we have 4 sets of Full Size Sheets and 4 sets of Twin Size Sheets, so now we know that we need 2 boxes big enough to hold 4 sets of sheets each. Now that wasn't so hard was it? We have 6 Bath size Towels, 6 washcloths to match and 3 finger tip towels. It doesn't make sense to separate the sizes of the towels and we don't have enough of one kind to make sets, so we need two boxes. One to hold 6 Bath towels with matching washcloths and another to hold 3 fingertips towels that we can buy big enough to store extra dishtowels in.
So at this point, we need four boxes. Next, we need a box for the tablecloths and one for the doilies and something that is big enough to store the blankets in. This is where you are going to make your one and only purchase; buy a vacuum bag large enough to hold all four blankets. Put the blankets in the bag, attach the vacuum hose and pull the air out. Now you should have a small enough container that it will fit just right on that shelf.
Go to the grocery store and get 6 boxes that are about the size that 1 gallon bleach bottles come in. This will be plenty big for your project. If you feel you want to decorate the boxes, you can use gift wrapping paper, comics from the newspaper, contact paper or plastic throw away tablecloths for wrapping them.
Now put a paper label on it to make sure that you know what is inside by just standing back and looking at the boxes. You would write the labels such as; Full Size Sheets, Twin Size Sheets, Bath & Washcloths, Fingertips & Dish Towels, Tablecloths, and Doilies. The blankets you don't have to label because they are in a clear see-thru container. Can you picture how great this is going to look when you are finished and it really didn't cost you a lot of money either!.
Jan Hayner is creeator of Easy Home Organizing at http://www.organizingyourlifetheeasyway.com Get free tips, shortcuts, hints and printables. Order your free pamphlets 50 Things To Do In 10 Minutes or Less and Guiltbusters for Working Moms.
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