Everyone complains about the cost of living. I’ve been to hundreds of homes helping people set up organizing systems and habits. During my work, I have discovered many ways to improve not only on organizing but also on finance. I’d like to share some examples with you.
Wouldn’t each one of us be happy if they can cut their spending by hundreds of dollars?
After reading through, do an exercise for yourself and see how much you can save. It will cheer you up – I promise.
Here are five ways to better organize and save money without compromising on life style:
Food
Keep your inventory as low as possible. Many of us have pantries with deep and no pull outs. The result is food being stuffed back, not visible and not accessible. Therefore, when I organize pantries and kitchens, often I throw away a lot of expired food. KEEPING INVENTORY LOW is the way to use all food purchased and can easily save $150/month. In addition, food creeps into garages and gets lost there also. Keeping food in the garage, except for cans, is not recommended; all kinds of animals are present there and once more, money is wasted.
Kitchenware & Kitchen supplies
Owning too much clutters your kitchen but also wastes money. Do we really need 25 food containers? 3 pans of the same size? 3 slow cookers? You understand the idea. We live in a consumer society and no matter where we turn we see something on sale, so we buy stuff we don’t need. In the end of the day it adds up and we get empty pockets and clutter. Just try to buy a little less and you’ll be happier.
I also want to talk about zip locks and paper towels: using reusable cloth will minimize the use of paper towels to almost zero. This is good for one’s finances and the environment. Zip locks are in excess everywhere I work. It costs money and is bad for the environment. We can be ok with one or two ziplock packs in the house and not 10..
Office supplies
In a disorganized office, supplies can’t be found. When this happens, we buy more supplies and so forth. Frequently I find in clients homes 300 envelopes or 6 pairs of scissors or 50 pens etc. Imagine how much money is wasted here. Check it out.
Office management
Lack of paper management costs money; checks that are not deposited or mail notifications that are not seen and handled can be expensive. For example, a client has not seen multiple correspondences on her long time care insurance. Since she has not responded, her rates went up considerably. Another example: missing out on payments can cause penalties. There are many other examples. Again – one gets cluttered with messy paperwork and spends more money than should. I teach many clients how to effectively manage paperwork.
Clothing & Closets
It is common that a client would tell me that they buy clothes when they are stressed or when they are on sale. It is an emotional reaction. I have donated to a women’s shelter many clothes with the tag on. So money is spent and items are not even used by the buyer. In addition, the closet structure is super important to be able to see all clothes and not buy too much. I encourage you to invest in shelves and drawers. Buying all sorts of organizers that look together like patches will not create an organized environment. Your money will be wasted.
Organizing containers
There are so many organizers and containers that look so “cool”, but they turn out to be not functional. These items are expensive. My suggestion is to not buy anything before organizing and deciding what to keep. Then, if storage is missing, measure and buy a functional item to store things – one where we can put stuff in and actually access them when needed.
I know that the container store and other stores of this type are very popular. Try to avoid going there when you don’t have a very specific goal. It’s like Costco – you will buy five times more than needed. More wasted money.
The above are just five of many examples.
I challenge you to try at least one of my tips and follow up on them. Please share results with me, whatever the outcome is. Remember: Your Home Is A Reflection Of Your Mind!
Good luck.
Always here for you.
Hagit Koren
6/17/2021
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