Category Archives: Simplicity

Fall cleaning?: Clutter cleanup goals for September

I’m getting a late start, but I decided this past weekend to set a new goal for myself. We have a ton of clutter that’s built up in every nook and cranny of our apartment. Drawers in the guest bedroom, closets, the bookshelves … basically everywhere that is capable of accumulating stuff.

I tend to get motivated to clear clutter in the fall instead of the traditional spring cleaning for a few reasons:

  • With colder temperatures and bad weather coming up, I know we’ll be spending more time indoors.
  • We might be getting some visitors in October or November, and I want to be ready for them.
  • We’re heading out to Seattle to visit my sister the first weekend in October (more on that later), and I’d like to get everything cleared away before we go. Don’t you just love coming home to a clean house? It makes the end of vacation not so bad.

So here’s the rundown of everything that needs to be done in the next three weeks:

  • Massive wardrobe overhaul – I want to donate everything in my closet that I haven’t worn this summer. My husband and I share a closet, so I like to do this every season to clear up some space. Because we don’t have a lot of room, we put seasonal clothing into storage at the beginning of each new season. Clearing out my closet now will ensure that I’m not wasting space by storing things I don’t wear, and it will make it easier to transition to winter clothes.
  • Empty out the drawers – I have a really bad habit of stuffing things into drawers without organizing them. Extra drawers become a depository for things that I don’t really need or want. The drawers I use on a daily basis are pretty organized, but if I don’t see it, then I have a bad habit of letting it get out of control. When I do need something (like batteries for the flashlight last weekend), I open the drawers to find nothing but a big old mess. So I periodically need to clear everything out, organize what I’m going to keep, and throw away the things I’m not.
  • Organize the closets – Like the drawers, the closets we don’t use regularly are a big mess. We have three extra closets, and they’re all full. Ridiculous. Time to purge and organize.
  • Organize our kitchen cabinets – We’re usually pretty good about keeping these in order because we use them every day. But the space under our sink has gotten pretty cluttered, and the inside of the cabinets could use a good cleaning. There’s also some nonperishable stuff in the pantry that, although it’s “nonperishable,” has been in there too long.
  • Assess our book and DVD collections – We’ll probably always be book collectors. My husband is going to be a literature/creative writing teacher, so it kind of goes with the territory. I don’t mind a large book collection. There’s always something to read! It needs to be monitored in the same way that a wardrobe does, though. We haven’t been buying many books for the past year, but our may tastes have changed. We may still have books/DVDs that we bought a long time ago and don’t like enough to keep. It’s time to go through them, dust the bookshelf, decide what’s staying, and sell what’s going.

These are some pretty big goals for me, especially since I’m notorious for making big plans to be productive over the weekend and getting nothing done. My husband is always willing to team up with me on projects like this, so I won’t be doing it alone. Hopefully we can get it all done!

Does your home need a good fall cleaning? Why don’t you join me! Tell me your goals for getting your home clutter-free and ready for winter and the holiday season!

Clutter clean-up update

I had the best of intentions to get rid of the clothes I never wear and round up all of the magazines that have been accumulating around the apartment for over a year. Then we spent yesterday afternoon and evening at two different cookouts. The bigger part of today went to running errands, grocery shopping, and honestly doing nothing. Then it was suddenly 7 p.m., and I realized I’d gotten nothing done. Oops.

The nice thing about blogging is that I now hold myself accountable for the little goals that I set. It’s just too late for me to get started on the massive undertaking that is my clothing surplus, but I figured I could get the magazines taken care of easily enough. So I set to work collecting all of the magazines scattered around the apartment. I found magazines in pretty much every room in our apartment. 42 in all. Yikes.

Here they are all stacked up and ready for recycling. Next to them is our very curious dog trying to camouflage himself and blend in with the magazines. He didn’t understand why I was lying on the floor taking pictures instead of playing with him:

Tony and I spent an hour flipping through them and tearing out articles, recipes, and workouts that we thought we might use in the future. We only found a tiny stack of useful information. The rest is going to the recycling center tomorrow evening along with all of the junk mail, newspapers, and other paper waste that’s been accumulating in the corner of our guest room for two months.

We’ve acquired a number of new subscriptions in the past few months, so our goal is to keep up with our magazine build up from now on. We want to get rid of them as we read them so the only issue we have on hand is the current one. We’ve tried this method in the past and, obviously, failed.

I don’t know why I’m convinced that I need to save magazines. I never go through them again. Never. It feels good to have them all stacked up in one place and ready for recycling. Here’s hoping we can stick to it this time!

Anybody else have a magazine problem? How do you manage it?

Subscribe

TGIF Link Round-up: Clearing Clutter Edition

Inspired by Kacie at Sense to Save who is selling her clutter on eBay and Heather at Freebies 4 Mom who challenged us on Monday to minimize our magazines, I have big plans to spend the weekend clearing some clutter out of my life.

The drawers in my dresser are so stuffed with clothes that I can barely open them anymore. There’s no way I wear all of that. So I’m going through my drawers this weekend and donating everything that’s stuffed into those drawers that I haven’t worn this summer.

As for my magazine stash? Sadly, it’s completely out of control. With 5 different subscriptions between my husband and me, we have stacks of magazines that have built up in every room of the house. They’ve been accumulating for almost a year. Yikes! We also have a stack of paper recycling that’s long overdue for the recycling center, so we’re going to get all of the magazines together along with our paper recycling and get it out of our lives!

Now on to the inspiring posts of the week. Is it just me, or is time going by faster than normal?

  • Emily at Remodeling this Life wrote an inspiring post about her motivation to stay frugal. This is a great reminder of what lies ahead for those of us still working to get out of debt, and a reminder of why it’s important to be frugal even after you’ve paid the debt down.

So now it’s on to the decluttering! Wish me luck! Happy Friday everyone!

Just say no to the birthday lunch

It’s lunch time, and I’m sitting at my desk eating last night’s leftovers alone. Don’t feel sorry for me, though. The hardest part is over.

You see, I’m a faithful brown bagger. The majority of my colleagues go out to lunch every day, but there’s usually one of two fellow brown baggers who stay behind. It’s someone different every day, but I usually have someone to eat with me. But today is someone’s birthday, so I’m eating alone.

Saying no to the birthday lunch is no easy feat. In addition to the email reminders I’ve received for the past few days, about 10 people stopped by my desk this morning to remind me. “It’s Susan’s birthday today! I know you normally bring a lunch, but you’re coming today, right?” I politely declined. “You’re not coming? Oh, come on, you can eat leftovers any day! It’s Susan’s birthday!” Through all the pressure, I stood my ground. Not easy considering the fact that birthday lunch pressure is even greater than the everyday pressure to go out to eat.

Many people just cannot fathom why I wouldn’t want to join them. They think that if they ask me several times with varying degrees of insistence, I might change my mind. Some people get downright pushy. While I appreciate the invitations, enough is enough.

Now before you label me an evil antisocial birthday hater, hear me out. I love birthdays. I’m usually the first in line to offer well wishes and sign cards. I even used to make an exception to my brown bagging rule and join my co-workers on birthdays.

Then I started noticing how much those little exceptions were costing me. It’s not just birthday lunches. It’s all the little things that aren’t a part of the budget, but you tell yourself, “Oh, just this once can’t hurt.” Then it’s the end of the month, and you’ve blown a hundred dollars on “just this once” exceptions.

Birthday lunches used to be one of those little exceptions for me. The last office birthday was two weeks ago. There is another birthday today, and another in three weeks. I know, it sounds like I’m overreacting. Surely with all the penny pinching we do, I can afford to go out to lunch to celebrate a colleague’s birthday once a month. After all, don’t I believe in making extra room in the budget for the little luxuries? But I just can’t justify spending $10 on a lunch out when I have leftovers from last night that will be wasted if I don’t eat them today. To me, that’s not a luxury; it’s just wasteful.

Going out to lunch isn’t just a waste of the $10 I would spend at the restaurant. It’s also a waste of the delicious chicken Alfredo that my husband made last night … enough to feed a family of four, and just the two of us to eat it.

It’s hard to say no, especially when people act dumbstruck. They have a point. Who doesn’t enjoy getting out of the office to enjoy a nice lunch? I know I do. But I’ve made a commitment to save money, and unnecessary restaurant meals were the first thing to go. We have plenty to eat at home, and it costs a fraction of what I would pay at a restaurant. If I don’t draw the line at this birthday, then when will I? If we don’t set limits and stick to them, then what’s the point of setting limits?

I do believe that it’s important to make room in your budget for extra luxuries that are really important to you, but lunches out just aren’t a priority for me. I’d rather use my entertainment budget to enjoy a meal out with my husband once a month or a Sunday matinee. It may sound selfish, but if you don’t make those choices and stand by them, then you’re no longer making “little exceptions”; you’re just overspending.

I don’t want to blow my budget with a hundred little exceptions this month. So I’m just saying no.

Subscribe