Frugal Intuition

I issued an edict to my husband last week that this weekend we were going to clean up his office.  We have a 3 bedroom house.  Our room, my office/the guest room, and his office/the home gym.  I am a fairly fastidious and neat person.  I have a bit of an anxiety issue when it comes to serious mess and clutter.  So much so that when we move (and I think my record is somewhere around 13 times now), I wind up breaking my neck to get things put away and out of boxes because I simply can’t cope.  I’m a firm believer in the idea that the state of one’s home mirror’s the state of one’s mind.  Being married to someone who is most decidedly not a neat freak, this means that several times a year my threshold for mess is breached, and I declare it time for massive cleaning.

Now most of the time, I leave him alone.  If I can get to the closet to hang clean clothes, the rest of the time I just shut the door and pretend it doesn’t exist.   But now we have large numbers of family coming into town for Thanksgiving, which means that we need floorspace for an air mattress in D.H.’s office.  There were piles of…stuff everywhere.  Computer components, music equipment (of the instrument variety and accessories), software, and–honestly I don’t know what all.  But piles of crap.  Lots of stuff he said he was going to sell on Ebay months ago.  It was time.

The whole process (which is not finished yet, I should mention) got me thinking about all the ways disorganization costs us money.

But first…

10 Signs you Definitely Need To Organize

1. You are afraid to open the closet door for fear that something will fall on you.
2. You have to rent a mini-storage for reasons other than being in temporary housing.
3. You may spend an hour or more searching for something that you know you own, and wind up having to shift half the contents of your house to find it.
4. After all that, you wind up buying another one because you can’t find the first one.
5. Searching for something under your bed is akin to a deep cover military operation.
6. You have lost your child or a pet in the jungles of clutter.
7. Your closet shelves have collapsed from the strain.
8. You frequently come across things you didn’t know you own.
9. You cannot fit an actual vehicle in your garage.
10. You can’t actually remember what kind of flooring you have because it has been covered up with stuff for too long.

Any of those apply to you?

We definitely have had issues with some of these.  Being young newlyweds, we were supplied with all sorts of hand me down furniture and accessories and general stuff by both sides of our family.  When we were first starting out, that was great and much appreciated.  But eventually we got to a point where we were ready to get rid of some things.  What was stopping us?  Guilt.  I cannot tell  you how many things we were hanging on to because someone in our family gave it to us (whether as a gift or whatever).  Stuff that we didn’t want or need or use.  We felt like we had to keep it, just because it was given to us.  Kind of like that whole…well they might stop by and wonder where it is…

New rule: You do not have to keep something just because someone you love or who loves you gave it to you.  If you don’t like it, don’t use it, don’t need it, get rid of it.  Throw it way, donate it to charity, or find a starving college or grad student to give it to.  They’ll appreciate it. Or if you can, list it on Craigslist or Freecycle .

If you have one of those well meaning family members or friends who keeps giving you stuff (my mother has used me as an excuse to give me the old and get new herself), have an intervention!  Tell them thanks, but no thanks. You don’t have room for anything in your home that you don’t want, need, or use.  Space is at a premium these days.  Square footage costs money. Don’t pay for extra storage. 

As a general rule, if you haven’t used it or worn it in the past two years, you should get rid of it.   I am definitely guilty of keeping lots of clothes and other things “just in case”.  I finally gave up the fight a few years ago and admitted I will never be the size I was in college again and got rid of a whole lot of tiny clothes.  Hubby has now done the same.  There were lots of other things I found when we moved into our house (after having all our stuff in storage for 2 years because we were living with the in laws to save up for a downpayment) that I didn’t remember owning in the first place.  I got rid of 3 car sized piles of stuff when we first moved in.

If your closets are so full that you can’t find something and wind up buying a new one only to find the original one later, you’re wasting money.  It is worth taking the time to organize your stuff so that you can find things when you need them.

And all that stuff D.H. promised to list on ebay?  He was supposed to do that a year ago.  A lot of it was technology–computer components, a fancy universal remote, etc.  By him waiting, technology has advanced and we’ve lost money.  No one will want to buy the old technology.  He’s still going to try to sell it for whatever he can get (because remember, the little things add up), but think of how much more he could have made selling this stuff if he’d done it a year ago.

My friend Susan has ridiculous stores of fabric for craft projects, but she often has difficulty finding what she’s looking for.  So much so, that she frequently gets discouraged and never does the project in the first place.  That disorganization is costing her the money she’d earn on her crafts (she makes fabulous doll clothes).

I realize that organization can be a seriously overwhelming task.  Many people don’t know how to dive in and get started.  But believe me, it is so worth the effort to get the clutter out of your house and out of your life.  For those who need a bit more direction, you might check out FlyLady.