How to De-Clutter Your House for $1.49
Ever wish you could just stop life with all of its work, errand-running, kid-tending, hubby-pleasing, crazy-busy activity and just get your home de-cluttered and organized? Maybe just for 3 or 4 days no one would need you to cook, wash, answer or do ANYTHING! Then, you could take the time to sort through your closets, dressers, cupboards, garage and basement and get rid of what you no longer need or use and straighten up what is left.
Usually each summer I go on a de-junking journey. I do it again the week after Chrsitmas. {I write about how in this book} However I wasn’t able to fit this in last Christmas OR last summer. So clutter of the drawer, cupboard and closet kind was hollerin’ my name. If only I could stop life to get caught up.
{sigh}
Since with our family’s schedule this summer that was simply NOT an option, I came up with an idea. A $1.49 idea to de-clutter my home.
Now you must know that I don’t work well on projects in little snippets. If a task takes about 5 hours to complete, I don’t work on it for ten days in a row a half hour at a time like some of my friends do. No ma’am. I wait until my family is all gone and I dive in and work for five hours straight, button it up and move on to the next task.
But I knew that this summer the process of de-cluttering my hidden junk {the house looked fine on the surface. Just don’t open that closet or that drawer!} would take a looooong time since it had been a while.
So here is my $1.49 idea. I trekked off and bought myself a set of index cards {49 cents} and a little organizer box to keep them in {$1}.
Next I made a card for all of the projects I had waiting for me and also listed about how long I thought they would take.
Then, I put them in the file box under a label with the time frame of the jobs.
Now, when I have a chunk of time in my day, I can ask myself, “How much time?” Then I pull out just one card, tackle the task and throw the card away.
Yes, yes….I know I could have just made a list of the projects and then crossed them off as I went but the long list would still be starting me in the face and making me feel frustrated and defeated.
This $1.49 method made me MOTIVATED AND ENERGIZED!!! I even started to pull out a 30 minute card at night and set my alarm for 30 minutes earlier just so I could knock off a card.
Then, I’d haul e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g out of the drawer, closet or cupboard, wipe it down, sort the “stuff”, put the unwanted in a donate {or garage sale} box or recycle bin and neatly arrange back what was left.
I didn’t go making major purchases either. I found all sorts of little baskets from the dollar store, organizational cubes I’d picked up from a garage sale, plastic crates, etc… to re-purpase and reorganize. I became so motivated that in only three weekends I tackled the entire kitchen, living room, hall closet, master bedroom, guest room and all the bathrooms. I know if I had just made a list on a legal pad it would still be staring me in the face because it would seem like such a big a task. I’d never have rolled up my sleeves and even gotten started.
Now, here are a few pics of my results. {I know I should have taken “before” pics to so you could have seen how cluttery it was originally but I didn’t plan on blogging about this until a few friends I was chatting with decided to make their own sets of cards.}
The office closet.
The kitchen baking cupboard.
Master bedroom closet. There is tons of wasted space in here because the builder made it so that if you hang items on the top rack, you can’t use the shelf just above the bottom rack because the bottom of the clothes touch it. Dollar store bins and garage sale shelving now hold medicines and cosmetics.
Oh…and on my dejunking journey I found a TON of socks with no match. Not sure if they will be redeemed later when we find their mate or will be tossed into outer darkness for eternity turning into dust rags so I made this:
Well, I hope this gives you some summer clutter-busting motivation! Leave a comment here on this post about your biggest hidden clutter challenge. When I return from a short blogging break, I’ll pick three winners of my book The Complete Guide to Getting and Staying Organized and a $5 Target gift card to buy your own $1.49 system and a little treat to eat while you work :-)
Happy sorting!
NOTE: I am taking a blogging break until August 1st (give or take a day) in order to focus on our Proverbs 31 She Speaks writers, speakers and women’s ministry leaders conference being held in Charlotte, NC at the end of the month. To make sure you don’t miss my posts when I return, consider signing up to get all my new posts sent you your email box. Easy enough? Click here to do so. See you in August!
My biggest HIDDEN clutter challenge is my laundry room. Rarely entered for more than 2 minutes at a time, filled with stuff that doesn’t belong anywhere else. Dusty, and smelly (thank you, cat litter), so not much incentive to hang out in there sorting through stuff. Ugh!
Great Idea…my problem is the basement since it is unfinished everything is tossed down there and it has no organization behind it.
Hmmm…my biggest cluttering challenge is the kitchen counter, which will not stay clean no matter how hard I try! Mail, school papers, half-finished projects belonging to the kids, receipts, etc. – it manages to be covered again within a day of being done. Also, daughters’ bedrooms – yikes! And the dining room. This is an issue in pretty much every room! I SO need help with organizing! Lol!
This is a great idea! I’m definitely doing it!
I have most of the rooms in my house de-cluttered because I keep putting the piles in our mudroom/dog’s room. Poor Mootch can barely find his bed at night because all the piles have morphed into one huge mess in there.
I would love to have this book. I need some new ideas for de-cluttering and organizing. I have two boys and a husband that are all pack rats so I’m on my own with any type of these projects. I love your idea and am going to try it out. I usually scratch lists on a piece of paper and throw it in my purse hoping to accomplish them at some point. Needless to say my purse is plum full of scrap pieces of paper. Guess I need to de-clutter it too!
My biggest problem is our bedroom. It seems to be our dumping station for all. Thanks for sharing your $1.49 idea. Made me think.
love the idea. my biggest dilemma is organizing our clothes. I’m getting ready to have baby #8 and could use sometips on staying decluttered and organized!
What a great idea! I recently quit my job to stay home with my 5 year old son and am constantly looking for the best way to organize his toys. Its a complete mystery to me! I could definitely use your book to get me on track! Thanks for an awesome post!
I just spent my $1.49 and I can’t wait to de-clutter!
I have a question, though: how do you handle it when your task takes longer than the designated time? I often find that things end up taking longer than I originally thought they would…Do I just put the card back in the box and pull it out again later? Should I over-estimate, with hopes of erring on the side of too long for a task, rather than not long enough?
My biggest challenge is getting the house to myself for long enough periods to get some of the bigger projects done, like master room closet, guest room, and homeschool room.
I would love to read your book and implement some new ideas.
Loved this idea, and I am not only making one for me but for the kids! :) With older teens it gets harder and harder to help them stay organized as they are working, going to college etc. This is a great idea! Would love to read your book and get more!
Pure genius! Sometimes I read your posts and I think we truly are related. I have such difficulty with bite-size tasks. With this system I have hope. I’m gonna do it!! I think we’ll need 3 Sock Purgatory bags though. And I love that you’re taking a blogging break. Can’t wait to see you at She Speaks. Blessings!!
Love this idea! My biggest de-clutter need is my daughter’s bedroom and my closet. They are so overwhelming that I just don’t want to attach them. This idea would be great for doing it in small chunks!
The spare bedroom aka craft room! Need more storage, and the battle goes on in a small house where the hubby isn’t too much help after a long day outside in the heat. I get overwhelmed very easily, so it is a list on the notepad of what I want to accomplish each day. I feel wonderful when I see one or two things crossed off at the end of the day!
My biggest clutter problem is that no one but me sees the clutter. DH just leaves more piles of papers and stacks of mail everywhere. He just walks around it or over it. The kids walk over the laundry, the junk, the toys. No one seems bothered by it but me. So getting anyone to seriously help is futile. Then I get frustrated and feel like “why bother.” I have a friend who has decluttered her house so much that she has removed 180 garbage bags of stuff in the last year and has more to go. I’m sure I could come up with more that that if I could get people motivated.
Love this idea. My biggest problem is that I don’t know where to start. Plus the kids mess up the house right behind me. Great post.
We just moved and I really tried to weed out stuff before and while packing, but ran out of time to do it all. So here I am with some unpacked boxes and a lack of built in storage from our previous house and a lack of funds to run out and buy organizational items. I love your card idea. I’m thinking of numbering the boxes for the cards. Just walking in the room with all those boxes is so overwhelming. A card with 1 box number is doable. As I go through a box I can take out what probably shouldn’t have moved with us and inventory what’s left. I can look for a logical home for the items or start a list of possible storage solutions. As I go through more boxes and combine like items, that may change my storage need. So I hesitate to run out and buy stuff until I have a better picture of what that need really is. If I get started today….there’s a community-wide garage sale in the next town in the middle of August. Might be able to pick baskets, crates and/or shelving. Thanks, Karen. I was feeling a little lonely and overwhelmed, but now I’m feeling a little excited to tackle those boxes.
Love your $1.49 de-cluttering suggestion. Also like your closet organization suggestion as I have a closet built by the same builder Lol.
Hi Karen, this sounds like a good idea. My problem is, I’m really not good at determining how long a given project will take. But even making a list of projects would be a start. I love your baking cupboard. Pictures like that really help me, because I find it hard to figure out the way to best use the space I have.
My closet for sure! Love the idea for the cards.
monk5 at charter dot net
I like this idea but at my place, with a toddler, a 10 min. job can turn into a 3 hr. job! Seasons of life… The greatest struggle I have is with paper clutter, the office, etc. It’s overwhelming to me but I guess I need to do it in bite sized pieces.
Thank you for encouragement … I need it! Deck utter and organize has been on my list for two years now. Lord, help me with this kick start of encouragement. My biggest challenge is bedroom closets :-( then would be the laundry room cupboards; then the bathroom cupboards; etc.
see you in August!
Our basement is the biggest problem area right now. Working on organizing it into a school/office area, scrapbook area, play area and tv/video game area.
My biggest challenge has been years in the making! A few years back my husband and I downsized, from 5 acres and 2 houses(one for my crafts) to a small 2 bedroom house! I hadn’t quite made that adjustment, when I moved to another city to be with my sister while she battled Leukemia. She lost that fight and I came home with her 8 year old, special needs grandson. My house has not grown to accommodate all that came home with me. To say that I am overwhelmed is quite the understatement! Most days feeding us is all I can manage. Clutter almost never makes my daily “to do” list! Yet living with it adds to my sense of being so far behind that I can’t see light at the end of my tunnel! Our grown daughters and our church are great to help with child care and encouragement, I’m not alone in this journey-just under the “stuff”!