Frugel Friday #1: How Clutter Costs Me Money

I return to work in just one week from now after having off for the last ten weeks on maternity leave to care for my third (and final) baby boy, Thomas.  I have really enjoyed my time home with him and my middle son part time for three days a week (he goes to day care for the other two days to keep some routine in his life). Our day care bill is about to go from $240/week to $635/week, so we need to be mindful of our spending.  REALLY mindful of our spending. 

We do not have a lot of areas we can cut back on.  Our mortgage is already pretty cheap, we don't have car loans or credit card debt, we don't have cable or super huge cell phone bills.  Our family has done "no spend" months in the past and those have been popular posts on my blog (see here, here, here, and here) so I thought it would be fun to pop in once in awhile on this blog and share how we're saving money where we can.  I'm calling it, Frugal Friday.

Frugal Friday will be a day where I can share our ups and downs, share tips on how we save, and hopefully have you the reader do the same!  PLEASE!  I love reading blogs about saving money, if you have a great tip, please share it with me.

So let's begin by talking about one area where I think this family loses money:  CLUTTER.

Dun dun duuuun. 

Clutter.

Clutter costs this family real money.  You see, everything is so disorganized in this house, I'm guessing many of you can relate.  When things are disorganized you can't find the "thing" you are looking for.  When you can't find that said "thing" you go out and buy a new "thing" to replace the "thing" you can't find.  Suddenly before you know it you have 35 of that same "thing" in the house.  For us, this happens a lot.  The "thing" is: hats/gloves, batteries, dishtowels, lip gloss, plastic containers, socks, crib sheets, etc.  I could keep going but I think you get the picture, I'm sure you all have plenty of your own "things" that multiply.  Not only do they cost you money when you replace them but the time you spent looking for them is precious time you can't get back.  I read we all waste something like 40 minutes a day looking for stuff.  I believe it.  Sometimes it is just easier to go buy a new one than to look and find the one you're looking for, right?  This mindset costs us money, real money.   So it is time to get rid of this money drainer. 

I've been slowly working on trying to organize our house.  With three little boys in the house (and one big one), that hasn't been easy but so far I have managed to organize and group a few areas that I think were costing us money.  Here's one:

Household Supplies

Our entry closet has been under utilized since the day we moved into this house (11 years ago!).  Look at that hot mess!  Every time I opened that door, something fell on top of me.  This is nothing but a waste of space and a place where we were losing money.  You might be asking how this dirty closet was costing us money.   This closet was supposed to be holding our supply of paper products and cleaning supplies but you can't see them behind all the clutter....and because you can't see it, we went out and bought more.  More than we need.  We bought two huge packs of toilet paper in the last two weeks because we thought we were out.

Seriously?  Look at this closet!  That floor mop is suspended in the air and defying the law of gravity.  Like that isn't waiting to fall and get broken and then I would have to buy a new one that would cost me more money.  

And that poor shelf up above has so much potential but is being under utilized by disorganization.  

I cleaned out this under utilized closet and got to work.  Usually this means a trip to target to get some new and pretty organizational crates, baskets, plastic containers ($$$), etc BUTTTT, remembering my neighbor's recent post on her blog challenging us to living simply, I reorganized organized this closet for ZERO DOLLARS!  ZERO DOLLARS people, come on, I should get a high five for doing that!

I grabbed a shelf from the basement that wasn't being used.  My husband wanted to put this ugly beast in our tiny office off of our bedroom.......gasp......the horror..... so I needed to come up with a purpose for this shelf stat.

So here it is, being put to use.  Isn't this closet all nice and pretty now?  Now I know just how many rolls of toilet paper and paper towel we have, the answer is too many.  Oh, anyone need a lint roller?  We have more rolls than we will ever use!

Look at all those Swiffers!  My kids love to push those around It is nice to know how many boxes we have (enough to last us till the kids move out of the house).  I mean seriously, they don't love to push them around that much and I'm smart enough to realize their love for cleaning will wear off before the Swiffers run out)!   Oh, I even found a battery operated push broom new in the box inside this closet, I didn't know we had that! I had just added that to my "to buy" list the day before.  Score! 

Then this morning, I found myself searching Amazon.com for pretty over the door organizers and had a light bulb moment when I thought, I bet we have one of these in the basement and I can put all of our hats and mittens in it!  Sure enough, I found one in the basement (a couple actually) and got to work. The one on amazon was really pretty but this one was free and it is going inside a closet, no one is going to see it....oh, and did I mention our increasing day care bill? 

I gathered all of our winter hats, gloves, and scarves (you know, the ones we can never find so we go buy more of them) and now they are all nicely sorted and stored in one location.  No more need to buy hats!

I challenge you to find the areas in your house that are costing you money because of clutter and take some action this week to organize, sort, and get rid of stuff you no longer need/use.

Let me know what you find!

Knee Deep

It ain't no joke.  During this maternity leave I am knee deep in poop.  I'm changing dirty diapers on some kid left and right.  I can't keep up.  What are they eating?  I swear someone with an axe to grind with me gave my kids a laxative when I wasn't looking and now that person is peaking in my windows and laughing at their handy work.

It's ironic because after delivery most women can't go.  Those of you with kids know exactly what I'm talking about.  For the next week after delivery all you want to do is go to the bathroom but you can't.  Yeah, that's right people with no kids: you can't poop.  It's your body's last "ha ha" of pregnancy.  Not being able to go #2 doesn't sound THAT BAD....maybe even quite possibly a way to free up some spare time (but then when would anyone get any reading done).  But not being able to poop is no joke, people!  No joke.  Man, I was only a push away from calling it quits and driving myself to the ER this third time around.  Luckily my body took pity on me and starting functioning again. 

The ironic part is, while you're sweating it in the bathroom, your wee little precious newborn is pooping for the whole gull darn neighborhood.    My precious little Thomas was pooping up to twelve times a day that first week, while I cried and swore like a sailor every time I went to the bathroom. Alright, I am WAYYYY over sharing, but it is all in the name of humor.  What else would I talk about here, crafts?

What does all this talk about poop have to do with my card?  Well, during this last diaper change.... times two poop-filled {lovely} children.... I was thinking I could really use some alcohol.  Alcohold sure would make the day go quicker and would make these poopy diapers a bit easier to tolerate....butttt..... the kids are about to take their naps and I really want to stamp, I don't have time to drink...oh.... I got a great card idea and it fits the bill perfectly for this week's Make It Monday Challenge.  SEE, I wouldn't talk about poop for no reason people!  I clearly had a point to this story. 

I got out the shakers + sprinkles dies again this week and thought I would make some bubbles to go along with my new Uncorked set.  Yeah?  You see them?  I know, I know, wine doesn't have bubbles, champagne does.....don't get hung up on the details, please?  I think this is a swell card, despite the technicality and any of your friends that are knee deep with their own problems will think so too!

Cheers!

Happy New Year With Sprinkles

The kids are currently napping which in and of itself is a small miracle so that gives  me a few minutes to show you what I did with the MakeIt Market Kit: Shakers + Sprinkles.  When I saw this set come out I just HAD to have it (yes, at the expense of my oldest going to college someday as my husband would so lovingly say to me)!  It looks like a lot of the rest of you wanted this set too as I waited a good month for this baby to come in the mail.  Once it arrived, it sat.  And sat.  And sat. Oh, and it collected some dust, well a lot of dust.  Leave me alone, my house is messy, I just had a baby 7 years ago, and 22 months ago and 7 weeks ago.  I have no time for cleaning, I'm busy stamping and blogging....oh and ignoring a kid here and there.  

In December, I finally took this bad boy out of the packaging and started to play with it.  I apologize to those of you that wanted it and never got it and then I got it and just let it sit without being used.  What a waste.  I'm a shame to the acrylic stamping world and I will hang my head in embarrassment when in public.  Hopefully my husband will still stand strong by my side (I asked, he said "no, not even I can look past this disgrace"...actually he just said, "what" and I replied, "never mind".  My made up version is funnier anyway).  Oh well, who needs a supportive husband when you have SPRINKLES!

Ok enough already.  Back to the real business at hand.  The whole concept behind this set is that you can create shaker cards easy peasy with the included dies.  While these cards are not "quick" because you need to run a few pieces through your die cut machine, with the help of the dies, they come together easier than trying to free form this as so many of us were doing before this set arrived.  I love my first card but I put nowhere near enough sprinkles inside of it and the static electricity of this dry winter house caused my sprinkles to not move freely (and does a number on my skin but nobody wants to see that).  Anyone else have that issue?  Any suggestions?  I did see someone mention using a paint brush with some baby powder on the exposed sides of the foam adhesive once you have the shaker put together to help the sprinkles not stick to any exposed adhesive.  I thought that was a great idea.  Will that also cut down on the static electricity?  Maybe I'll try it and let you know. Please comment if you have a solution to either of my problems:  static electricity and dry winter skin!

This next card uses the same set but is a snap to put together (I tell you this in case you have a baby crying and you just NEED to get a birthday card done before he eats, social services would be understanding).  Even though it comes together super fast, it is still super cute and I bet would put a smile on anyone receiving this in the mail! 

Here is the last card I wanted to show to you today.  I was going for that poster print "Keep Calm" look that is everywhere right now.  There is no avoiding it.  Keep calm and walk your dog.  Keep calm and have some ice cream.  Keep calm and blow your nose.  Seriously, there is a poster for everything and everyone.  Just pinterest it if you don't believe me.  Is that a THING or did I just make up the next hottest saying?  Just so you know, I was also the first to say, "google it".  I really should take out a TM like Donald Trump did or tried to do with, "You're fired".  Seriously, that's a thing, google it.  :) 

I hope I provided you some inspiration to break out your stamps and create something and maybe (just maybe) made you chuckle along the way!

See you soon!