Being organized is a quest that I never seem to complete. It seems that the chaos in my life is always trying to overtake my attempts to streamline and organize with systems and lists. It doesn’t help that every so often I seem to just give up for a while!
I’m a “piler“, paperwork seems to wind up in piles to be attended to later. Sometimes later takes a long time coming. DH is starting to feel that the piles are closing in on him, so I’ve been making a concerted effort lately to start attacking some of the piles as well as other projects (like my makeup drawer in the bathroom, the sea of shoes on the floor of the bedroom closet, Princess’s drawer in the bathroom full of hair paraphernalia, and the junk drawer in the kitchen). Organizing that sort of stuff is never as easy as it looks. Each item has to be looked at and decisions made. Frequently the reason something has wound up in a “pile” or a “junk drawer” is because it doesn’t really have a home. In a house with limited space finding a new home for things can be a challenge!
But back to frugality. Being organized is a must for being frugal. Frugality requires using your resources carefully, and that isn’t possible if you don’t know what you have and where it is.
I’ve had the rather embarrassing experience as a frugalite of actually stocking up so much on groceries etc that I don’t remember what I have. I have actually made an emergency run to the store for an item before only to find out later that I really did have it on hand. And of course those emergency runs wind up costing you a lot more than that sale priced item in the very back of the pantry buried under miscellaneous stuff.
Many of the tools in a frugalites arsenal are related to organization. A price book is just a way of organizing how much items you commonly buy cost so that you know when you are getting a good deal. Avoiding the “drive through trap” requires having quick to fix food on hand, frequently with precooked items like chicken etc in the freezer (which of course takes pre-planning and organization). Keeping a gift box or greeting card box is fairly easy-but you need to be organized enough about it to know/remember what you have in there so that you can use it. A person can save a ton of money shopping thrift stores and garage sales, but buying clothing that you (or your child) doesn’t need or is in the wrong size because you can’t keep track of it is just a waste of money, no matter how cheap it is.
So what organizational tips and tricks do you use to help be frugal?
I keep a list by month of all the people I want to give birthday cards. Then I count how many men and how many women. Early in the year I start looking for good deals on attractive cards and when I find one I buy for the whole year and put them in the desk drawer. For almost any other card I need, a blank one with a handwritten message will do and I keep a couple of boxes of those on hand as well. Works for me anyhow.