**This article first appeared in Girlfriend 2 Girlfriend Magazine**

 

“FRUGANIZING”

 

Did that title get your attention? You want to know what “fruganzing” is, don’t you? Fruganizing is frugal organizing. There are many ways to organize your home without spending a fortune on organizational systems and tools. There are several techniques that can be easily and frugally employed to reduce clutter. In addition, there are items that can be re-purposed to help organize your home. So let’s get started fruganizing your home.

We’ll begin with reducing clutter. You could hire a maid or a professional organizer for this, but why spend that kind of money? There’s a much easier and affordable way to reduce clutter. Start by getting a box and a large trash bag. The box will be used to sweep through the room and collect all the items that belong in another room. Once collected, immediately take the box of items and deposit the contents into the rooms where they belong. When the box is empty, you are done with the box portion of the process. Now, return to the original room and grab the large trash bag. Take a serious look around the room and decide what items can go. Yes, that is “go” as in thrown away in the trash. Be sure to toss anything that is broken and not repairable. Don’t get sentimental now! This process might require making some hard decisions. I urge you to make them. Doing so will help organize your home. And the best part is that it will not cost you an arm and a leg, just pennies, as you’ll see shortly. There’s one more thing you can do in that room. Ask yourself the following questions: Is everything in the right place? Is everything neatly set? Is there anything that could be moved to a more inconspicuous place? Based upon your answers to these questions, straighten, move or put out of sight some things. Your room should start looking more organized and put together.

Let’s take a quick look at how much this has cost you. My tally says you’ve spent only the cost of one trash bag. That’s much cheaper than a maid or a professional organizer! Now repeat this process for each room. Your home will be transformed and your budget will still be intact.

Next we need to talk about paper. I myself am currently in paper recovery. I understand that paper can take over your house and your life. It can also make your house messy! So let’s tackle the paper. If you are like me, you have stacks and piles of mail. Yes, it’s been opened. It just hasn’t been dealt with yet. Junk mail needs to be handled right away. Unless you plan on actually using or doing something about what’s in that letter, toss it out immediately. That’s one less item in the sea of paper. For bills, you should be able to find a bill sorter at the dollar store. You don’t need anything fancy, just functional. If you’re worried about décor, hide it away. Bills that are unpaid, need to be put in the front pouch. Write the due date on the outside envelope so you don’t to undo the whole letter to get that information later. In fact, if you can, stop getting the paper version of your bills. Sign up to get them electronically instead. Once bills are paid, use a expanding 12 month folder to retain the copies. Again, this step can be eliminated if you receive and pay your bills electronically. If you decide to stick with paper copes, use a new folder for each year. Make sure you look through the previous year’s folder for anything that can be tossed out. Got magazines? Rip out the pages that contain information you want to keep and recycle the remainder of the magazine. Cost of these organization techniques? Absolutely free!

Another frugal way to organize your home is to re-purpose items. For instance, use a clear bowl as your key holder. Since everyone’s keys are in the bowl, you won’t spend time each morning looking for missing keys. Have you ever purchased luncheon meats in the plastic containers? When you are done. Wash out the container. Instead of having to purchase separate storage containers, you can simply use these! One purchase yields two purposes. Here is one for the kids. If you have some extra silver cupcake liners, you can use them to recycle all those broken crayons around your home. Remove the paper from the crayons, place several in the cupcake liner. Now you simply bake and cool the newly shaped, multi-colored crayon. Have some empty diaper wipe containers? Use them as storage units for small toy pieces, buttons or other items. Don’t want to spend money on a belt organizer? That’s fine. Using a plastic hanger, loop the belt across the bottom, bucking using first available hole in belt. One hanger will hold several belts. You can also use easy clasp key rings to hold your belts. These can then be hung on a hook in your closet. You can re-purpose matchless socks as dust rags rather then throwing the socks out. They can be used to clean things like mini-blinds, ceiling fans and baseboards. These ideas are simply a starting point for you. Open your eyes and take a fresh look at the everyday items in your home. Imagine how they might be used in a new and different way. Then go for it!

Organizing your home doesn’t have to cost money. There are plenty of techniques you can use that cost little or nothing, Better yet, they are simple to use. So get your boxes, trash bags, and other items and start fruganising your home. Your family and your wallet will thank you.