Organizing Sure Saves Money

In the absence of a second job, I have had more time to work on things around the house.  In April I was off for a week during Spring Break.  I spent that time going through and cleaning my garage.  My husband and I have lived in three houses since we have been together.  There were boxes in my garage that had not been unpacked since I moved into the first of those three houses.  So during my week off I went through each and every one, with most of the items going into the yard sale pile.  We also went through every closet, cupboard, and nook in our house and added to the pile that way too.  A great neighbor down the street always organizes a neighborhood yard sale in April and it could not come at a better time.  The Friday night prior we set up everything on tables and neatly labeled everything with prices.  At 5:45 a.m. Saturday morning we opened the garage and the selling began!  Immediately we had about 10-15 people and it never really slowed down.  By 11:00 a.m. we were almost out of stuff, so we packed up around three boxes for goodwill and closed up shop.  The best part is that we had an addition $490 in our pockets.  It was well worth the effort to get everything organized.

The one thing that was not included in our yard sale was clothes.  I have never had much luck with selling clothes this way, and decided not to take the time to sort through them.  But, it was on my list of things to do around the house and I finally accomplished it this week.  Being organized certainly saves money.  If you know where your stuff is, and what you actually have, you can save a ton by not buying the same thing.  For example, now that the weather is warm in California, my son needs some short sleeve/shorts pajamas.  I was going to go out to the store to buy some, then I made a commitment to go through all his clothes before I bought anything.  My first step was to actually complete all the laundry.  Now I do laundry every week,  but don't always make it to the bottom of the hamper.  This weekend I was actually able to accomplish that.  I also went through all the clothes that had been packed away since last season.  I get a lot of boys clothes donated from two different sources so I don't always remember what I have.  Well after a few hours of sorting and organizing I was happy to find out that my son has at least 10 pairs of pajamas to get him through summer.  He also had at least 25 short sleeve shirts and another 15 pairs of shorts.  All clothes that are to small got donated to Goodwill.  I was stunned!  But excited at the same time because now I don't have to purchase any clothes for him for the summer.  Next on the list is to do the same thing with my daughters clothes.  I hope to come up with the same result.