Part 2 : Take It Back, Use It Up, or Pass It On

Don’t let the excess in your life prevent you from living. Gather it from around your home and make it work for you. I am talking about all of the things that you purchased or were gifted but are not actually using. Clothing with tags still on them, cabinets full of health and beauty products, etc. These unused items are a waste of money and space, but they don’t have to be. Yesterday, I talked about ways that you can recover some of the money spent on these items. Today, I’l cover how you can put them to good use. … Continue reading

Sewing for Savings

Creative Commons image by by zizzybaloobah/flickr There was a time when a woman wishing to save money could use her skills to make her own clothes instead of paying designer prices. Somewhere along the way, sewing became a mere hobby as clothing got cheaper, and fabric and patterns became more expensive. Therefore, technically it is cheaper to purchase clothing from stores, especially on sale, than to try your hand at sewing. Personally, the last time I sewed an outfit was when I was pregnant with my daughter. Maternity clothes cost a fortune, so I got some dollar fabric, and one … Continue reading

Where to Find Inexpensive Clothes for Slightly Older Kids

Inexpensive gently used clothing is easy to find for the littlest set, but once a kid gets past the age of four or five, the hunt becomes a real challenge. Here are some places you can use to cloth your children with inexpensive clothing for slightly older kids. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, finding good quality second hand clothing gets more difficult as kids get older. There is simply not a good inventory available. You can still do pretty well, though, if you check out the following sources. The outlets Outlets can sometimes yield great finds in new clothing. … Continue reading

Easy Tough Love Tips for De-cluttering

While getting rid excess stuff seems like an easy thing to do (just start in one place and keep going), for many of us de-cluttering is tough to do. From not knowing where to start to having an emotional attachment to our stuff, we can be our own worse enemies when it comes to having an organized home. One thing that may help in your de-cluttering efforts is to practice some tough love with yourself. Practicing tough love means that you establish certain rules for yourself and then follow them most of the time. Notice I said most of the … Continue reading

Home Week in Review: June 16 – 22

We hope you enjoyed this week’s articles. If you missed any of them, here is a handy round up: Three Painting Tips Painting a room is an easy and affordable way to update it, change the decor and make it fresh. If you change nothing else, a coat or two of paint will be a big improvement for your home. Here are three painting tips to help you in your project. Summertime Schedule Looking at the title, you might ask, “What schedule?” Many families who have children home from school for summer vacation have no real household routine during the … Continue reading

Organizing the Family Room (3)

The weekend is over. That means it is time for me to get back into organizing the family room. So far, we’ve conquered the books and magazine. Let’s get into the area that causes me the most trouble: the video tapes and DVDs. Here is our organizing list so far: Books Magazines Video tapes and DVDs Cassettes, CDs and records Games Let’s get started! Back a few years ago, we acquired quite a few VHS tapes. This is because everyone else was quickly switching their collections over to DVDs, and we still didn’t have a DVD player. Now we do, … Continue reading

Organizing Your Personal Library: De-cluttering Books (1)

Want some easy and mostly painless ways de-clutter your books? Here are some tips that will make the job easy. De-cluttering books can be tough. I love my books, so letting any of them go can really hurt. But the reality is that if there are books scattered throughout the home, on surfaces and floors where they can get damaged, or overstuffed into shelves where they are so bent that they look like they are doing the wave, well that isn’t really love, is it? Think of your books as your collection, your own personal library. Only allow in books … Continue reading