Table of Contents

-Introduction
-Monthly Mission – Tidy Up and Think Ahead
-Check Out These Pages! – Relevant pages and new site additions
-Does Warehouse Shopping Cause Clutter?

Introduction

It’s very hard to believe that we’re approaching the end of another year. We have our Christmas decorations up a bit early again this year (though I know for many, doing so on Thanksgiving weekend is standard). But we’re still more in the spirit of school and homework than Christmas at this point. We’re hoping to turn that around with some good movies and some Christmas cookies!

What have you accomplished this year? Is your home closer to what you desire than when you first started getting organized? Do you feel mostly comfortable and relaxed when you’re at home? If not, what areas would you like to change the most?

I hope everyone has a fun and relaxing holiday season and enjoys time with their friends and family. We’ll get back to organizing after the new year.

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Right now, taking on the challenge of organizing your home is probably not top priority. Or maybe you’re expecting house guests and at least getting it cleaned for company is on your radar. Either way, the main goal for December is to tidy up, try to keep things tidied up and start thinking about how you want your home to feel like next year. To read more about the monthly mission, click here.

If you prefer to go digital, you might enjoy the Cozi Family Organizer. You can sync everyone's schedules together at no charge.

If you’re in a hurry to put some order back into your home, perhaps Mimi Tanner's unique method will give you that jumpstart. Check out her method at Declutter Fast: How To Get Your Home In Order Almost Immediately.

Here are some pertinent pages on the website you may have missed along with any new pages.

Daily Routines - Having a daily routine helps to keep you on track and makes keeping tidied up easier as it becomes a routine habit.

Organize Toys - The kids are out from school. Why not make a plan to have them help you organize all their toys?

Christmas Organizing - Get your holiday decorations sorted and organized in a functional manner.

Meal Planning - Plan ahead for meals to reduce trips to the grocery store and save time.

Christmas Gift Shopping - Time and money savers for gift shopping.

Does Warehouse Shopping Cause Clutter?

We have tossed around the idea of getting a membership to our local warehouse store for a few years now. I was always the “no, we don’t need it” person, and my husband was always the “I’m really interested to see what they have.

Then, his brother was in town and he had a membership, so we popped in to look around. A couple hundred dollars later, and standing at the cash register to learn they only take debit cards or cash, fumbling around trying to figure out how we were going to pay for everything, we managed to make it out with our intended purchases.

I’m still not sold on it, as I’ve seen experienced couponers compare the deals from the local Target or Walmart to the Costco or Sam’s and there isn’t always a big savings. If you know how to shop sales, with coupons, especially if you can stack them, and bonus savings (such as the 5% off with a Target Red Card), etc., you may not save any money by having a membership to the warehouse.

Here are my two biggest reasons for not liking to buy things in bulk:

1) You need to pay up front for the 100 items at a lower price point. Yes, you may save money in the long run, but one trip to the store can really blow your food budget for the month. I like to try to stick to my monthly food budget. Having to fork out an extra $200 for a trip to the store to buy 5 or 6 items really throws off my monthly budget.

2) I have no place to store giant boxes of cereal, giant boxes of potato chips and giant boxes of snacks. Ever since we’ve started shopping at Costco, there has been a large box of something sitting on the floor of the dining area because I simply don’t have anywhere large enough to store it. It’s just not pretty, and goes against the rule of trying to tidy up and put everything in its place. It doesn’t have one, so it sits out on the floor, in front of the food cabinets.

Here are our two biggest reasons we like shopping at the warehouse store:

1) I think one of the biggest reasons to shop there, if you ask my husband, is the free samples. He loves to go and browse the aisles for new foods to try, and snack himself happy along the way. We have discovered some tasty and convenient items to bring home. It’s always nice to try something new and change up the menu.

2) The second reason is some of the prices. For certain items, the prices are really good if you buy in bulk. We paid $4.80 for 24 Nissan Cup-o-Noodles vs. the $2.50 for six that I pay in my regular grocery store. My husband also gets a pretty good deal on some of his favorite drinks and breakfast bars. Some of these deals can’t be beat.

For us, we decided to give it a try for a year since the sign up bonuses made the cost of membership free. However, I'm still not completely sold on it. The place is a complete zoo so I avoid it at all costs! I now leave my husband to venture into the store by himself. That in itself could be dangerous, but he's been pretty good.

I'm really stuck on the problems of 1) you can't use a credit card, 2) you need to pay larger sums up front, and 3) for many items, there is nowhere to store these large items once we get home, all of which I can do without it. I can look for new items in other stores, and I can get decent deals on stuff with sales and coupons when I shop smart.

I don’t think you’ll bump into me at the local warehouse store. And hopefully my husband gets his fill of free samples before our year’s membership expires.


Until next time, happy organizing!

Tracy Greene
Plan-and-Organize-Life.com