Organizing to Save Money (Merrick)

I'm one of those crazies that loves to organize. We always get a good laugh when my husband unloads the dishwasher and he has to ask where half of the dishes go since I've rearranged everything so many times. But things stay so much cleaner and I'm much more likely to put things back where they belong when everything has a place.

Case in point -- I reorganized the bottom shelf of my pantry a few months ago:




I purchased all the containers at Walmart for $2-3, and the used a label maker to label each of the items. Now let me tell you a little bit about why I love this, why it works for me, and why it stays clean:

First, I love having everything uniform and in the correct place. It makes my heart go pitter patter every time I open the pantry and see everything so neat and organized. And because it's such a simple system, everything gets put back every time so it stays look this awesome ALWAYS.

Second, I love having them in clear containers AND labeled so I can look in and see exactly what I have and easily grab what I need.

Third, the containers are pretty good quality (rubbermaid) and have screw on tops that are airtight so my food will not go bad. Some of the other options were cuter, but were more expensive and didn't have airtight lids.

And fourth, having all the food in clear containers allows me to see when I'm running low on an item. Before I did this, that bottom shelf was stacked with bags of flour, brown sugar, coconut, etc, and many times I would re-purchase an item because it was buried underneath something and I thought I was out.

So not only does having an organized pantry look awesome, it also saves money because you can keep track of what you have.

Cooking Once a Month (Carole)

The title says it all.   This is a method of cooking that I've done off and on over the years.  It can also be done on a weekly basis quite successfully.

List out 28 meals that your family likes and that you're comfortable cooking.  Make up a shopping list so you make sure you have all your ingredients.  Then spend most of one day getting each main dish as close to the cooking stage as you can:

1.  All basic/raw ingredients mixed together and frozen in the baking dish
2.  All canned and/or dry ingredients assembled in a ziplock bag ready to be quickly assembled on the day you need them.
3.  A combination of #1 and #2

Take some time and figure out how much of each recipe can safely be prepared ahead of time, so that on the day you want to fix it, most of the work is done.  The goal is to have 28 recipes READY TO GO.  Just like last week's meal idea, this system allows you to buy items in bulk and use them up quickly.

Try doing it with a week's worth of recipes first, to get the hang of it.  I remember the first time I did this, it took me about 7 hours to assemble everything for one month's worth of meals.  The second time (using the exact same recipes), I did it in a little over 2 hours.  You do get the hang of it, and you'll figure out some speedy tricks.  I also simplified many of the recipes.

If choosing  your own month's worth of recipes seems like too much effort, you can get the book, Once-a-Month Cooking, that gives you all the info you need -- that's what I did in the beginning.  She has good recipes and many good tips.

Check to see if your library has it in stock.  I bet they do!  You'll love yourself night after night when you quickly feed your family another healthy, home cooked meal.

Small Spaces - Part 2 (Merrick)

In my last post about small spaces, I talked about how we made more storage space before the house was built. Today I want to talk about making more storage space after your house is built, because this is probably much more applicable to all of you.

When we bought our house, our laundry room looked like this (not the best picture, but it's the best that I have. Basically the room had one shelf and one hanger rod..that's it):


Today, it looks like this:





After three years of living in this condo, it was stuffed to the gills. With the addition of a baby, we just needed more storage space. We had hoped to sell our home before the baby came along, but when it didn't sell, we were forced to turn every bit of unused space into storage space.

We bought the materials at home depot, they cut all the boards for free, my dad drove up for the weekend, we borrowed a table saw, and I painted it with the free white touch-up paint that our builder gave us when we moved in. Now we have a customized laundry room, all for around $150.

By using all the empty and unused space above the washer and dryer, we now have a place to store all my paintings (of which there are a lot, as you can see), diapers, toilet paper, the sewing machine, laundry detergent, and bunch of other things that didn't have a home. Most of these used to sit on the floor, and there is nothing worse than watching your floor space shrink by the day as more things get stacked next to each other. So not only do you not lose square footage, you also increase the value of your home with off-the-ground storage space. Win-win.

Now, if you don't have a handy-man dad like me that can build an entire shelving unit from scratch, home depot has a lot of pre-made shelving units that pretty much only require a screwdriver and a hammer to install. IKEA also has complete storage systems, or even simple single shelves you can easily install and create extra storage space. And all of it is really pretty cheap.

Having a small space is no excuse not to be organized, have food storage, or have plenty of storage space. All it takes is a little creativity and a few nails.

Small Spaces (Merrick)

About two months before Philip and I got married, we bought our first home. It was a condo in an unfinished complex, and when we found it, the building was about four months from being completed. We purchased the two-bedroom condo, and would excitedly drive over once a week to see the progress. Our building is three stories, and as we visited the construction site, we realized that the workers always worked on the top floor first. From then on, we would scope out the condo's on the top floor, and then we would know what projects awaited our home the following week. This gave us a little advantage.

When we visited the third floor one day, we saw they were installing shelves in the bedroom closets. Upon seeing the layout of shelving, we decided they were wasting so much space and thought we could do better. Because our shelves wouldn't be installed for another week, we went home, designed a better shelving layout that used almost the exact same amount of wood, drew up a little picture, and then called the builder and asked if he could do our shelving layout instead of the generic one. Of course he said yes.

In our tiny condo we have very little storage space, but because of this easy adjustment, we nearly doubled our shelving space, and were now able to fit our dresser in the closet, which tripled our storage space. No extra cost, and no need to buy expensive shelving units.


Many people with small apartments or homes complain about the lack of storage space. But are they using their space the very best they can? Are they utilizing every inch of space? By simply asking our builder to make a small adjustment, we made the most out of our pretty average size closet. This is only one of the ways we have made the most of our small space. I'll show you a few more ways in the next post.

Until then, tell me a few ways you are frugally making the most of your space, whether big or small.