First off, I will go ahead and say this is going to sound really harsh and have been told that by strangers but we live in a house of about 1600 square feet. We have 3 bedrooms and each of those now have a closet (my husband put on in our bedroom last summer). I hope this inspires you to do the same. I did this because I was tired of living with all the possessions we had. I really want to teach my children the value of things without all the "stuff".
Over a week ago, My husband and I cleaned out my daughter's room of everything but furniture. The next day was Saturday which is usually a crazy day around here.. dance class, egg hunt, moving lots of dirt in the backyard, therefore we did not do much cleaning. Sunday was a different story, my husband and I rearranged my daughter's room. Then my daughter (who is four) and I went through each bag that was taken out on Friday and found a home for everything or decided to get rid of it. She loves her room. She now cleans it up, makes her bed, and knows that everything has a home. I took all of her clothes out of her dresser and put everything in her closet. I down sized her clothing. She now has a handful of all types of clothes. All of her toys are now organized. Her dress up stuff is in one drawer of her dresser. Another drawer has four organizers that each have a different type of toy in it. My son's room is now the same as my daughter's except he does not have shelves in the closet therefore his pajamas and socks are in his top drawer, all transportation stuff in another, and blocks in another. I also sorted the kids clothes according to size. I bought 35 quart tubs, put clothes of the same size in one. If the tub was too full, I got rid of clothes. My kids get a good amount of new clothes from relatives, get hand me downs, and I buy or make the fillers, so they are not deprived.
On Monday, I attacked our bedroom. I took the same approach to our room as I did the kids room. I still have a couple of things left to take care of in the room but most of it is sewing stuff that needs to be put up in there home or hung on the wall.
On Tuesday, I hit the kitchen (which is a constant battle) and the living room. All the toys are now upstairs in the kids rooms. They bring toys downstairs but every night, all toys are brought back upstairs to their rooms.
Wednesday, I took the day to go job hunting. During this time, I dropped off a dirty diaper holder, a baby bathtub, and four more garage bags to the consignment. I went the week before to drop off a 45 gallon tub of clothes. I now have about half of another 45 gallon tub waiting to be taken in the fall. My kids had a lot of clothes.
Thursday was the day I was kinda dreading. I went through and sorted my material. I have been down sizing for a while but stored them in card board boxes. Now, I have them in clear plastic containers. All of my prints are now in the china cabinet, which is where I store most of my notions. Everything else is sorted by solids, holiday, dress, knits, trims.... Now I am ready to sew. I did get rid of about 3 garbage bags of material and scrapes to a neighbor who makes quilts and Barbie clothes.
Friday was an errand and fun day. My kids and I did a bunch of errands, then meet a friend for lunch at a local park. We played in the creek and had a blast. At the end I gave her four more bags of clothes and a changing pad.
Today and tomorrow are family days. We have cleaned but it is mostly quick pick ups here and there.
During the week, I came up with a chore chart for me. Instead of cleaning all in day, I broke it up so that I am cleaning a room a day and washing a couple of loads of laundry a day. I will post a copy of it at later day.
I know I did not actually share a trick to save money but by sorting my sewing and selling with the consignment store I will make money. I hope you will consider to consign somewhere.
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