At the beginning of the new year, many people take the time to organize their living space for a fresh and clean start. However, organization supplies can get expensive! Here are a few budget friendly tips and tricks to consider when organizing your home.
General Tip: Your local dollar store may not be ideal for certain household items, but when it comes to organizing tools, it can be the perfect place to shop. You can find a good amount of options for organization, such as containers, bins, jars, vases, and more. Keep in mind if you like to shop online, dollar stores often have minimums you have to purchase, so when shopping these stores, we would recommend visiting one in person!
- Recycle your empty food jars. These jars are great for storage. Start by taking your sauce, pickle, or baby food jars and take off their labels. (Lemon essential oil does a great job taking off the sticky stuff.) Use these recycled jars to hold spices in your kitchen or cotton swabs, balls and other essentials for your bathroom. If the jars have a lid that you don’t prefer, a little spray paint goes a long way.
- A hanging clear shoe organizer can hold more than shoes! These shoe organizers work great for so many things – craft supplies, small toys, snacks, cleaning supplies and more. You can hang the entire organizer on the inside of a door or customize it by cutting it in half to use inside smaller cabinets or spaces.
- Clear tackle boxes are very cost effective and can be used for many different things, including organizing jewelry, or even keeping batteries separated by type.
- Add a pegboard and peg hooks to any wall or garage space. This turns a wall into instant storage space.
- When working with deep shelves or pantries, lazy susans work great! You can spin it to see what you have which helps keep items from getting stuck in the back. (This can be used in bathrooms as well for in-cabinet or under-the-sink supplies!)
- Reusing your grocery store bags is always a good idea, but they can be a pain to store. Store your extra plastic grocery bags in mailing tubes. You can get a mail tube from the post office for cheap, and they take up very small storage space.
- Magazine holders can be great when it comes to kitchen supplies. Store your cutting boards, or your aluminum foil and plastic wrap in the holders so they can be tucked away nicely but accessed easily.
- Keep your handheld kitchen gadgets and small appliances in their own little plastic storage baskets, along with their cords and mini attachments.
- Use an old metal CD rack to keep your Tupperware lids contained, upright and easily seen.
- Utilize small tension rods when it comes to storing your cleaning sprays under the sink. Hang the bottles by their handles to keep space underneath them open. Small plastic containers or caddies are perfect for grouping other cleaning products upright and from tipping.
- Store your greeting cards in an expanding file folder, organized by occasion, or in an old covered shoe box with recipe cards as separators.
- Don’t keep magazines once you are done reading them. Instead, rip out individual pages you’d like to refer back to and save them in a three ring binder for future reference. Organizing your binder by tabs can make it easy to find what you’re looking for.
- Shower curtain rings can come in handy for a few things! Use one individual ring to keep hair ties together, or use a couple rings as a scarf, tie or belt organizer by adding the rings to a hanger.
- In your front closet, mudroom or laundry room, give each family member their own basket or bin. This way everyone knows where to drop off and find their personal on-the-go essentials like keys, wallet, bags, homework, gloves and hats, etc.
- Clear plastic cups work great for keeping electronic cords organized. Label the cups with what you are putting inside and store them all in a small plastic tote or basket.
- Label cell phone cords with different colored washi tape so you know which family member it belongs to.
- Wrapping paper and ribbon can be a pain to keep organized and store. Here are a few ideas that will help you keep the wrapping items in their place:
- Organize your wrapping ribbon by putting it on a paper towel holder, or by making a very simple ribbon dispenser. To make a simple ribbon dispenser, use a cheap plastic bin with holes on the sides (you can usually find these at the dollar store), line up your ribbon in the bin and thread the ends through the holes. Pull on the ribbon as you need it, and the rest will stay nicely organized.
- For your wrapping paper, store it in a clear garment bag to keep your collection contained.
Have some budget friendly organizational tips you use and like to see added to this list? Email us.
