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Organization Motivation: 6 Easy Ways to Save Money by Getting Organized

Shifrah Combiths
Shifrah Combiths
With five children, Shifrah is learning a thing or two about how to keep a fairly organized and pretty clean house with a grateful heart in a way that leaves plenty of time for the people who matter most. Shifrah grew up in San Francisco, but has come to appreciate smaller town life in Tallahassee, Florida, which she now calls home. She's been writing professionally for twenty years and she loves lifestyle photography, memory keeping, gardening, reading, and going to the beach with her husband and children.
updated May 4, 2019
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(Image credit: Shawna’s Glamorous Custom Kitchen, photographed by Gina Bianciello for The Kitchn)

Whether you love organizing or you hate it, we can all agree that the end result is nice. But organizing a space, small or large, doesn’t just make it look better; it has additional effects, less obvious but no less desirable. If you need a little extra nudge to get you into an organizing mood, check out these six ways that organizing your home can save you a considerable amount of money.

1) Eliminate duplicates. When you organize a space, you discover what you already have — and often, these are items you thought you needed more of. Does the following sound familiar? You think you’ve run out of baking soda, so you put it on the grocery list, but you actually have two partially used containers in the back of the pantry. Organizing lets you see what you have and prevents you from spending money on extras.

2) You’ll be less tempted to redecorate. Sometimes when a space isn’t feeling quite right, your instinct is to look for a new chair or buy some different pillows. Nothing wrong with that, but an organized space that “breathes” again often doesn’t need extra adornment.

3) You’ll buy the right storage containers. It’s tempting to buy beautiful baskets and colorful storage bins, even in order to make an organizing project seem more palatable. But this is backwards and actually makes the task more difficult — and more expensive because you could end up with too many containers or ones that aren’t ideal. Organize (and purge!) your items first and you’ll be able to buy just the right size and number of storage containers.

4) It’s a free family activity. Moaning and groaning and other protests aside, getting the family into the groove of a big organizing project, like finally putting the garage in order, can actually be a good opportunity for learning and togetherness. Make it as fun as possible — crank up the music, set a time limit, have good grub available, propose mini “contests,” and by the end of the day you’ll have the money you didn’t spend on an outing in your pocket and a clean garage the whole family will enjoy every day.

5) Old things will seem like new. Having an organized system to rotate kids’ toys and books regularly will make it feel like Christmas every time you swap things out. This will save you the expense of buying new toys when the children get bored with what they have.

6) Organizing saves you time. Having a place for everything (and committing to putting everything in its place) will save you so much time looking for things. An organized space is also easier and faster to clean. And as the saying goes… “time is money.”

How does organizing save you money?

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