Money Saving Mom®

When the girls were little, we’d just keep their few pairs of shoes at the top of their dresser. It worked well for a few years.

But last year I realized that this set-up was no longer working: the girls have gotten older and their shoe collection has grown, too. Instead of a few pairs neatly lined up in the top dresser drawer, it had turned into a bunch of shoes stuffed to overflowing in the top dresser drawer. And trying to find matching pairs in the jumbled mess of shoes was becoming increasingly more time-consuming.

I could have pared down on the shoes they have, but both of my girls aren’t quite the minimalists that I am so I don’t want to try and stuff them into a mold they were not cut out for. So instead, we tried an over-the-door shoe organizer.

Much to my delight, we discovered that it was the perfect solution right now. Not only can we see all of the shoes at a glance–making it easy to get the pair they are looking for–but we can also tell instantly whether a shoe from one pair is missing.

Best of all, the over-the-door shoe organizer utilizes dead space, frees up their top dresser drawer, and is out of sight much of the time. Plus, so long as the shoes are returned to their proper slots, we don’t have mismatched shoes strewn about the house!

The only drawback is that the girls can’t reach some of the shoes right now and will often have to ask me to help them get a pair down or put a pair away. However, it sure beats having to dig through a bunch of shoes in the top dresser drawer to find a matching pair!

How do you organize shoes at your house? I’d love to hear!

We’re going to be focusing on getting our homes and lives in order around here in February. In addition to going through my home from top to bottom to clear out clutter (beginning next week), I thought I’d share some organizational tricks and tips that have been really helpful to me over the past few years.

If you’ve read this blog for any time at all, you likely have discovered that there is an abundance of free magazine offers available. It’s wonderful to get these great magazines for free, but if you’re not careful, they can start cluttering up your home and life.

Here are four tips to help you control the magazine clutter in your home:

1. Don’t Sign Up for Magazines If You’re Not Sure You’ll Read Them

I know how easy it is to sign up for free magazine subscriptions. There’s a rush and excitement involved with getting free stuff and I’m every bit as guilty as the rest for falling for something just because it’s free.

But if you’re not going to use something and it’s just going to clutter up your home, it’s not a good deal–even if it’s free. I’ve learned this the hard way when I’ve had all these freebies coming in that I didn’t really have a use for.

I’ve started asking myself before I sign up for a freebie: Am I sure I’ll use/read this? If not, I just pass on it and let someone else have the chance to sign up.

2. Have a Place to Put Your Magazines as Soon as They Come in the Door

As soon as magazines come in the door at our house, they either go in the recycle bin (if they are junk/catalogs, etc.) or our magazine bin. This bin is in my office on a shelf that has a door on it. Instead of having a stack of magazines here and there, they are neatly contained in this bin and the door is closed on them until I’m ready to pull some out to read.

3. Designate a Time When You’ll Regularly Read the Magazines

The bin of magazines behind a closed door works well, but it doesn’t do me any good to have the bin of magazines if I don’t actually read them. Personally, I don’t usually have time to read magazines throughout the course of a normal week, but I always grab a stack of them when I’m headed out the door for an appointment. I also take a big stack with me whenever I travel. I’m able to keep up with my magazine reading this way–and it’s a nice way to break up my normal book reading.

4. Pass On Your Magazines When You’re Through With Them

Instead of recycling your magazines, see if you can pass them on to someone else who might enjoy them. If you don’t have a friend who’d like them, you can consider donating them to a school, a community group, a hospital, or library (anyone else have other ideas for places to donate them?). When I take magazines with me to an appointment or when I travel, I always leave them behind when I’m done with them (make sure to remove your address label).

How do you control the magazine clutter at your house? I’d love to hear!