Organizing without Spending Any Money

I've got a great organizing post for you today!

And the best part is that I'm not asking you to spend a penny.

Just use the baskets, bins and containers that you already own and rearrange them to work for you right now.  Our toys felt out of control.  They were all mixed together and the kids weren't really very interested in playing with these messy bins.  I added it to my to do list for this week and I'm happy to report that this project is done!  This post is focusing on organizing toys because that's my season of life, but the process could easily be transferred to jewelry, clothes, books, blankets, holiday decor or anything else you have laying around the house.

Organizing for Free:

1. Do it while you're home alone or when the kids are busy doing something else.

2. Dump every basket, organize and throw away.  Make three piles - keep in the basket, move to another home and throw away.  If you are purging, you could also add a sell pile.  These are some of our favorite toys so there wasn't a lot of collecting to sell.

3. Swap containers.  If something is too big or too small or not being used, change it up.  Search all over your house and pull containers from other areas.  Challenge yourself to rearrange and not spend any money.  Organizing doesn't have to be expensive or require perfectly matchy matchy containers to work.  Make organizing work for you!

 

Here's how it started at my house:

A rainy day and some toy chaos that I couldn't stand any longer.  All the toys, toddlers and kittens.

Dump each basket. I like to do this one at a time to avoid mass chaos.  It's easier to put away a few things that don't belong and then return the things that do belong to that one basket.  If you dump all the baskets at once it will add a lot of sorting work to your project to get everything back in the right spot.

I did this project while the big kids were at school.  Leo is my 24/7 sidekick so of course he was in the middle of my organizing piles.  Thankfully, he was distracted by rediscovering toys that he loved and didn't try to derail my efforts (like the older kids do when they want to keep every single tiny thing).

Give all the things a home.  These large baskets from TJ Maxx or Homegoods are my favorite.  I got 4 big ones for Christmas last year.  I love the look of them and love that they can house the toys.  They could easily hold blankets, magazines, shoes, etc if your house doesn't happen to be full of tiny toys in this season of your life.

Done!  Each bin is organized, tidy and everything has a home.  Yes, the toys still exist and it feels much less stressful now.  All the kids were excited to play with their newly organized toys.

I went behind all the furniture, under the couches and curtains to really do the job right.

Everything has a home.  No labels needed.  The kids just look in the bins and baskets and know what belongs there.

 

What needs organizing at your house?  Shoes, books, holiday decor??  Here's your little nudge to take on an organizing project of your own.  This whole process only took me 30-40 minutes.  It feels so good to have it done.