Fall Cleaning and Green Storage Solutions

Fall is a great time for cleaning out and organizing that closet, garage or storage shed that is really bugging you. It's a great time because the weather is cooler, the nesting instinct is settling in and you will be cooped up inside the house more due to the weather, so why not make your space more organized and habitable?

I will be tackling the yearly job of cleaning the garage this fall. It's fairly organized already, but over the summer it gets neglected as we go about doing our fun summer activities. Sports gear, house maintenance and yard supplies are starting to get jumbled together...so the cleaning and storing begins.

Sustainablog recently had a great post on green storage solutions that I am determined to use this season. One solution is creating a community sharing option. We have great relationships with our neighbors and I want to create a section of the garage where we can store items that we share with the neighbors and vice versa.

Photo by [Productive Porcupine]

Sentimental Clutter

I recently saw these two questions from Naomi Seldin, the writer of the Simpler Living column for the Times Union:

If you’ve tackled sentimental clutter:

1. How did you get yourself to purge what you didn’t need?

2. How did you decide to keep those really important things without letting them take over your house?

There are several great comments from Naomi's readers on how to get rid of those meaningful items.  I love the idea of taking a photo of the beloved item or donating the item to a charity that you or your family really cares about.

I think that when purging those beloved stuffed toys or your mother's silverware, you have to be in the right mood. Don't purge these items when you are feeling loss, self-doubt or sadness. Hold onto them for another day when you are feeling empowered and the need for organization and cathartic cleansing is top of mind. However, don't beat yourself up if you find it's too painful to get rid of an item. If you really want to keep it, it won't hurt you or anyone else to find a special place for it.

No matter what, I will never get rid of my 40-year-old Teddy Bear. You can't make me!

Photo by scazon/Flickr

7 Steps to Clean Up Your Financial Life

I thought this was a good article from Bankrate on how to clean up and keep your financial life in order. Maybe the world's banks can use this advice as well?

 You can't clean up financial clutter if you don't know where it is. That's why the first step is to make a list of all your financial accounts, credit cards, and other assets and debts. This balance sheet, of sorts, shows what you own and what you owe and can help you figure out what you don't need.

"Set up a foundation that establishes where you are: Make an inventory of accounts and a balance sheet, and then say, 'These can be consolidated. These are redundant. I don't use these. I didn't realize I had that,'" Ciccotello says.

Most people need only one or two bank accounts, perhaps one at a national or regional bank and another at a regional bank or credit union, says Ronit Rogoszinski, a wealth advisor at Arch Financial Group in Long Island, N.Y. More accounts mean only more paperwork, fees and exposure to identity theft. Forgotten accounts can be declared abandoned and confiscated by the state.
 
To clean up your bank accounts:

• Make a list of the accounts.
• Research which offer the best services at the lowest cost.
• Stop or transfer any automatic deposits or payments on the less attractive accounts.
• Instruct the financial institutions to close those accounts.

"A lot of banks have decreased overdraft protection or eliminated it, so you want to maintain that relationship with a bank that lets you maintain that line. Even if you don't need it, you want to hang onto it because getting that today is very hard," Rogoszinski says.

Closing credit accounts can hurt your credit score. But your score shouldn't be the only consideration in whether to close accounts you don't need. Use a few major credit cards responsibly and close other accounts to free yourself from paperwork, advertising catalogs, identity-theft risk and the temptation to overspend.
To clean up the clutter:

• Make a list of your credit cards in order of the highest to lowest interest rate.
• Transfer balances from the highest rates to the lowest.
• Close the high-rate accounts.
• Make more-than-minimum payments on the low-rate accounts.
• Monitor the rates until the balances are paid off.

Don't be deterred by the stumbling blocks and special offers that credit card companies use to prevent account closures. Instead, "hold on, be persistent, ask for written confirmation that the account has been closed and then follow up and look for the closed account on your credit report," Ciccotello says. Repeat this line -- offered by Rogoszinski -- as many times as necessary to get the result you want: "Thank you, but I need to close this account."

Employees who change jobs often leave a trail of retirement accounts in the care of their former employers. As those accounts proliferate, it becomes difficult to manage the investments, and if a plan is transferred to a new manager, the assets may go missing or the investment choices may be very limited.
 
To get rid of 401(k) clutter, roll over old accounts to your new employer's plan as soon as you're eligible to do so. If your new employer doesn't offer this benefit, roll over into an Individual Retirement Account, or IRA. Some banks will count an IRA toward a minimum balance that can earn reduced or waived fees on a checking account or other services. Rolling over an old 401(k) when you start a new job also can reduce the temptation to cash out your investments.

"My philosophy is when you leave an employer, you take what's yours with you," Rogoszinski says.

Some people like to keep stock certificates, government savings bonds, uncashed checks and the like in hand because having the actual documents gives them a sense of financial security. The downside is that these documents are at risk of being misplaced, damaged or destroyed. To create more order, deposit securities and other negotiable instruments into a bank or brokerage account or keep them in a safe-deposit box. Make sure someone close to you knows where your assets are held or stored.

One tangible sign of out-of-control financial clutter is piles of monthly account statements -- or unopened envelopes that contain those statements. To get this paperwork under control, set up a filing system for current open accounts and stash the old statements, sorted by year and type of account, in shoe boxes. Write the year and the status of the accounts -- OPEN or CLOSED -- on the outside of each box. At the end of each year, pull the oldest boxes off the shelf and shred the contents.

Many people accumulate collectibles as a hobby. But these collections of postage stamps, coins, cars, artwork and other items can have an investment value as well. That means collectibles should be cataloged and insured as part of a financial clutter clean-up campaign.
"If you haven't thought of (your collectibles) in an organized balance sheet way, you may be missing that your homeowners insurance has a low limit and you have a lot of exposure if those items are stolen or lost in a fire," Ciccotello says.

If you've tired of a collection that has a high investment value, you might want to convert that "clutter" into cash and use the money to pay off debts or buy other assets.

Photo by Alan Cleaver/Flickr

  

Be Happy With What's Left

So, you are in the process of decluttering and you realize that what you have left is not what you want. You just gave away your favorite and not-so-favorite books, clothes, dishes, plants and furniture and now you are stuck with nothing. Do you buy new items that you like and risk just cluttering up the house again? Or do you keep hold of a few things that you sort of like...but not really?

Most of the time, decluttering takes a little sacrifice, but some of the time it can create a clean slate to fill with a minimal amount of items that you absolutely love. When I got rid of all my excess mismatched dishes and bowls, I made an investment in some beautiful earthen pottery bowls that I love to eat everything out of: cereal, pasta, popcorn, soup.

After getting rid of or selling your unwanted items, take some time to really find out what you love. Maybe after all these years, you never liked delicate china cups to drink tea out of, maybe you are a big mug person after all.


Photo by Muffet

When is the best time to declutter?

This summer has been my time to have fun. Decluttering and simple living has taken a bit of a back seat while I enjoy the beautiful summer sun, hiking in the mountains and camping.

However, when fall rolls around, I get that feeling again of wanting to cozy up with a book rather than with my hiking boots. When the air turns cold, I find myself going through my closet to find a fleecy sweater that has been relegated to the back of the closet. The nesting times of fall and winter might be the best times to tackle that decluttering job, it's a job that can take place while you are inside, waiting for that storm to blow over.

But, in the meantime, let yourself have some summer fun and forget about the stuff for a while.

Photo by peasap/Flickr

The One Box Concept

I apologize for the lack of posting lately. I have been busy with other jobs, blogs and a small but growing freelance business. Eventually I hope to export this blog over to Wordpress and contribute to it more often. In the meantime, I will post to it when I can.

In the last few weeks, I have been further decluttering my home and have come up with a concept that seems to work for me. I attempt to declutter enough of a certain item so that what I have left fits into one box: all books should fit into one box, all clothes into one box or suitcase, all mementos into one box.

Now, you have to be able to carry the box once it is full, so it doesn't help to be putting your items into a box the size of a refrigerator. One office paper box or medium sized box from Uhaul should be sufficient.

This has been a bit of a challenge for me with kitchen supplies. Right now all my kitchen supplies fit into about four medium sized boxes. They used to fit into about ten of them, so I am getting better at purging.

Try it. It's freeing to know that you can carry each of your favorite items in just one box.

Photo by ewan and donabel/Flickr

Decluttering the Home Office

Many people these days are escaping the cubicle to work from home, but while a lot of energy can go into running your own business, some of that energy has to be used to keep an organized and efficient home office. This article in the New York Times shows how a custom decluttering solution can work for individual work personalities. For more excellent before and after photos of work spaces, check out the Workspace of the Week on Unclutterer.