I have never in my life purchased a baseball cap, no one in my family has purchased a baseball cap – so why do we have at least 30 baseball caps. And this is after a cleanout several years ago where I got rid of most of the baseball caps we had at the time! Baseball caps are like rabbits – they multiply

Obviously, time for another purging.

http://www.creativelifeskills.blogspot.com

Thanks again!

http://www.habitosvitales.com/.....-5-minutos

To me #4 is the best tip–within the last week I’ve given things away to St. Vincent de Paul, a food bank, friends, and “free stuff” seekers on Craigslist. Once you get in the habit of detaching yourself from all but the things you really care about, it’s easy!

Some things:
- #1: “Making the bed” doesn’t necessarily have to mean “down to hospital corners.” Once I realized that I started making mine more often. A comforter is good for hiding not-so-neat tucks.
- #2 (change “throw out” to “recycle”) can apply to magazines as well: Give yourself a month (or less) to read it. Of course, not having paper subscriptions helps as well. My public library has a large magazine collection.
- #3: My time rule varies from 5 to 25 minutes depending on my energy level. My little magnetic kitchen timer is one of the best $5 I ever spent.
- Like others, I have to work on #8. Good to see I’m not the only one who’s skeptical about online storage of bank statements, checks, etc. I do agree with taking full advantage of the Internet for other things, though. And my $80 scanner is another valuable clutter-busting investment, as is my $30 shredder.

I agree about keeping bank statements, but only for any accounts that run high balances. (Our checking account receives an injection of cash each month sufficient only to cover monthly bills and so it runs a very low balance. And the rest of our income goes to a savings account. The former account is paperless, the latter is not.)

As for bills, my view is that monthly small bills (say, perhaps, gas or sparkletts, but not Visa, Am Ex, etc.) are simply too small to justify keeping them at all (unless you are an immigrant and they fulfill some evidentiary purpose such as showing your time in the country). In my entire adult life, I don’t believe I ever needed to go back to a gas or sparkletts bill. And, even if you did, I would think that there are ample ways to retrieve anything recent.
If you must keep them, I would keep only the previous months’ small bills.

Also when I am paying lots of my own bills I will probably adopt my mom’s system. She has a binder full of the pocket pages and each one is a different bill. After paying the bill she writes the date she paid it and check number if it was a check and then sticks it in the appropriate pocket.

#10 is critical to sanity, especially with kids – though the grownups can be pretty messy too around here!

Not all handouts are totebags and mugs. If I turn down the totebags and mugs, then the next time someone has something actually useful to give to me, they may decide, without asking me, that I don’t want it. As an example, my sister and I used to be about the same size, and she wears suits to work every day. When I changed careers, I suddenly needed a few suits. If she thought that I would always refuse hand-me-downs, then she might never have considered offering me her old suits to use until I could save enough money to buy my own. So by accepting useless handouts a few times — totebags, mugs, small furniture that didn’t work, all stuff that I ended up donating to charity — I eventually hit the jackpot.

It’s not an uncluttering strategy on my part; it’s a frugality strategy. It obviously wouldn’t work for everyone! As I say, I have a charity shop almost literally around the corner from where I live. My daughter and I keep a “giveaway pile” in my bedroom that we clear out every few weeks. But clearly my solution doesn’t work for every household.