Before and Afters

Yes yes, I said I was going to post before and afters during spring break. Life tackled us again unexpectedly and then we went out of town. You think I would have learned by now that whenever I plan to catch up on things, we will all get sick.

Anyway, the first round of before and afters are not that amazing, I admit. But I chose to post them anyway to show that you can make little changes that will make things slightly easier and a little more attractive. Sometimes the very small things make all the difference.

A small area that had been bothering me was the top of the fridge. I had been setting all of my routinely used cleaning supplies on top of the fridge for easy accessibility, but it was making it look cluttered. And my minimalist mentality was losing it. So, I thought, I'll just move the cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink. The only issue? Under the kitchen sink looked like this:

I was unaware that I had become a plastic grocery bag hoarder, but there must have been 300-400 plastic bags under there. It would take me a LONG time to use up all of those in our little trashcans, so I took most of them out and recycled them at the grocery store. Something to look into if you're overrun with plastic bags: Check if your grocery store as a plastic bag recycling depository (ours is at the entrance of the store with the shopping carts). Of course, we're lucky enough to live in super recycling land (aka Portlandia), so I realize not all states have widespread recycling availability.

So, I was going to have to tackle under the sink if I wanted to fix this:

Yuck. I hate clutter. Lucky for me, it takes less than a minute to clear off the top of fridge, so I had immediate satisfaction when I saw my minimalist decor.

Ah, no more cleaning supplies up there! And yes, the front of my fridge is a tad OCD, but I like having pictures of family and friends up there and they needed to be organized by size. I also have my weekly menu and my housecleaning list separated by daily, weekly, monthly, and annual lists. A tip: clear tape instead of magnets makes things look a lot cleaner and keeps them from moving all around.

So then I tackled under the sink. I got rid of 75% of the plastic bags. I left the ones in the plastic bag holder and one reusable bag full. The other three bags full of bags were recycled. I also took out some bulk supplies so we could keep our bulk items in one spot in the house (the laundry room) instead of some here and some there.

Again, this doesn't look super amazing, but it's better than it was. My reusable bags are finally easy to get to (I was having to dig around for them before, which is probably how we ended up with so many plastic bags - I didn't want to bother attempting to find them!). All the supplies are within immediate reach and there is nothing that I have to reach far back into the cabinet to get.

While it is better than it was, this is one area that is going to need a few more attempts before I'm totally happy with it. There's some suggestions floating around Pinterest suggesting tension rods for hanging cleaning supplies or small wire shelving. I was planning on doing that, but I found that due to how our piping is set up under the sink, there's no way to get shelving or tension rods to fit properly. So I'm still working on an alternative storage plan. Plus, as I finish using up our individual store bought cleaners, I'll be switching to using vinegar and baking soda for all my cleaning, which will drastically reduce the amount of space the cleaning supplies take up.

I am looking forward to figuring out a final solution and sharing it with you. Next up for before and afters, the linen closet!

Does It Bring Me Joy?

As you could probably tell by my last post two weeks ago, it's been a bit of a struggle around here. I want to say that it hasn't changed much in the past two weeks, but that's not true. From struggle comes growth and we've definitely done some growing!

We knew that simplifying our lives would be a journey and that we'd have to learn from some mistakes along the way. Well, even though we have made some changes, things just weren't working. After weeks of feeling aggravated and stressed out - which ultimately ended up causing a combo panic/asthma attack one afternoon - I had to take a step back. This is not what I wanted. This is not what I was supposed to be feeling. It was time to stop, re-evaluate, and ask some questions.

What is the issue?
I am still feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by stuff. Overwhelmed by tasks. I feel like I'm doing so much with not much to show for it. Our family relationships are suffering because we're all stressed out and exhausted.

What do we want from this journey?
We want to live purposefully. We want everything that we do to bring us as much joy as possible. We want to enjoy life and not feel as though life is swallowing us whole.

How can we get there?
Eliminate, repair, or modify the things that are not bringing us joy.

Let me explain our "How can we get there" statement. We believe that everything we do or own requires a certain amount of work to keep it functional. Every item in our house requires work (yes, even the kid toys - you know all that work it takes to clean it up multiple times per day?). Every activity we do requires work. If the amount of work required for an activity or item is causing more stress than the amount of joy that it is bringing to us, then that activity or item is no longer functional for our family. Obviously there are the "no choice" things like doing laundry or dishes or going to a job or school, but there's still a certain amount of joy in each one of those. We enjoy wearing clean clothes and eating off of clean dishes. We enjoy the income a job brings and we enjoy the friends that we meet through school. But when the optional items are causing a problem, it's time to ask ourselves if it's worth it anymore.

We've had to apply that to our pets as well. We loved our guinea pigs, but when it came down to it, I was stressed out from the work required to maintain their cage and the money it was taking to purchase their food and bedding (close to $30 per month - that's $360 per year!). I was not getting much joy and that money could be used to pay down our mortgage or student loans. After some serious evaluation, we decided to re-home the guinea pigs. Thankfully we found a home quickly and there are four little girls who were very excited to welcome guinea pigs into their lives. We are happy that they are bringing joy to someone. We are currently having to evaluate the role our three cats play in our lives and deciding how to approach it. It's not easy, but when animals are causing actual damage to your home and relationships, then it's time to find a way to fix it. The animals deserve a better life than that too.

Training yourself to ask "Does it bring me joy?" whenever you are making a decision isn't easy, but well worth it. I'm finding that it's easier to purge our belongings when I ask myself that question. If the answer isn't a definite yes, then I don't need it in my life.

Progress!

Today is a day I must remember.  If I ever feel like we're just floating along and not quite getting anywhere fast with our simplifying, I will look back on this day and be encouraged.

You see, I've been purging the house for a while now and have taken a few small trips to Goodwill and have sold some stuff, but there was still a very large pile of items in my garage that we didn't need anymore.  It was stuff from the house and stuff from random boxes stored in the garage.  Stuff we've been carrying around unnecessarily for years.  After having said pile sit in our garage for months with grand plans to sell it on craigslist or ebay or whatever, I made the decision to just get it out of our lives.  How long would it take me to go through, take pictures, decide on prices, post online, and wait for someone to MAYBE buy the items?  Too long and I didn't want to wait.  It was over-complicating our whole simplicity goal.  So without taking a second look to reminisce about what was in those boxes, I loaded them into my car.

When everything was finally loaded, I took a step back and what I saw was inspiring.  The back of my station wagon was literally filled to the roof with stuff.  There wasn't space for one more thing.  And my garage?  There was space....wide open free space in my garage.  It was so freeing.  We didn't need all that stuff.  We thought we needed that stuff, but it's been sitting in the garage for months and we hadn't missed a single item. And now it's gone from our lives and our home (and garage) is a better place because of it.

There is still a small pile of higher ticket items that we will try to sell (baby swing, high chair, etc), but the little space consuming, dust collecting knick-knacks are gone.  One more hour of work this weekend and we will finally be able to park a car in our garage.  Yes, it's THAT clean now!

I love results and I love feeling like we're doing something good for our household.  I am encouraged again.

Home Storage Solutions 101

I'm really throwing myself into this simplicity thing right now.  Maybe it's because I felt like I was lagging a bit during October, or maybe I just really want to get through the holidays and start a new year feeling like life is fantastic.  So, I'm now doing this along with everything else:

It's week two (or week 45, since she's looping the weeks through next year as well) and I feel awesome about my progress.  Seriously, I've spent maybe three hours total and my boys' bedroom is so much more organized.  I didn't even buy any new storage containers (although I plan to buy a new laundry hamper for their closet and a set of three Rubbermaid (or similar) drawers for my six year old's Legos).

Every little bit of new cleaning, organizing, or planning routine that I'm taking part in is saving me countless hours each week.  Yes, it's scheduled cleaning, etc, but I'm not having to spend a full day working on something like I was before.  I can spend an hour or two in the morning or late afternoon while the boys are otherwise engaged, make a big difference in our household, and then go about the rest of my business.  I'm getting in so much more playtime with my kids since I've started all this.  And to me, that makes it all worth it.

Prepared!

Can I just say how happy I am that I decided to follow the Stress Free Holiday Series from Household Management 101?  I feel so on top of things, it's ridiculous.

My Halloween decorations were put away within two days of Halloween passing.  I'm the only one in my entire neighborhood who has taken decorations down.  The decorations went straight into a new storage container that was promptly labeled and put on a shelf in the garage, where it is sitting pretty for next Halloween.

Even though I don't host for Thanksgiving, I always contribute a few dishes.  Those are now planned, so I can be ready to whip them up and take them to my in-laws for the meal.  Planning this out was especially important since we'll be out of town right before Thanksgiving and I didn't want any last minute scrambling for what I needed to bring to dinner.

I can't really believe I'm talking about Christmas yet, but I know November will fly right by me.  Half of the Christmas presents are already purchased (although I am still waiting on most of them to actually arrive).  This is huge.  I don't know when I last shopped for presents before Thanksgiving.

And, to make it official, I just ordered our Christmas cards.  They'll arrive before Thanksgiving and be ready to go in the mail on December 1st.

Starting this challenge has been the best thing I've done for our family (and my mental health) in a really long time!

The Garage

Last night my husband mentioned that he really needs to start parking in the garage.  It's getting colder and we've had to scrape the windshield the past few mornings.  It takes between 10 and 15 minutes to get the car warm enough for all the windows to be clear.  And he feels that all this cuts into his work day.  (Of course, if he would wake up on time like a nearly 30 year old man should, this might not be such a big issue....)  But I agreed with him.  He does need to be able to park in the garage so the frost and ice isn't a problem for getting going in the morning.

But this meant something would have to happen that I'd been avoiding: We must clean the garage.  <insert horror movie scream here>

Since the rain had yet to start this afternoon, I took the kids outside and had them ride bikes around the driveway while I attempted to work on the garage.  I think I mostly just shuffled stuff around.  It's the thought that counts, right?

Obviously, in terms of organizing and simplifying, the garage is the biggest problem area.  It's better than it was at the beginning of the summer in terms of how much stuff is in there, but due to going through boxes and moving stuff around, it LOOKS worse.  And all the sawdust that covers every inch of the garage from when my husband made bunk beds for the boys isn't helping.

I did purchase a bunch of storage bins so I could move holiday decorations from various cardboard boxes.  I'm all for keeping the spiders out as much as possible, plus if I ever flood the garage again through our central air system (long story), our items will be better protected in the plastic containers than they would be in cardboard.  I didn't know how much would really fit into them, but I was able to fit all Halloween decorations into one medium sized bin and all Christmas decorations into one large bin.  All in all, I did away with five big cardboard boxes (clearing two whole shelves) just from using those two bins.  Unbelievable!  I was so excited and, I'll admit it, just a tad proud of myself for saving so much garage space.  I foresee my storage bin/system addiction getting worse....

There's still a TON to do, but after clearing away five boxes and finally taking some pictures of larger items that we've been wanting to sell, I felt like I made some progress today.  And the more progress I make in the garage, the more room it gives me to toss out more stuff from the house.  Hmm?  The car?  Better stock up on ice scrapers, honey.

Grocery Challenge Month #2

What a strange month.  With everything that was going on (mentioned in my previous post), it was quite difficult to stick to anything.  Having just gone over all the receipts from October and looking at our financial records, I have to admit that I'm confused.  Here's why:

We went over budget again; in fact, we went over $52 more than we did in September.  We spent more on food, but less on household items.  Food cost $450 in October!  Apparently my desired food budget of $300 does not include candy heavy months (thanks, Halloween) or stress-induced cravings.  Blah.  And yes, I can almost guarantee you that that additional $150 was spent on candy and snacks that we probably didn't need.  However, even though we've been over budget for the past two months, the amount of money we have left in the bank account at the end of each pay period is steadily increasing.  Um, what?

I haven't looked closely enough to see what might be making the difference, but I have some theories.

1) Even though we've been over our desired grocery/household budget for the past two months, we are still spending less (anywhere from $50-$200 less) each month than when we weren't actively trying to stick to a budget.  So that's awesome.

2) We're spending less in other areas.  We've essentially stopped eating fast food, except for once or twice in the past couple of months, so our dining out expenses have dropped big time.  It's good for the wallet AND for the waistline.  Plus, we're just not buying as much stuff as we used to.  Trying to limit our possessions has made us all think twice before purchasing anything: "Do we REALLY need this?".  Trips to Target (oh, what a  problem store for shopaholics!) have decreased immensely, with me not even setting foot in a Target for nearly two months until mid-October when my six year old needed new clothes.

3) I'm selling our crap.  I haven't looked at how much I've made since I started selling the stuff we don't need anymore, but I will bet you anything that it's over $600.  That money has been going right into the bank account (except for the past two weeks, when I built up some money to spend on ebay for Christmas presents).

All in all, it's been very interesting so far to see what happens when we make lifestyle changes.  I don't think we're doing anything super amazing or drastic or revolutionary, but I'm hoping that by making positive changes in our life, I can encourage others to do the same.

Grocery Challenge Month #1

We completed our first month of our grocery challenge ($300 for food, $100 for household items).  We went over budget.  It's hard to say if it was due to not watching closely enough, or from needing to buy extra food due to the three parties we hosted (although we were over even without the parties).  Thankfully, we do not host three parties in a normal month (we rarely host any parties at all!), so here's hoping that October shows what a normal month of shopping looks like.  Here's how it all looked:

Grocery/Food: $369.07 (over budget by $69.07 - this does not include party food)
Household items (Pet, toilet paper, shampoo, etc): $142.94 (over budget by $42.94)
Total Cost: $512.01 (w/party: $612.42)
Total Over Budget: $112.01 (w/party, over budget by: $212.42)

Grumble.  Looks like we have some work to do on our shopping habits still.  Looking at these totals is painful and makes me ashamed.  I thought for sure we were doing better, but these totals make it look like a regular month of willy-nilly purchasing.  Hey, that's what this blog is for, right?  Putting my challenges, successes, AND failures out there.

So how to change it?  Let's look at some mistakes from last month.

1.  I didn't plan meals.  I think I was focusing too hard on getting crap out of my house and making sure the place was clean when I should have been also including meal planning and looking at finances.  I should have scheduled a time each week to create a meal plan for the following week.  I went to the grocery store every Wednesday.  Tuesday evening would have been a perfect time to write down any extras that I might need for the following week.  Meal plans have to be a priority.

2. I sent my husband to the store for extra shopping trips too many times.  My dear husband likes to worry about finances and tell me exactly how much money we have to spend on what.  But when it comes to going into a grocery store, he turns into an impulse buyer.  Granted, I was very sick for a few days and needed some items that we didn't have in the house (cold meds, ginger ale, soup, crackers), so it was kind of unavoidable.  I can't control him when he's at the store without me though, and sending him with a list doesn't help much.  I'm not sure how I can fix this other than limiting when he gets to shop alone to when it's absolutely needed (like my sick weekend).  I sent him to the store two extra times when I could have gone.

3.  I didn't keep a price diary.  I didn't see it as necessary because I thought I knew what I would and would not pay for things, but it can't hurt.  If I'm really serious about making this budget work, I need to be willing to employ some crazy shopper techniques (especially since I'm not willing to take 1000 coupons with me each time I go to the store).  Don't know what a price diary is?  Check this out: The Price Diary - How to Save More From Knowing When to Buy.  This also includes knowing what fruit and veggies are in season to avoid over paying for them.  You can get that list here: WiseBread: Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, By the Month.

4.  I just used my debit card and ignored the envelope system for the month.  It's hard to really think about how much you're spending when you just swipe a card.  It's hard to know/remember how much you have left in your budget when you're not physically looking at how much cash you have available.  For some reason, I figured since I was keeping track by keeping receipts, I might not need the envelope system.  Obviously, I was wrong.  I've bought some groceries already this month by using the debit card, so whatever is left in the budget is how much cash I will take out next time I'm at the ATM.  I must not ignore the envelopes!

I'll start with these changes and we'll see where that takes us.  It's not easy to admit failure, but I know that looking over where we went wrong will help us in the long run.  What an eye opener this first month has been!  Here's hoping I have better results to show for October.

Budget Birthday

My oldest is turning six next Monday (WHAT?!  How did that happen??), so it's time for a birthday party and all the expense that goes along with it!  Actually, it's time for two birthday parties.  No, I wasn't trying to spend as much as possible.  It was actually my way to reduce birthday stress.  On Saturday we're having the "friends" party at a local park (the weather guy keeps flip-flopping between sun and rain - doesn't he know I have an event to worry about?), then on Sunday we're having the extended family over for a party.  I tried to have both friends and family over at the same time last year and it was just too insane.  My house is in no way big enough for that.  So I thought it would simplify things to have them separately.  Because it's ALL about simplicity......right?

Yes, simple.  Except I had to figure out how to pull off two parties with food, decor, and his presents without spending a ton.  A "save money" type blog I found bragged about how she only spent $300 on her kid's party and that was the cheapest she'd ever gone.  I have to be able to do better than that!  Here's how I did:

My children are very big on their birthday themes, so there was no negotiating there, but I can take the main colors from his theme and buy colored coordinated decor and only a few character items.  I also keep any leftover party items in a box in the pantry and it turned out that we still had enough plates and napkins with our needed colors.  Score!  I am doing goody bags for the kids coming to the "friend" party, but only the goody bag itself has the character theme on it.  I'm filling it with bulk candy and little dollar store random items (bubbles, dinosaurs, stretchy frogs, etc).  Breakdown:

Goody bags: $18.48 

(that's roughly $2.05 per kid)

Decor: $18.37

As far as presents go, we're trying to limit our belongings and he's going to be getting a bunch from other people anyway so I stuck to two gifts: one was bought from eBay at a very discounted price and the other was bought from a store that's going out of business so everything was on sale.  Breakdown:

Star Wars DVD set from ebay: $23.00

Star Wars Book: $12.00  

And then there's food.  Probably the biggest expense of all.  I tried to look up different blogs on cheap foods to have at parties and honestly wasn't finding anything besides "Just give them chips and ice cream".  Um, no.  While that would cost very little, it also makes me look really stingy and/or unprepared.  These people are nice enough to come to a party and bring my child a present, so the least I can do is give them some decent snacks.  So I spent an hour on a "menu" and narrowed it down to reasonably easy, cost effective, and healthy snacks.  I'm also doing the exact same thing for both parties, so I'm just doubling everything.  Any leftovers from the party on Saturday can also be used on Sunday.  One big cost saver: I'm not ordering a cake.  I actually haven't ordered a cake since my oldest's 1st birthday.  I prefer the taste of homemade cakes and there's always too much frosting on the store bought ones.  Yes, he wants a Star Wars cake, but we're going to for coordinating colors and then I'm going to use a few figurines from his Lego Star Wars sets as cake toppers.  It'll be funny and memorable on top of saving me money.  Here's the menu and the cost breakdown:

Menu

Homemade Cupcakes (park)/Cake (home)

Cantaloupe melon balls

Cucumbers, carrots, celery with hummus, ranch dressing, and spinach dip

Crackers

Homemade rice krispy treats

Homemade pumpkin bread

Food Cost

$63.56

Grand total for two parties:  $135.41

I don't know if I could have done any better.  Maybe I could have found an even cheaper way to do goody bags, although I feel like $2 per kid is pretty darn good.  Even so, I still found my heart sinking a little when everything was rung up at the store.  Maybe just because I know we're over our food budget for the month anyway or maybe I was unrealistically expecting to pull off a kid's double party under $100.  I guess that begs the question: Is a $100 kid party (with presents) even possible?

The Changes So Far

When I first got the simplicity idea about a month ago, I expected it would take at least a few months to see any sort of difference in our daily life.  But here we are, one month into the idea (and that doesn't mean that everything I've tried so far has been happening for a full month) and I can tell a difference.

I've cleared out a good portion of belongings that we didn't need anymore and that includes some random furniture, freeing up a little bit of floor space.  I've organized a few areas and have been putting things away when we're done with them and if I'm heading upstairs/downstairs, I grab whatever I see that should go with me.  Just these few changes have massively cut down on the amount of time it takes me to clean my house.  I've set up a housework schedule and yes, I actually schedule the housework like an appointment.  I bought a day planner and I write down my housework to be done at a certain time.  Example from the other day:

9:30am-10am: Basic tidying
10am-11am: Clean bathrooms (hey, I have three bathrooms that need to be scrubbed down and it very well might take me a whole hour some days)
1pm: Clean cat box and guinea pig cage

Usually, I won't schedule more than three household tasks (cooking doesn't count) each day.  That way, I'm not overwhelmed with stuff to do and it gives me time to play with my kids.

I've been spending more time with my boys than I ever imagined.  We've been playing games, going to the park more often, and having little baking sessions together.  It's been great and their behavior has drastically improved.  We've also cut down on our TV time because we're spending time with each other instead.

I noticed a huge unexpected difference this weekend as well.  We were having a group from church over for dinner on Saturday evening and normally when we have people over, I'm stressed beyond belief.  Spending an entire week before the get-together making sure my house is JUST how I want it, and when the day comes around, I still end up coming to the door out of breath and covered in sweat because I've been cleaning like a mad person.  That didn't happen this weekend.  At all.  There was no stress.  My house was clean already.  I spent an hour or so on Friday sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, and dusting, but that was it.  I was fresh faced, relaxed, and happy when everyone arrived on Saturday.  When I realized the difference from our past parties/get-togethers, I nearly cried.  What a wonderful, wonderful change it was to actually enjoy having people over instead of worrying about how my home looked.

One month in and we are happier already.  I can't wait to see how things continue to change as we get further along in our challenge!