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Feb 28, 2019    |       5 comments

March Decluttering Challenge

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We have done two challenges this year: #NoSpendJanuary and Eat at Home February. And this week, I started thinking about March.

These challenges have really helped keep me focused on my goal of becoming debt free! So I turned to Google. And found several interesting ideas. But this is the one that really struck a cord for me.

#MarchDeclutter Challenge

With tax season here, it’s a great time to go through all your paper clutter, and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. Not to mention, it’s a great way to get organized to file your taxes. As much as I try to keep digital records, there are still paper receipts floating around.

Over the last few years as we downsized and became quite minimalist, I have gotten rid of alot of “extra” stuff including kids art projects and such. I still have alot of it around. Here’s one of my favorite displays with Gymnast art. We were given this antique “plate” display cabinet for free and I love it for displaying art.

But there is always room for change. So for the month of March, I am going to do a general de-clutter…room to room, closet to closet and cabinet to cabinet. Here are the steps I plan to take:

  • Divide the rooms, closets and cabinets across the month of March. So that I have a couple of days to tackle each location.
  • For my paper de-cluttering, I have already become a whiz at digitizing and storing it in my Dropbox account. I scan it using my iPad and then rename and organize it in my Dropbox folders.
  • For the kids’ art and artifacts, if it’s something I am ready to part with, I take a picture of it, again storing it in Dropbox. And then I will either gift it to someone else who might enjoy it or dispose of it.
  • For everything else, we will do regular runs to the local thrift store or create a listing on ebay to see if we can make some money.

I don’t anticipate a big change with this for us. But it will be a psychological lift to declutter just in time for spring cleaning.

What about you, are you up for a March Declutter challenge? Where will you start? What will you focus on?

Feb 27, 2019    |       5 comments

How has February Gone?

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Tomorrow I will announce a March challenge as we say goodbye to February. I don’t know about you, but this month has been much easier for me. I truly didn’t mind the Eat at Home challenge with the break I gave myself to get out of the house occasionally for lunch.

We ate at home every night. And I went to the coffee shop 1-2 times a week to work. It’s amazing the difference in my productivity when there versus in my home office. No distractions like dishes to clean, laundry to do or any other “house” chores distracting me.

How’s your eating out been this month? Did you join in the challenge? Or modify your norm at all?

And while it wasn’t supposed to a be a #nospendmonth for us, it really turned out to be. Between our normal busy schedules, the rain and the medical issues, we just didn’t go anywhere or do anything that would have cost us outside of our regular budget.

I have to travel several days this week for work. But next week (the first week of March,) I plan to really sit down and take a look at my finances. It’s time to pay off some more debt with my savings from January and February!

Looking forward to the last couple of months of this school year:

  • Princess will be playing with a rec volleyball league ($142 for the season, I mentioned it back in January) beginning next week in addition to her 4 high school classes and 2 college classes. She is going to keep me busy!
  • Sea Cadet is enjoying his new job and learning new auto skills (he’s working at a car wash/oil change place,) and looking froward to finishing his Advanced EMT studies in July.
  • History Buff is enjoying his new job at a big box home improvement store and working hard to stick to a budget. He learned a hard lesson this semester after not sticking to his budget last fall. He is very excited about his schooling and has chosen to pursue certifications in machine lathe and welding simultaneously. I am very proud of how hard he is working on his finances.

I’m excited about the new challenge for March. I hope you will join me. These monthly challenges are really helping me stay focused.

 

 

 

 

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