Here’s an excerpt about decluttering kids’ rooms from one of our Saving with Kids e-books.

De-cluttering Kids Rooms

I just did this for the boys yesterday. It’s funny– kids really do love a clean room!

BJ (13) asked David (7) “Would you please ask mom to help you clean up your stuff!” Not even two seconds later, David came out and said, “Mom can you please help me clean up my room”. After it was cleaned up, they both said “Thank you so much mom!”

Kids love neat and clean areas just as much we do. I know kids need to keep their own stuff picked up but there are times when the cavalry does need to come in and save the day. We’ll be running more posts on this subject over the next few days. Enjoy! Tawra

De-cluttering Toys

Make piles and label boxes according to these categories:

Trash (I bring in the kitchen trash can and just throw it straight in there.)

Sort and put away in room

Yard sale/Give away

Put in another room

Pack and store

Decide

BE RUTHLESS!

I can’t stress enough how important it is to be ruthless in getting rid of your children’s excess toys. As parents, we know we are supposed to protect our children physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Often we worry so much about others harming our children in these areas but, more often than not, we are the ones who do the greatest harm to them. One of the ways that we forget to protect our children emotionally is by allowing them to have so many toys and things that they become overwhelmed and frustrated.

I know this may seem like something trivial compared to what is going on in the world, but you have to realize your child’s room and toys are his world. Children really aren’t interested in anything else but their own spheres, and if that little world of theirs is piled with mounds of toys and other things, it can be overwhelming for them to deal with on a daily basis.

I can’t handle it if I have too many things to choose from, and I’m an adult. What did you feel like the last time you went to buy something new like shampoo or make-up? Were you overwhelmed with so many different kinds to choose from? There’s nothing wrong with any of them. It’s just that there are so many kinds. Put yourself in your child’s place. A child isn’t as emotionally mature as you are. Imagine how he feels.

I just watched an organizing show where the parents (at the advice of the organizer) spent several hundred dollars on shelving and storage containers to store the children’s toys. One container alone held 75 small cars. No child needs 75 or more of any type of toy at all. Do you know how much money could have been saved on shelving and containers if they had just gotten rid of more of those toys? Think of the headaches you have just trying to keep all those toys under control.

Don’t feel guilty or think you are depriving your children when you reduce excess toys. You are doing them a favor, and besides they probably won’t miss them. Have you noticed how children usually play with the same handful of toys over and over? In the same way, we keep 25 different colors of eye shadow, but only use 3-4 favorites over and over. If the rest of them were dumped, we wouldn’t even miss them, and our kids won’t miss the extra toys, either

Of course, this doesn’t mean to be cruel and get rid of their favorite bears or dolls, but I’m talking about all those things buried at the bottom of their toy boxes and closets that haven’t seen the light of day for years.

       -Jill

PS  Since I wrote this I saw a show where these 2 boys had mounds and mounds of toys. For fun they would throw their toys out their bedroom window to watch them break and shatter. The parents didn’t have a clue so they had someone come in to help and the first thing they did was take away all the toys but 10. The interesting thing was the boys took care of the toys better, put them up without a fuss and actually played with the toys. These facts might help some of you parents be more ruthless.

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How do I begin to get organized?

It’s the beginning of a new year. There seem to be only 3 topics everyone thinks about this time of year: how to get out of debt, how to lose weight and how to get your house clean and organized. Just look at all the magazines or TV shows. People are talking about it everywhere. I myself am not immune to thinking about any of these.

I was sitting, gazing around my domain and looking at the mess. I had really let things go. As I was looking, I started thinking, “I need to get busy and clean things up but where do I start?” (not to mention that I felt too exhausted to start). “I just can’t do it,” I told myself. I’m too tired. I then realized what I was saying. The reality was that I could do it, I was just tired and didn’t want to do it.

With this in mind, I made myself get up and start, beginning by clearing the one pile of things in my kitchen that had been driving me crazy for ages. When I was done it looked so good I was energized and started on another spot. Before I knew it, I had the whole kitchen picked up and it hadn’t even taken me 30 minutes.

That day, it dawned on me how often we aren’t honest with ourselves, even in the excuses we use for not doing things. When I said, “I can’t do it,” that really wasn’t the truth. I could do it, I just didn’t want to do it or feel like doing it so, to ease my conscience, I told myself, “I can’t do it.” There’a a big difference in the meanings.

“I can’t do it.”

What would happen if each time we say “I can’t do it” we would change it to “I don’t want to do it because it will be a lot of hard work and/or sacrifice”? Saying it that way might give us more pause for thought.

“I don’t know how to do it.”

Then you need to learn how. In this day and age we have access to so much knowledge there is almost no reason for not finding out how to do something. Years ago, before the Internet, before information was so easy to get, when people didn’t know how to do something they did it by trial and error until they got it right. Today, more often than not, we seem to think when we say we don’t know how to do something it means we don’t have to bother to try or do it. It is easier for someone else to do it for us.

I always think of Thomas Edison and how it took him over a thousand tries to make the light bulb. Am I glad he didn’t say, “I can’t” or “I don’t know how.” Do you see what an impact excuses can make on our life and the lives of others?

You don’t have to learn to be an expert in everything or to do everything as well as someone else. You just need a good general knowledge that allows you to do what needs to be done.

I love it when people use “I don’t know how” as an excuse when it comes to cleaning. Do you really not know how to pick up the trash off of the living room floor or put those dirty clothes in the hamper?

Some say, “I don’t know to stop spending.” Maybe if you only put what you absolutely need in your basket, it would be a good start. Most 6 year olds know if they only have a dollar to spend they can only buy something for a dollar. It’s not a hard thing to learn.

“I don’t know where to begin.”

In most cases, it really doesn’t matter where you begin. The important thing is just to begin.

If you are trying to get out of debt, begin by stopping your spending. That step alone will make a big difference. If you want to lose weight, stop eating so much. It’s interesting that in both of these areas you begin by stopping something. If you are trying to clean your home, you can pretty much start anywhere. Just get up and move.

The next time you hear yourself saying these things, stop, pause and think “Am I being honest or do I sound just like my 10 year old when he or she is trying to get out of doing the chores or homework.” Hmmm? I wonder where they learned their excuses from? I know I had to pause and stop myself several times this past week.

If these excuses have become like a comfortable old sweater, check out our website and books to help you take off the old sweater and get fitted for a new one. You will find so many ideas to help inspire you to do things when you think you can’t, to help show you how to do it and to show you where to begin.

I will keep sharing tips and ideas to get out of debt, lose weight and clean in the future. Can we do it? Yes we can. (Well, for those of us who can get out of bed today — this is a little side joke for those with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia. : )

       -Jill

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Happy New Year Everyone!!

Every year on New Year’s I always remember one special New Year’s Day. That is really unusual for me because New Year’s has never been one of my favorite holidays. I can’t remember ever staying up to ring in the New Year and I have only been to one or two New Year’s parties. I left those early and was home about 10:00, so for me to remember a special New Year’s Day is something.

It happened many years ago. I had gone to bed early as usual on New Year’s Eve and woke up about 5:30 the next morning. I was heating the house with our one pot belly stove and we were all sleeping and living in just a couple of rooms at the back of our house.

The kids were still sleeping so I couldn’t do much for fear of waking them. I sat quietly down at the kitchen table, started eating some leftover pecan pie (my breakfast of choice on Christmas and New Year’s morning) and thinking about the past year. That was also unusual for me to do because I never stew over the past year on New Year’s and I never give the next year much thought.

For some reason, out of the blue, I started dwelling on things. I started getting very discouraged and was feeling like having a pity party. I was shocked because I had been through so much the previous year and that whole time I hadn’t given in to self pity but all of a sudden I was wallowing in it.

You have to understand that, to me, having a pity party is as much of a sin as robbing a bank, lying or committing adultery so I started praying that God would help pull me out of it because I could tell it was going to be bad.

I grabbed my Bible because I was so sure that was what I was supposed to do and started reading it hoping it would help me but instead it made matters worse. Every verse I read said something like, “woe to you and your house.” I couldn’t believe it. Of course, by this point I was sure I had a right to feel sorry for myself so I told God, “Look– even when I read your word you tell me how miserable I am.” I was not thinking rationally at all but I still kept praying for help and trying to fight it.

My eyes fell on a pile of library books I had gotten a few days before. One of them was Erma Bombeck’s book, If Life is a Bowl of Cherries Why am I Always in the Pits? I wasn’t sure why I had checked it out because it wasn’t the kind of book that I usually read. I really wasn’t sure I felt like reading it now but I did relate to the always in the pits part. This little voice kept telling me to read it so I finally gave in and did.

Before I was through the first paragraph I started chuckling. The more I read, the harder I laughed. I was trying so hard to keep from laughing out loud so I wouldn’t wake the kids but I was to the point of belly laughing and finally Tawra called to me, “Mom what are you doing in there?!?”

I spent the rest of the day laughing my head off. Gone was the pity party. I had the best New Year’s ever. I also learned a couple of things that day.

First, we have a choice. We can have a pity party or a good laugh. Which do you think is better for us and our families?

Second I wasn’t stretching it when I said I had had a bad year. I had heard a speaker a few months earlier who gave us a list of the ten most stressful things that can happen to someone and he said that if you have 1-2 of those happen within a year’s time that you were probably under a great deal of stress and if you had had 3-4 things happen you needed to seek help.

When I heard that I had to chuckle to myself. I had 9 of those 10 things happen to me, all with in a 5 month period. I really did have something to be discouraged about but I also had something to be excited about.

Every time one of those 9 stressful things happened, God was right there to pull me through. It had gotten to the point where I almost became excited when I came to a road block because I could hardly wait to see how He would work this problem out.

What I had learned that day was, as much as He was there helping me through the “big” things, on this day He was there helping me with my little everyday pity parties too.

We have all had things happen to us this past year and will have more things happen this coming year. Life happens and we have a choice to either stay paralyzed by fear, not even trying, or to face each day with courage and with God’s help to try to figure out how to fix the problem.

Joshua is one of my favorite Bible characters. When he saw the land of giants, he essentially said, “So what if there are giants (problems). God will help us take care of them.”He had a child like faith. He was like a child that says, “My dad can do anything”. The bullies can come and He is there to fight them.

The others wanted to run and go back to their slavery but Joshua didn’t give in to his fear and he succeeded and made it to the promised land. Don’t be like those others, so paralyzed by your fear you can think of nothing to do but to go backwards and return to your slavery, whether that is debt, no job, how much you weigh or living in a messy house. Get up and fearlessly move forward, not back.

God also told Joshua in Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

You either choose to believe those words or not. It is very simple. If you believe them, then you can step out this year and when the bullies start coming down the path towards you you won’t bat an eye because your Father who is bigger and stronger than you is walking right there beside you and He will take care of them. The battle is His, not yours. Don’t go back into your slavery this year, no matter what it is.

photo by: marufish

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Get Organized and Get Out Of Debt – Where Do I Begin?

It’s almost New Years Day and many of us are already starting to think about making resolutions. Most resolutions sound something like: “I’m going to eat healthy and lose weight“, “I’m going to get out of debt” or “I’m going to get organized.”

These are great things to WANT to do but I’m afraid that about 90% of us won’t keep these resolutions. Here are a couple of things to think about that will hopefully give you greater success in keeping your resolutions.

I can’t, in this one sitting, give you all the details about how to handle every situation but I can give you some things to think about that will help you in all of these areas. Then for more details check out LivingOnADime.com, or our e-books to help you in each specific area and to give you practical ways on how to accomplish what you want to do.

It helps to understand why we do the things we do. Most of us want to lose weight and eat healthy on New Year’s Day because we have just spent the past month gorging ourselves so that we now feel bloated and sick and can’t fit into our clothes anymore. Like a pendulum that swings from one extreme to another, we think that the answer is to eat carrot sticks for the rest of our lives. That usually lasts about 3 days and then we give up.

The same applies to the idea of getting out of debt. Most of us have just spent the past few weeks spending more money than we had planned and now we feel guilty. We’re determined that we are not going to spend a penny on anything. Then we will panic every time we have to buy something like food or gas because the price is so high.

Then there is the thought of getting organized. Right now you are probably surrounded by a Christmas tree and decorations that are starting to accumulate a thin layer of dust, which is giving a dingy look to everything. The once bright and cheery look of the Christmas lights have dulled. The candles on the mantle have burned down to nubs and look more like they belong in a haunted house or in a horror movie.

There is leftover wrapping paper strewn here and there. Piles of Christmas dinner platters and dishes sit on every counter. You close your eyes every time you open the fridge so you don’t have to look at the piles of leftovers inside it. Then there are all the mounds of new toys, clothes and gifts. How do you stuff them into the already full closet? No wonder you have the urge to clean and get organized. You wonder, “Where do I even start?”

As I’ve said before, too much of even a good thing can make us sick and frustrated.

Here’s my point: You can do everything you resolve to do, but you need to pace yourself. It’s like running a long distance marathon. You don’t just shoot out of the starting line going as fast and hard as you can. You will never make the distance that way, so you pace yourself. In the same way, pace yourself in everything and do a small amount at a time, breaking things into manageable pieces.

Have a plan, whether it is writing menus for good balanced meals for each week, making a budget or, even more important, being bold enough to write down and acknowledge what your debts are.  Make a plan. Plan where to cut your spending or when it comes to organizing, try making a list of 1-2 areas of your home you are going to organize each day.

Next prepare. When you are preparing for a race, you would ask yourself, “Do I have the right shoes”, “Are there water stations?”, “Have I slowly worked my muscles into shape?”, “Am I prepared for some pain?” and “When it hits, will I not be afraid of it but keep going in spite of the discomfort?”  In the same way, you may have to spend some time preparing things like planning good meals, balancing your checkbook or making sure you have cleaning supplies and boxes for when you start organizing.

Pace Yourself
Plan
Prepare

One thing you must remember – discouragement and a sense of being overwhelmed will hit most of us once we start. Pacing will help but it is especially important to have a plan and be prepared when discouragement sets in so you can overcome it and keep going. Here are some things to think about when you start feeling discouraged:

Have you ever looked up the definition of resolution? I did. It means to have firm determination, to be bold and steady and to reduce something to a simpler form. You need to be steady and pace yourself. Little by little and piece by piece, reduce your mess to something simpler and more manageable. You can’t accomplish any of it in a week or two. You took a long time to make the mess and you may have to take just as long to clean it up but like the tortoise in the tortoise and the hare, keep a slow but steady pace and you will win the race and succeed.

Lastly, get up and do it. Stop blaming everyone and making excuses. You won’t even get out of the starting gate if you spend all your time standing there telling everyone why you can’t run. Even if you have a real excuse for not running then at least start taking baby steps and walk. You’ll at least be getting somewhere but if you just stand bemoaning your lot in life and how miserable the world is in these hard economic times, you will get nowhere.

You may fall (or eat that piece of chocolate cake, spend more than you should have or leave dirty dishes in the sink one day) but pick yourself up, brush yourself off and keep going. The only thing that will keep you from getting there is if you stop (quit and give up), so keep at it.

We will try to do the same and keep plugging along with ideas on how to accomplish all of the above. Now I must quit because I have a messy room that I really need to deal with today! : ) : )

       -Jill

For more help with organizing, cleaning and laundry, take a look at our Keeping It Clean e-books.

photo by: rainchurch

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Holiday Cleaning – Preparing Now For The Holidays

Halloween is over, which means it is now officially time to kick it into gear to get ready for the holidays and to get your house ready for company. It really helps to get your house in order now because if unexpected company comes you won’t get caught off guard. Then you can concentrate on baking, finding gifts and organizing activities without having to worry about deep cleaning your house again until after the New Year.

Hopefully by now you have been inspired to start getting things done a little at a time so this won’t be too big of a job. Here are a few things to work on:

• Get your closets in order. Put summer clothes away and take winter clothes out, tossing as you go.
• Don’t forget your linen closets. Get your guest towels, sheets and extra blankets aired out and put the linens in a handy spot so they are easy to grab when you need them.
• If you have a guest room, get it cleaned and prepare everything for your first guests.
• Get your holiday linens prepared. Wash them if necessary and make sure they’re ready to go.
• Hopefully you have cleaned your pantry. Now you need to make sure it is stocked with everything you need for your holiday recipes, for some quick and easy to fix snacks and dinners for unexpected company or food to take to social events.
• Make sure your fridge and freezer are in order. The refrigerator and freezer are going to work overtime for you over the next couple of months so make sure they’re cleaned, organized and prepared.
• I don’t worry about cleaning my oven at this time. I use it so much for baking that it’s silly for me to clean it right before having a baking fest. I usually wait and give it a good cleaning after the holidays. If it’s really bad or you have company coming and it looks awful you may want to go ahead and clean it anyway.
• This week and next week is the time to do any deep cleaning that you don’t want to have to mess with again until after the holidays– things like washing your windows, deep cleaning rugs and carpets and dusting mirrors, picture frames, lampshades or ceiling fans.

If you have been keeping up with your cleaning you may not have to do any of these. Basically just clean your house enough for company. Then you’ll know it’s done and you will be prepared for the unexpected.

Part of the stress that comes at the holidays is the result of not being prepared, especially for the unexpected things that always seem to come up. Think of it like being prepared for a disaster. If I have a wood burning stove, firewood, lots of candles, blankets and food prepared, I am not too stressed if we lose power from an ice storm. If I wasn’t at all prepared, I would be in a total panic if an ice storm hit.

If you are prepared, you have something you can whip up for company in just a few minutes or if the kids need treats for school, you have dough frozen and ready to be baked in the freezer. I’m not saying that I have everything prepared like Martha Stewart but I do try to have everything together enough so that I’m reasonably prepared for the unexpected. My idea of the perfect woman is a cross between Martha Stewart and Erma Bombeck! Some days I am more one than the other and on other days I totally miss the mark, but that’s okay, because I tried.

      -Jill

For more easy cleaning and organizing tips, check out our Keeping It Clean e-books.

Photo By: Kyle Lease

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How To Load a Dishwasher – Homemade Dishwasher Detergent Recipe

Often, there is a proper way to do things, which make them go faster, easier and allows you to do a better job. This is definitely true with loading a dishwasher. Here are a few tips to help you, along with a recipe for homemade dishwasher detergent.

• Use less detergent. I found out the expensive way that if you put too much detergent in the dispensers, it will mess up your dishwasher. You only need to fill the dispenser about half full. Using less detergent will save you a lot of money too.

• Before you start your dishwasher, run the hot water in the sink to help get the water hot enough to kill the germs.

• Get your family in the habit of always putting their dirty dish in the dishwasher. This may mean a lot of complaining and gnashing of teeth but they need to start doing this. You, mom and dad, need to lead by example.  It is much easier and more efficient to load the dishwasher when the dishes are fresh, rather than after the food is stuck on.

  If there are still clean dishes in the dishwasher, family members should at least rinse and stack their dishes neatly in the sink so it is ready to load. Like anything else, it is a learned habit. 

  To make it easier be sure you have a good long handled scrub brush available to scrub and rinse the dishes. The scratchy pads work well but most kids don’t like to use them because they don’t want to touch the "gooey" food that can stick to the dishes. With a brush, the kids don’t have to touch anything.

Loading the Dishwasher

• Don’t place all the same kind of silverware in the same compartment. It may seem like it will save you time unloading but you’ll either sort the silverware when you load it or when you unload it. I would much rather handle the silverware when it is clean than when it is dirty. Also, silverware doesn’t get as clean when you put like items together because they tend to nest while washing and don’t get properly cleaned.

• Make sure all glasses, bowls, pans and other containers are turned face down and that there is some space between glass items to prevent breakage.

• Place all heat sensitive items on the top rack and put dirtier things like pans on the bottom rack, facing where the most spray will be coming out.

• Place long things like spatulas on the top rack. That way, if they fall through, they will not fall all the way down into the dishwasher works and mess them up.

Here is an easy homemade dishwasher detergent recipe for you to use:

Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

1 cup baking soda or washing soda
1 cup Borax
1-2 drops of scented oil (optional)

Mix ingredients. Use like regular detergent. 

For more easy cleaning, laundry and homemaking tips to make your life easier, check out our Keepin’ It Clean e-books here.

Photo By: David Locke

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What To Clean If You Only Have 15 Minutes

by Tracy Roberts

OK – Panic time. The fill-in-the-blank called and they will be knocking on your front door in 15 minutes. You fix your hair, get the kids to wipe the chocolate off their faces and send them to straighten their rooms.

Then, you turn around to survey the damage in the rest of the house. Yikes! Like your momma always says, it looks like a tornado tore a path through your home.

You’ve got approximately 14 minutes left. What do you attack first to get the most bang for your cleaning buck?

1. Pick stuff off the floor. It always makes such a difference to actually "see" the carpet. If you are lucky enough to have a dedicated playroom for the kids’ toys, close the door. Easy. If not, keep an extra laundry basket handy and just fill it up. Don’t bother sorting, just scoop up all the toys and "stuff" and move on. If your vacuum is easy to use, run it quickly. If it is a pain to find it and deal with the cord, forget about it.
2. Head into the kitchen. If you have piles of dirty dishes everywhere, you have two choices. You could try to load the dishwasher. It might, however, be easier to rinse everything quickly, fill the sink with soapy water and pile it all in. Don’t worry about actually washing them. Let your company think they interrupted you. Give the counters a once over with the sponge or a wipe so nothing sticky is left for your guests to discover. Done.

3. Time’s ticking down. Run over to the bathroom. Nothing is more embarrassing than having someone ask to use your bathroom when you just know it is gross. Toss all the toys in the tub and close the curtain. Get everything off the counter and into a drawer. Grab a bleach wipe and wipe down the counter, the faucet, the sink and the toilet. Grab a wipe made just for mirrors and get that toothpaste spray that you have been purposely ignoring off the mirror. If you can, clean the toilet bowl as well. Be sure there is toilet paper.
4. Just a minute or two left. Straighten the cushions on the sofa. Toss the throws the way the magazine stylists do instead of having them piled up like a pillow. Corral all the stuff in the shoe pile and hang up the coats.

That’s it.

That’s all you’ve got time for but this little list should make everything more presentable. Whether you are a neat freak or on the messy side, we all have days where we get caught off-guard. It happens. The point to remember is that you only need to give the "illusion" of clean. No one is going to open your closets or drawers. No one is going to peek behind closed doors. At least, I hope not.

Get more tips like these in Tracy’s 30 Days to an Organized Home e-book. When you order today, Tracy also includes some great bonus checklists to help you stay organized. Learn more here!

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One excuse we often use for not getting things done at home is "I don’t have time." Many of our readers have heard me tell of the 5 minute rule I started using years ago when I first got sick.

I was too weak to do much but I found that, if I made myself get up during the 5 minute TV commercial, do what I could in that 5 minutes and then rest, I got an amazing amount of things done.

Here’s a list to help you start making those little 5 minute blocks of time more productive:

5 Minute Quick Clean-Up In The Kitchen

• Clean out the silverware drawer.
• Put the dishes in the dishwasher.
• Dry the dishes.
• Set the table.
• Clean off one shelf in the fridge.
• Clean off one shelf in the pantry.
• Sort through one shelf in the cabinets.
• Sweep the floor.
• Wash a window or glass door.
• Wipe down all the back splashes.
• Clean under the kitchen sink.
• Wipe down the outside of the kitchen cabinets.
• Wash a few knick knacks.
• Wipe down the outsides of appliances.

Using this list as an example, make a cleaning list for other rooms in your home. Keep it handy. Then, when you have a couple of minutes, pick something off of your list and do it.

Photo By: Nancy Hugo, CKD

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