My Lack of Organization Costs Me Money
I need to become more organized. Better yet, I need to have less stuff. I actually am making strides in the organization department, but with the volume of random stuff we have, I find it hard to keep track of everything. I guess I need two things - less stuff and a better system for keeping track of what stuff we do have.
A while back, I bought baby oil to try and make my own homemade baby wipes with. Well, that was a disaster, but that’s not what I am irked at myself about. I had to buy baby oil because it is something we never use, and all I could find were huge bottles of it (the recipe actually called for very little in each batch). I still have this huge bottle of baby oil which I have no use for. Today, when rummaging through the bins I keep under the sink in the master bathroom, I came across a little sample bottle of Burt’s Bees Apricot Baby Oil. When we had our first child, we got a number of gifts from friends and family, and one of them was a sample pack of a number of Burt’s Bees products. We have long since used up all the other products, but I don’t use baby oil, so there it was. If I’d realized we had it (or checked my bathrooms more thoroughly for baby oil before buying any) I could have saved myself the cost of the big bottle of baby oil. Yes, that is only a few dollars, but this is not the first time I have done something similar to this by any means. I have often in the past lost track of what I have and buy more of something I don’t actually need.
My lack of organization also costs me money when I don’t realize we’re out of something until it is too late. On Saturdays I grocery shop, and in doing so, I drive right past the store where I buy diapers (because I can get the best prices there per diaper by a wide margin). Well, I didn’t realize that I was almost out of diapers for my daughter until this morning. And I don’t have time to drive over to that store today before I have to go teach taekwondo tonight (the roads were icy so my spouse took my car to work instead of his so I have to wait until after he comes home), so I am going to have to pop over to Kroger when he gets home and pay a lot more per diaper. I do have a coupon so I am hoping to offset the damage a little bit but it will still cost more than if I had just checked Saturday morning instead of finding out today when I went to pull more out of the closet and found the bag was almost empty.
Organizational skills. Something to work on for the new year. Maybe I can set up some sort of snowflaking penalty for when I waste money in a boneheaded manner. That seemed to work for the impulse buys, I hardly ever buy anything impulsively anymore.
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December 12th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
I agree, organizational skills are worth a lot. But they never seem so at the time…which is the problem. A snowflaking penalty would be an interesting way to go about it. Of course, you like snowflaking anyway, I don’t know if that would lower your motivation or drive you to be more organized AND snowflake.
December 12th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Can you make some sort of inventory spreadsheet to keep track of what you have and what you need? Might be some work upfront, but maybe it will be worthwhile.
Hmm…that gives me a blog post idea…
December 12th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
To avoid forgetting things when I go to the grocery store, I make a list of all the things that I would use including rare things. When it’s due to go to the grocery store, I make sure I check every item on the list and make a shorter list of the things that I really need for that week. I also group them based on different shops and then decide on the best route to follow. It’s worked good for me so far.
December 12th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Oh, boy. I know exactly what you mean.
I have on a number of times, bought the same book 2 or even 3 times.
I intend to work out a system to try to stop this. Let me know if you have thought of one already.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
@Mrs Micah - I do enjoy snowflaking… but I don’t actually enjoy having the money taken away and snowflaked. i just enjoy the concept
@Kacie and uneqivocal - ah, and there is why i stink at organization. This sounds like a lot of work. I am inherently lazy. lol
@Father Sez - I think other people have better systems than i can come up with, i may try to copy one of the suggestions in the comments
December 14th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Just a quick question — where have you found diapers the cheapest per diaper??
In my area, I have found the target store brand to be the best for the cost (approx $13 for 80 diapers - size 5). But maybe you have a store that might be better.
Thanks!!
December 14th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Well it depends on the kid. lol
My son, he can only wear pampers cruisers. Seriously. We’ve tried just about every generic multiple times. No dice. leaks.. ugh. Anyway. I am hoping to get him completely potty trained over winter break while he is out of school (he is 3 and in preschool). But I digress. We buy those at Babies R Us, the cases make them cheapest.
My daughter we buy the generic babies R us brand at the same time, but I also have gotten the Aldi ones for her too. Our Target ones were a little more expensive the last time I checked vs the babies R us ones but I will have to recheck sometime soon