Many of us can say we are a frugal budget in some form or fashion. Ever since my son was born, I’ve become extremely frugal by necessity. My husband and I always knew I wasn’t going back to work after baby, but I didn’t understand just how tight the budget would be. By the time he was 10 months old, my focus was on our budget 24/7; with everything from cooking to cleaning- making my own detergents and reusing containers.
Don’t get me wrong. I love to buy new, but there are plenty of times we just don’t need to and can save hundreds of dollars a year, even when you need to organize your stash or craft room. Here are some very simple ways that I was able to save quite a few dollars and make my tiny studio feel tidy, even when it has exploded.
Hit up your pantry!
Save your cereal boxes! This option is so flexible you could use it in the kitchen, your sock drawers, in a Kaboodle, even organize crayons or markers. I’ve cut the bottoms and tops off the boxes to use them in short corners. They hold anything from stitch markers to rubber bands. You can cut them lengthwise to use for hooks, scissors, and embroidery threads. A single drawer can hold several boxes or the bottoms of cereal boxes/hot tea boxes to keep all your little things separated. (We’ve recently moved so it isn’t prettied up yet, but it helps us feel at home and makes it much easier to locate things.)
Hit the Garage Sales!
My dad found a solid oak chest of drawers and matching dresser that well went with our current furniture set at a garage sale for only $50. He bought it for us, but I would have spent the money on it expecting my son will be using them when he is grown. For now, this set is where I store everything from key plates and weights to sketches and current works in progress. You can certainly find a chest of drawers for much less; especially if it’s made of particle board. Resale shops have them all the time.
Hit up the Dollar Store!
Even though many items are more than $1, you can still score some sweet deals. Three of the drawers in one of these large oak chests contain several small items that are easy to categorize. In this case, I use two utility dividers (as seen above) like those you would use for your silverware and cutlery. They were only $1 each and I felt super clever buying those to use for extra hooks, needles, pins, threads, tags, pens… whew!
A shoe organizer ($9 on sale) under a desk holds working skeins with test swatches and small wips. Plastic shoe boxes fit 2-3 skeins each. A large trash receptacle is a great place to keep hats and scarves going out as orders.
Keep large garden baskets to hold new skeins waiting to be organized in the closet.
Hanging sweater dividers ($5/ea) hold various skeins cued up for projects while large plastic bags ($3/ea) zip up several skeins to be stacked in a closet.
Hope this gives you some great ideas!
From the editors of StitchandUnwind:
If you’re looking for even more ideas to help reduce your craft related spending (or to reduce your t-shirt pile), give these alternative knitting materials a try. Not only are these recycled crafting ideas a great way to help the planet, you’ll save move and some are also a wonderful way to help local economies in other countries. You’ll be really surprised at all the great money saving projects in this collection: Recycled Craft Ideas: Silk, Ribbon and T-Shirt Yarn Projects.
Do you have any other frugal organizing tips? Share them below!
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