Why being organized helps your budget

In these rough economic times, it is important to remember that being organized is also good for your pocketbook. Unorganized people tend to have the following bad economic habits:

• Overbuying – if you don’t know what you have or can’t find something, you will have to go buy another. So often I hear clients exclaim “I have been looking for that! I thought I lost it, so I bought another.” Or as we are organizing their pantry, we come across enough spaghetti to feed a small nation. They had no idea what they had so every time they went to the store, they bought more. Keep things organized and know your inventory.
• Failing to plan ahead – if you do not plan ahead, you spend your life in catch up mode. By not playing on the offensive side and looking ahead, you find yourself always struggling to keep afloat. As a result, you eat dinner out or pick up fast food more often, you buy gifts at the last minute – often paying top dollar or spending more than you planned, or maybe you have to hire people to do things for you because you realize that you just don’t have time to get things done. Plan ahead and know what is coming so you can deal with things in a calm state of mind rather than a frantic, desperate state of mind. Desperation will cost you.
• Not having organized paperwork – do you open and process your mail as it comes in or is it in a big pile, mixed up with other papers that you will get to one day? How will this cost you? In late fees or worse. If you do not process your mail immediately, you may be missing bills that are due, tickets that need to be paid, sign up fees, etc. When you do not pay these bills, you end up paying more in late fees, reinstating fees or court fees. Process your paperwork each and every day in order to keep on top of it.


Meagan Farrell, professional organizer, is the owner of Clear the Clutter organizing services. She can be reached at (360) 631-7268 or at clear_theclutter@yahoo.com. Check out her blog at http://cleartheclutterprofessionalorganizing.blogspot.com/





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