Fall Cleaning

Hello Fellow Thrifters!

Do you remember the "old days" when our mother or grandmother did spring and fall cleaning? My mother wasn't much on it but I remember my dad taking all the furniture out of the house in the spring and fall. He cleaned the walls, floors and the last thing he did was go over the furniture with Old English Red furniture polish. Wow! Now don't get the wrong idea we only lived in three rooms with one bath and a great big closet. So there really wasn't a lot of stuff to take out in the yard or a bunch of rooms to clean.

Now I'm not suggesting such a drastic "take your furniture to the yard" fall cleaning unless you are planning on a yard sale. LOL. But couldn't we all stand some sort of organizing or purge this fall? Well, it can be as simple as going through your closet and pulling out all those clothes you haven't worn in years but have been telling yourself you are going to need when you lose those ten pounds. Then you could donate them to a women's shelter or Goodwill. Or what about purging the kitchen cabinet with all those plastic containers which have accumulated over the course of your lifetime? Maybe the area that needs fall cleaning the most is the paperwork which has taken over your desk, dining room table or the end table next to your favorite chair. Our stuff has a tendency to multiply if we don't manage it. I thinks that's why somebody a long time ago invented these semi-annual cleaning times.

For those of you who keep everything because you just might need it. You could start your fall cleaning on a much smaller scale. Maybe you would be willing to shred those income tax papers from twenty years ago. You only need the last seven years of tax receipts. Oh, I know that doesn't seem important but if you are having trouble filing your most recent papers because the files are overflowing this would solve part of the problem.

Sometimes we get so overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done that we shutdown. But the place to start anything is just take one little baby step. Just do one thing everyday and before long you will be on a roll. Little things do add up.

So this post is just a reminder to think about making a plan for your fall cleaning. After it is all done you will feel like you have a new home. You might even find some of those things that have been missing for a long time.

The cost for this project is zero except for your elbow grease so it qualifies as a real "thriftie."

Happy Fall to Y'all!