My Dilemma

Let’s face it, we all have ‘stuff’.  If you are anything like me, then it’s likely you have more ‘things’ than you actually need and most certainly more than you can use at any given time. Needless to say, most of us have an enormous affection to gathering and as a busy working Mum, I not only have my stuff to store but my children’s stuff as well.

Of course, maintaining a healthy work / life balance is a constant battle and with the addition of children, the balance becomes considerably trickier.  Over the next few months I am going to share my catalogue of ideas and tips that may just be useful to you, when trying to organise and store all the ‘stuff’ in your life. So let’s get started…

Saving Time

The morning starts with a collection of dialogue surrounding questions like ‘where is my book, lunchbox, shoes, hat, socks, homework papers, uniform, hair bands, iphone, ipad and so on and so on? This all occurs without fail before we even open the front door, Monday to Friday on most weeks of the year except for school holidays, so weekends are always the breather I look forward to.

In saying that, on the weekends my family does enjoy little getaways.  To assist in a smoother escape, we have managed to organise some of our recreational ‘stuff’ in the garage with useful storage solutions. For instance, all my children love camping, so we have invested in garage shelving and sorted the shelves accordingly.

On one shelving unit, we have all the things we need for a quick camping getaway.

We store the esky, lights, sleeping bags, tents, shoes, fishing rods, bags, cooking utensils, portable loo, bbq etc on one shelving bay for this purpose.

Saving Money

By organising our camping equipment on one shelving unit, it really helps us be organised and allows us to get away more often, as the task of packing is not so mammoth. Not only does the shelving unit save us loads of time, but also money.   Now that our equipment is easily accessible, keeping track of our gear has become much easier too.  In the past, I have replaced items that I couldn’t find and thought were lost. Now with all our camping equipment in one spot, we can make a last minute decision to go away on a Friday and be packed quickly. And at times, my children even offer a little help as it is easy to toss things from the shelf in the car.

We also have another shelving unit for all my children’s sporting equipment which includes shoes, helmets, bags, balls, protective clothing, the odd dirty sock and again this list goes on. When I return home from the Saturday morning sporting excursions, my children are now used to off loading all their equipment in the garage for the following week. This storage shelf has greatly assisted the entire family to be organised for early Saturday morning matches. As an additional bonus,  it helps my children remember everything they need for that particular sport too.  

Again, having a sports equipment shelf has saved me money. I am no longer looking for items that would otherwise be left in their bags or under their beds as my children are now in the habit of opening the car door and reloading the shelf upon return from Saturday morning driving around with sport.  Also this saves my children having to carry it inside the house and I gain the added bonus of leaving muddy items in the garage for washing later.

Storage and easy access has enabled all of the family to be more organised, the key to saving time and money in my family. I hope these ideas are a help to you.

Next Month

Look forward to receiving other ideas in next month’s edition of Keylar’s Blog.