Another week come and gone in the January challenge. I’ll be honest, when we hit the 15th I got a little nervous. We’re over half way through the month! I gotta get my butt in gear and finish things up!
Ugh.
I was actually really on the ball at the beginning of the week. Really productive. Then Thursday hit me and I never really recovered… I can’t explain why. I went from working like a well oiled machine to grinding gears. *shrug*
I had a little bit of an issue with this week’s challenge, mostly because I had already done it. Oops. My real challenge was to find a closet to work on.
It may not be 100%, but I’m content with my front hall closet.
I cleaned out the back door closet recently as well.
The linen closet is in respectable condition.
Surprisingly enough my clothing closet is doing alright as well.
So what does that leave?
Well, a pantry is kind of a closet. Right? I’m going with yes.
Before:
It’s not the worst it’s ever been, but it’s not great. It’s has deep shelves, which makes it really easy to lose and forget things in there. I’d like to put in a couple sliding racks and baskets, but that doesn’t really mesh with the whole no/low spend month. So, I’m working with what I’ve got.
I hauled everything out of the pantry and stuck it on my counter. Then I got the *brilliant* idea to clean out my fridge at the same time. Did I mention that at the moment I took this picture, I only had two hours until I had to be at work?
Pantry stuff to the right of the sink, fridge stuff to the left.
Fortunately I did this on Wednesday while I was still in well oiled machine mode. An hour later and the pantry was done:
The fridge was done too, but I completely forgot to take a picture.
So, I’m giving myself a pass on the decluttering front.
I’m going to call this a moderate spending week. $7.16 in groceries on Monday, $29.93 in fuel on Tuesday and $10.00 onto my Starbucks card on Friday so I could treat a friend who is largely homebound with her young munchkin and dayhome business.
There was an additional $112.75 worth of spending on Friday, but I don’t really want to discuss it just yet. Let’s just say that it may be the worst stupid tax I’ll ever have paid.
How did your week go? Are you still plugging away through the January decluttering challenge?
Recommended Reading: $17,027.64 – Total Amount We Paid In Interest Last Year
Everything looks awesome, Cassie!! Well done!
Wanna come to my pantry as well?? 
Thanks Carla
If you were a little closer (and by closer I mean not several provinces away) I would totally help you do your pantry.
Wowza, that is very impressive.
Thank you
Good job–everything looks so well organized! (I probably would have been in a panic, however, if my kitchen looked like that two hours before I had to go to work! LOL).
I think the only reason why I wasn’t in a panic is because I was completely in the decluttering zone. Had it been one hour before work I might have been freaking out a little more
One question. How do you keep your clothes closet so neat and organized? Spill your secret girlie
The secret is to make sure half of your clothes are in your laundry hamper when taking pictures. Just kidding. Kinda.
Honestly though, the thing that made the biggest difference for me was to just get rid of a lot of stuff I didn’t use. Then it didn’t look like it was bursting at the seams with clothes I didn’t wear. It’s hard to photograph so you can’t see it, but there is another wall 90 degrees from this one. On it there is one of those fabric hanging IKEA shelf organizers for sweaters and t-shirts, and an add on hanging bar to create two rows of bars in one area for shorter items. I try to organize my hanging clothes by category (coats/dresses/pants/long sleeve tops/short sleeve tops/skirts), then by length so that they’re easy to see. I find if I don’t hang them by length my smaller items end up hiding between the longer ones and I don’t see them. For the wall you can’t see, from left to right, I have the hanging organizer for sweaters, pants hanging from the main rod, long sleeve shirts hanging from the main rod, then short sleeve shirts hanging from the main rod. Underneath the shirts on the secondary hanging bar are my skirts and shorts.
Hope this helps.
Good for you! My closet has been staring at me for days, and I just can’t get myself to tackle it.
You can do it!
Nice job!! Now you don’t have to clean your pantry next week
It worked out quite nicely that way
Oh, to have a food pantry as organized as yours….oh well, maybe next week
. Wonderful job, Cassie. I’m inspired by your motivation!
Thank you Laurie!