Declutter update

So shockingly enough, I haven't stopped on my quest to declutter this House. I'm still following the book I mentioned in an earlier post and finished organizing my finances and health records.  It's amazing what happens when you list your bills monthly (with your corresponding paydays).  I now know exactly what should be paid with each paycheck and I've somehow started not blowing my entire my paycheck (just because I can).  I'm one for instant gratification normally.

Here are some of my favorite organization tools for finances - both found on pinterest!

I've never looked at how I spend before - so I'm creating my first true budget this month.

I know my general monthly expenses, but how do I really spend my money? This is helping me capture all those non-mandatory spends.

This was also my year of getting on track health-wise.  I finally had a physical and have established a medical home for myself.  All that stuff I put off for no reason at all has now been done.  And well, I had some not-so-great blood results which made me push my mission for better health even further.  Nothing serious....just something that could turn serious if I don't start tackling how I eat and how much I exercise.  So I'm all over that too!

I'm also continuing to tackle the scrapbook room.  Tiffany Spaulding of The Scrap Rack is launching her organizing course now that all the kids are back at school.  It'll be a great way to finish the course I started before my new job.  Since I already started the first couple of sessions and they are mostly complete, I decided to tackle my biggest challenge - STAMPS!

I started the organization process by stamping and labeling each stamp as I stored them vertically in a box.  The outside of the box will then tell me what stamp numbers are in them.  Three stamps bins were condensed into one 12x12 photo box.

After I finished storing all the wood mounted stamps (haven't yet tackled the cling stamps), I would sort the stamped images by themes.  For example, if I was looking for an owl, I would go to my animal theme sheet and see what owl stamps I had. Each stamp is now labeled so that I'll be able to find it easily in its appropriate box.

By the time I finished organizing most of the wood mounted stamps, I almost died of embarrassment.  I have almost 400 stamps (that I found in the clutter)...I know there are more!  Oy vey!  At least now I know what I have and can start the declutter/donate process.  I love most of these stamps, but if I don't use them over the next year, I'm going to seriously consider donating the ones I don't use.  Here are all the stamps organized on my shelf.  They now take up very little room.

The process will continue today!