Ready to Send! (Mailing Kit)

With the cold weather firmly in place I've been working on organizing (or reorganizing) areas in our home.  One thing I've learned from the KonMari method is to keep things together in the area you use them.  My stash for mailing things was begging for help!

Because of space I organized up two areas.  The first was for letters.

We are forever looking for our address labels and/or stamps.  To put an end to that I sliced a small manila envelope down its long edge, then covered the whole thing (leaving open the slice, of course) with fancy duct tape for strength.  In this envelope is where address labels will be kept.  

A second smaller envelope was strengthened with tape to hold stamps.  This also goes into the larger envelope.  Good so far!

Then I turned my attention to the envelopes themselves.

On the right I put my envelopes of four sizes, plus the stamp holder.  The box on the left is my greeting cards and note cards~ quick to grab and use.

All that remained to be worked on were my supplies for mailing parcels.

I keep this area in the garage.  The bags are on a hanging pot rack I bought from a blacksmith friend.  There is no place in our home to use it, however it is perfect for this.  The bags contain: bubble wrap, bubble wrap sleeves, air bags, and 'peanuts'.  Below them are my stash of boxes.

I have both priority mail boxes (this woman can stuff a box full!) and non-postal boxes for other times.  Himself opens those misc boxes (shipments from Amazon, etc) so they lay flat.  I have about every size I could ever need.  

(Oh!  Did you know that you can go to the postal service web site and order Priority boxes and envelopes for free?  They ship them to you at no charge.  Or of course you can pick them up at any post office.)

So now when it is time to send something out... I'm ready for it!

I Need Power (Cords)!

Almost didn't get my May Home Kit done... I forgot about it!

We all have a stash of extension cords.  And I bet yours is probably pretty much like mine were; a tangled mess of indeterminate lengths.  Did I hit that nail on the head?

Himself and I gathered up a pile of all the cords we could find.

Next step was to measure them.

On the white cords I wrote the length right on the receptacle with a Sharpie.  For the dark cords, I made a masking tape tag to write the length on.  (When I get a new silver Sharpie, I'll write on those dark cords too.)

Then the small ones were put into gallon size Ziploc by type or size.  The larger ones stayed loose.

Last step was to drop them all into one tub that fits in our tool shelf.

Done!

I Get Free Money

Every week I am handed free money and I keep it in this file.

Where does it come from?

Coupons.

They come to me through the mail... in my magazines... on my computer.

I get coupons from stores I regularly shop at like Michaels and Kohls and Harbor Freight.

We rarely eat a meal at a restaurant chain without using a coupon.

My file fits easily in my purse so I am always ready to use them.  This case has 13 slots with 12 tabs.  I keep the coupons behind their tab which leaves the first slot open.  This area I use to keep the soon to be expired coupons.

It takes me about 10 minutes a week to clip the coupons (I ONLY clip ones for products we use) and to go through each slot to pull out the expiring coupons.  And each week I will use about $8 of coupons.  On a good week I can save $25 or more on my purchases.

This little 'home kit' is a real money maker!

Yard Tool Bucket

With Spring finally deciding to show up, it's time to work in the yard.  And that means it's time to put together another home maintenance kit!

A few years ago I won this bucket liner as a door prize.  It got "put away" (aka 'lost') and I just recently found it.

It fits in a 5 gallon bucket, something we have many of.

The outside pockets hold all the small tools I need.

Inside the bucket is room for my larger digging and whacking tools.  There are also some small pouches in the black strip.

This is everything I've fit into it ... so far.  If I need anything else, there is room for it.

Now let the yard work begin!

Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Manual Gone?

The February Home Kit was to make a place for all instruction manuals.  It could be set of hanging files, an accordion file, a folder... even a designated box would do.

I chose a notebook.

I have quite a stash of them in all sizes; including this 4 inch binder.  The other reason for a notebook is that it can be carried around easier.

I came up with a list of headings that works for us.  Each person's list will be different.

I gathered up the manuals I could find (I'll be adding in for a good while...).  Next task was to cut away the portions in languages besides English.  The sizes dropped to half, sometimes even a third of the starting bulk!

Then I used my hole punch.  Sometimes the manual was big enough to use all three holes.  On the smaller one I just punched the top two holes.

It now sits in a designated place with the BIG RULE of "put it back when you're done"!

Home Kits - The Computer

I'm leading another challenge on a FB group (A Creative and Simple Life) where each month we are going to put together a 'kit' to make our lives more simple.  

January was "Computer Kit".

The challenge started with an action... back up your files and download photos off of phones!  Himself and I each have a terabyte external hard drive to back up with.

The next thing after I backed up my drive was to make a 'kit' for computer related items.  A place to keep that hard drive, thumb drives, manual/discs that are needed, cleaning things, and so on.  

I decided to use this book case for my computer kit.  Earlier I had doodled on it to give it some style.  The outer pocket is perfect for holding my thumb drives.  It's easy to get to them.

Inside the case...

The left side holds both external drives perfectly.

The right side has a pouch where I put my USB light and as soon as I find it, my USB vacuum/blower tool.  Pockets behind the pouch have screen cleaner pads.

The kit will stay in a drawer near my computer, for easy use (to keep the computer clean and backed up) and easy grab in an emergency.