I help busy moms who feel buried by “too much stuff” and “not enough time” create calmer homes with simple, realistic steps. No guilt, no perfection - just doable progress that brings peace back into your day.
Your School Supplies Have a Story to Tell
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Hey Reader, Happy Friday! Today's declutter theme - Before You Buy It, Shop Your House - Back to School edition. Back-to-school shopping is happening, and before you add another package of pencils, markers, or glue sticks to your cart… take a look at what you already have. With a lot of kids in our household, I’m all about reusing school supplies whenever we can. Why buy something new when there’s a perfectly good one sitting in a drawer somewhere? But there’s a difference between reusing what’s useful and keeping something just because it might be useful someday. So before you start the back-to-school shopping, look for these 5 things: 🖋️Dried-out markers or highlighters If they barely work now, they probably aren’t coming back to life. The goal isn’t to get rid of everything. It’s to shop your own house first, keep what’s still useful, and get rid of the things that have already served their purpose. That way, when you do buy something new, you know you actually need it. One small win: Before your next back-to-school shopping trip, spend 5 minutes going through your school-supply stash. Keep the good stuff. Toss the truly unusable stuff. Then make your shopping list based on what’s actually missing. Because sometimes the best way to save money is to shop the house you already own. ❤️ Nicole P.S. If you find yourself saying, “But we might need this someday…” that’s your cue to pause and ask: Have we actually used this? Behavior is data and sometimes your stuff is telling you it’s time to let it go. |
Nicole Rate
I help busy moms who feel buried by “too much stuff” and “not enough time” create calmer homes with simple, realistic steps. No guilt, no perfection - just doable progress that brings peace back into your day.
Hi Reader, It’s officially October, which means pumpkins, cozy blankets, fall candles, and Halloween decorations are probably starting to make their way out of storage. 🍂🎃 But before you put everything back out this year, let’s do a little reality check first. Because here’s the thing about seasonal decorations: just because you stored it last year doesn’t mean you have to put it back out this year. The easiest way to declutter seasonal items is right as you pull them out. Here are some ideas...
Hi Reader, After last week’s adventure in the underwear drawer, I figured we might as well keep going with the small stuff. This week: socks. And if your house is anything like mine, you probably have at least a few socks that have been living a very uncertain life. You know the ones. In our house they've lovingly earned the name, lone bros. One sock with no matching partner, sitting around waiting for the other one to magically reappear. So this week’s challenge is simple: Find 5 socks to...
Hey Reader, Okay, I have a confession to make... well, actually, it’s not my confession. A subscriber recently sent me an email about switching her drawers from summer to winter, and she gave me permission to share part of her story anonymously. She decided to take inventory of her underwear drawer. Thirty-eight pairs. Thirty-eight. And that didn’t even include the ones waiting at the bottom of the laundry basket. But here’s the part that made me laugh: Despite having 38 pairs to choose from,...