My House is a Disaster Zone~But Can I Go Clutter Free

It's official, I have crossed the point of no sane return. I've had a couple busy days as work, a couple busy things to do after work and in the interim, my very small house looks like a disaster zone.

I bought a new toaster oven at Target the other day, my old one caught fire and had to be laid to rest. I still have the box for the new toaster oven sitting in my small space because I wanted to use the oven two or three times to make sure it worked. I still have the old toaster oven as well. Of course I walked into the grocery store to buy a frozen pizza to try out in this oven (the oven says it can hold a 12 inch pizza). $20 later (what the heck did I buy?) I waltzed home to cook said frozen pizza. Yup, the oven does hold the 12 inch pie and it actually toasts bread products. I'm hoping to get rid of the box and the old toaster oven ver soon.

My desk looks like I tipped a couple bags of papers on it and I have been given use of a desktop computer since my laptop is slowly dying. My small desk is awash in computers (2), papers, and DVD's (I have a stack on the desk that I keep meaning to put on Half.com). I have to rip apart my desk to redo all those dammed electrical cords.

My bedroom is a mini disaster. My neighbor found a scratch and dent bathroom vanity and sink at Home Depot for me and right now, the unit is in a box in my bedroom, along with my laundry basket of clean laundry to be ironed and my basket of dirty laundry, and my small mini vacuum. My bedside table has two empty water bottles and a pile of books on it. Redoing the bathroom is not a project I planned on doing until late June.

Plus I pulled out all the heavy winter blankets, I am planning a trip to the laundromat to use the big washer and dryers to wash and dry the winter blankets and store them for the spring summer. Those are sitting on top of the storage hassock, I was too lazy to put them back in to hassock. In my defense I had planned to go to the laundromat on Monday, but spent the time in the ER with my bleeding forehead.

I live in a rural area, I have to take my garbage to the town dump, the dump is open on the weekends. Guess what I am doing on Friday night and Saturday-

1) Bagging up the trash and recyclables for a Saturday AM dump run
2) Bagging up the returnables for a run to the redemption center (at least I'll get some $$ back, enough for my weekly lotto fix!)
3) Putting the laundry in the car and driving to the laundromat with the ultra big $6 a load washers.
4) Hitting the Target, Wal Mart or K-Mart for those storage bags that you suck air out of to store the cleaned blankets in for the summer.
5) Cleaning the kitchen and living room and probably make another dump run to get rid of the trash.

The rest of my weekend will also be spent fixing my fence (the dogs found a new way to escape this morning), putting together the computer to see if it still works, cleaning the house and giving some serious consideration to trimming down my closet and my clothes that I don't fit into.

What has this got to do with personal finance. A lot. Since my small kitchen looks like a disaster zone (counters are full up, kitchen table is serving as desk #2), my inclination this AM was to just skip packing my lunch and buy it. I bought dinner last night (the mediocre frozen pizza), I was thinking about Chinese for dinner tonight and I almost hit the local coffee shop for breakfast this am. I'm sort of wondering what I will do for dinner this evening since my kitchen is not 'user friendly" at this moment. Just eating out for one day could set me back $25.

Having a clutter free zone will enable me to cook my dinner, plan my lunch for tomorrow and not just waste money when I have a cabinet full of food to be cooked and eaten.