I'm Ronnie and you're listening to Clean With Me, the podcast
where I walk you through cleaning your house step by
step. When you clean along with this
show, you'll get more done in less time, so you can spend the
rest of your day doing what matters most to you.
Thanks for joining me. In today's episode, we're going
to be working in your bedroom and I'm going to talk you
through decluttering your drawers and closet.
It's going to be fun. And by the end of the episode,
you're going to be way more organized than you were to begin
with. And you're going to love your
clothes again. Let's get right into the
episode. So the first thing I want you to
do is grab up any dirty laundry that you have and take it to the
laundry room and start a load of laundry.
That way your washing machine's working for you while you're
working in your bedroom. And then the other thing I want
you to do, if it has not already been done, is make your bed
because you're going to need a place to put things and that
gives you a nice staging area and it also makes your room look
better immediately and that can improve your outlook.
You might also want to shut your door and lock it because I'm
going to be encouraging you to try some things on so that you
can make the decisions about them.
If you came to clean your house, listen to one of our other
episodes. But obviously decluttering makes
it easier to clean. And no, I'm not going to make
you get rid of all your stuff, but I'm going to help you make
those hard decisions with real life examples.
I literally just decluttered my drawers and closet.
So I experienced all of those emotions and they're fresh and
I've got lots of examples to talk about.
So hopefully you are starting a load of laundry and making your
bed. You might also want to just
quickly pick up your bed bedroom floor.
In the last bonus episode for financial supporters, I talked
about how important it is to do that surface cleaning in your
bedroom and not get sidetracked by decluttering your wardrobe
and dealing with a lot of laundry and stuff like that.
But that was that episode. Now it's time to actually do
some decluttering. But at the same time, you might
want to just do a quick pickup of your bedroom floor.
You made your bed, so you might as well remove any clutter from
the floor. This is not the type of
decluttering session where we're going to just trash your room in
the process. I don't know about you, but I
don't like to even empty an entire drawer when I'm
decluttering. I like to keep things real,
manageable and not make much of a mess at all.
Of course, there's a time and a place for vacuuming out a drawer
and completely emptying it, but I did that in the last
decluttering session, so this time I did not completely empty
any drawers. I'm going to give you about one
more minute to get ready for this decluttering session.
Hopefully you've started a load of laundry, made your bed, and
done a quick straighten of your room.
Another thing you may want to do is grab a donation bag.
In fact, this is pretty essential.
I grabbed a paper shopping bag with handles on it.
You know how sometimes you're you're out shopping, you get
something big and they give you a really nice large paper bag
with handles. Those make great donation bags.
So I had one of those in my closet and started putting items
into that bag. So hopefully by now you're ready
to get started. Now, you might want to start in
a specific drawer of your dresser, or you might want to
start with another area where you've kind of set some things
aside. For example, last year, well
over the course of seven or eight months, I lost 25 lbs.
And there was a point where I tried on some things that were a
little bit loose and I was kind of on a roll with losing weight
and planned to just keep going. And so I took some things out of
circulation that actually still fit.
They were just tiny bit loose in the waist.
It was mainly jeans and shorts, and I put those up on the in the
top of my closet because I kind of knew that I probably
shouldn't donate them, but I wanted to wear my smallest stuff
because I was excited that I had just lost weight, if that makes
sense. So when I went through this
decluttering session, I pulled all of that stuff down from the
top shelf of my closet where I was keeping it.
I grabbed a chair, got all of that down, put it in a pile and
just started trying it on. A couple items did go into the
donation bag, but a lot of them I, I came to my senses.
I showed him to my husband. I'm like, do these look baggy or
do these look? He loved it that I was just
modeling all these clothes, but I would have him, you know,
judge each each thing and we were in total agreement.
So basically I decided to keep some stuff and that's rare
usually like when in doubt throw it out or something.
But I decided to keep some stuff.
But I was just in a really weird mode.
My point is it was a rare situation where I had set some
things aside kind of in a think about it pile and some of them
went back into circulation and a couple of them were too loose,
but only a couple. So you know where the clothes
are that you want to start with or go through at 1st.
And I know for a while the Marie Kuando method was all the rage.
I brought, I bought the the book, read it.
I'm not going to say I'm Marie Quandoed my house after reading
the book. I really didn't.
I feel like it did give me some motivation to downsize, I guess,
but it didn't really resonate with me that much.
With her method, it was like, you put everything, all of your
clothes in a pile or something. Yeah, that's overwhelming to me.
By the way, some of you might be like wondering, you know, are
you a minimalist or are you a clothes horse, which you don't
hear that term very often anymore, but it's someone who
has a lot of clothes. I feel like I'm very middle of
the road. By the way.
You're supposed to be sorting things into a donation bag, a
keep pile. Pulling everything out is
overwhelming for me. So I like to look at items of a
certain category. I made a pile of jeans, tried
them on jeans and Jean shorts. OK, so that's a good category to
start with. One pair that I threw away had a
huge ink blot on it. I could have made them into cut
offs, but I have enough cut offs.
I I like to break things down into categories basically.
So let's talk about what to do with different things.
You need to either hide or get rid of clothes that don't fit
your body today. Here's what I mean by hiding
them. I was talking to a listener and
I already touched on this in another episode, so I'm just
going to do a quick recap. I was talking to a listener who
her weight has always fluctuated, so she didn't want
to get rid of all of her stuff. And let's face it, a lot of
influencers are like telling us to get rid of things that don't
fit us right now because we might never be that other size
again and it's going to make us feel bad, this and that.
But not all of us can afford new stuff at any given time.
So this was my advice to this particular listener.
She lives alone and has another bedroom in her house that has
some clothes in it. I said organize your wardrobe
and just put everything that doesn't fit you now in that
other room and then in your closet, in your bedroom.
Everything in there should be something that fits you now,
that you feel good in now and that you wear now and it's going
to do 2 things. It's going to keep you from
feeling bad about not fitting into those other items, and it's
also going to help you get ready faster because you're not going
to be sorting through things that don't fit.
And maybe the things that didn't fit were kind of smashed onto
one side of her closet. But still, she would be able to
kind of spread her things out a little bit more and not have her
closet so jam packed if her main closet in her bedroom was just
stuff that she currently wears. So I thought that was a great
solution and I said there probably are some things that
you need to get rid of. I mean, you know, we've all
bought trendy items like, I don't know, 10 or so years ago,
like I just had to have a long maxi dress that was a Chevron
pattern and a long maxi skirt that was Chevron.
And it was just all the rage. It was all over my Pinterest.
And now that looks really dated. So yes, there are some things
that are outdated, but I feel like the older we get, like
we're not buying as many trendy items.
A trendy piece that I got, I don't know, last year, the year
before time flies, I don't know, was kind of a crop sweater with
like large holes in it. It's kind of a mesh.
I don't know if I'm ready to get rid of it yet.
But one reason I might get rid of something is if I've been
photographed too much in the item and it's kind of a trendy
item. You know, you can't get
photographed too much and just a plain black T-shirt.
But these items that are super specific and trendy, you
especially don't want to be photographed in them again year
after year. I'm not just at an age where I
don't care what I wear or something like that, but at the
same time, I try to choose things that are more timeless.
I rarely buy trendy items. Like I thought about that
specific sweater, but I rarely buy anything trendy.
I buy stuff that's in style but not trendy, let's put it that
way. For example, for a while they
were saying like skinny jeans are out.
Now they're saying they might be back in, but I feel like they
never fully went out. Maybe for a teenager in high
school. Yeah, I wasn't making my
daughter where I'm to school or something, But I feel like they
were still in for people my age. And I'll tell you why they were
still selling them in the stores.
I mean, when something's totally out, it's not in the store.
So maybe this will help you. By the way, you're supposed to
be sorting things into a donation bag, a keep pile, and
then maybe put things in the trash that are too damaged.
Or you might even have a fourth category, which is sell.
OK, I don't want to go off on a rabbit trail about selling
things, but I did go through a phase a while back where I was
selling clothes on eBay. I have friends who have a knack
for getting things that are name brands and then selling them to
consignment shops. If that's something that you
enjoy doing and you have the time to do it, a lot of times
full full time homemakers do this.
Or for some people, this is their hustle.
They find something in a thrift store, they flip it for money.
But, but for a lot of us, we don't really have the time or
want to make the time because you make time for what you want
to do. A lot of us just don't want to
do it. We're not in the season of life
where we want to do that. So you might have a pile for
stuff that you could sell. It is really hard in my
experience, to sell things to consignment shops because like I
was saying, most of my clothes are not name brands and they
only want things in certain seasons, certain brands, and
then they give you pennies on the dollar for it.
But don't get me wrong, some people have a knack for it and
they do great with it. Like they get something
secondhand to begin with and then sell it to a consignment
shop and it's it's a win win. But for a lot of us, we're just
going to donate the stuff. It's it's either going to be
keep trash or donate. OK, but you should be sorting
things into those piles. But the stuff I'm talking about
is to help you make decisions. OK, So obviously, we all deal
with clothes that don't fit our body.
They're too small or they're too big.
And one school of thought is to get rid of everything that
doesn't fit you now because by the time it fits you, it might
be out of style. But at the same time, if you
know your weight historically fluctuates, you might want to do
what I told this listener to do and move things into a different
closet. And you might be saying, I don't
have, you know, an empty closet. Like every room in my house, it
says occupied. I've got kids.
OK, I get that. But there are those, like, flat
containers, flat plastic containers where you can store
your clothing, like under the bed or something.
I have a section in my closet that's kind of a hidden corner
that I like to put things. I put seasonal items in there.
Like, that's where you would find my Saint Patrick's Day
shirts. I have a couple of those.
They're in a corner that you can't really see in my closet
and the beginning of fall. I usually put some sleeveless
tops in that corner. I do wear the knit tank tops,
like his undershirts throughout the year, but certain sleeveless
tops that I would wear as standalones go into that corner.
So that's kind of how I sort my stuff.
But I don't have like tons of clothes or anything.
But yeah, I realized that some of you need to just get rid of
things that you're never going to fit into it again.
Like, I don't know if you're as old as I am.
I'm over 50 years old. OK.
I'm not going to get back to my high school weight.
I wouldn't look good at that weight.
Here's the kind of the mic drop moment, I guess, about weight
fluctuations. You're clothes that are too
small aren't making you smaller by holding on to those, and your
clothes that are too big for you aren't making you gain weight.
Your size has nothing to do with what kind of clothes are in your
closet, you know, So don't tell yourself that staring at these
small things is going to motivate you.
It probably is not, so you might want to store them out of sight
or get rid of them. Either way is fine and there's a
case you know there's pros and cons of each.
Another thing is just items that someone gave you.
I have a quick story for that. A dear lady gave me a dress and
she was excited about giving it to me and I graciously accepted
it. I took it home, tried it on and
just thought, who am I kidding, I will never wear this, I will
never wear this and it just wasn't my style.
It was flattering, whatever, but it just it was kind of dated.
It wasn't my style, but she's so sweet, love her dearly, didn't
want to offend her. She's an older lady.
She won't hear this podcast. The dress look too old for me
for sure and it went in the donation bag today.
But at first, I was keeping it out of guilt because I was
thinking, what if she asks about it or maybe I should make an
appearance around her one time in it and just, you know, wear a
long sweater over it. So not all of the dress shows.
You know, these are things that crossed my mind.
But what ended up happening is she said, so did that dress fit?
Yeah, it did. Thanks again.
And I wasn't lying. It did fit when I tried it on.
So I kept it for an appropriate length of time, which is maybe a
couple months. And it's in the donation bag
now. So you can release items someone
gave you that you never wear. Most people are not going to
question you on why they haven't seen you in the item.
I mean, appreciate the gift and the person's good intention and
you know, there's no need to embarrass them.
And some people you're closer to and you can just be like, no, to
be honest, I will never wear that.
Like my mom recently over Thanksgiving told me to go
shopping in her closet. Well, it's my mom, so I'm
totally honest with her and oh, that looks good.
You know, she had me try on a bunch of stuff and I was like, I
will probably never wear this. Like, I just told her what I
wasn't going to wear and I didn't take anything that I
wasn't going to wear. And my mom's picky about what
she wears too, so she totally gets it.
But sometimes there are situations where the person's
really excited to give it, give something to you, and you've got
to accept it. Like I have an aunt who loves
thrifting and giving people stuff.
And some of the stuff is really odd, but we all graciously
accept it for the most part. So it is OK to graciously accept
something but then donate it because you know, you're never
going to wear it, pass it on. And I'm not going to get into
where to donate stuff. But there are so many different
places that accept clothing and you can choose which 'cause that
you're really into. Even if there there's a charity
with a thrift store and you're not sure what percentage of it
goes to charity or you know it's a really small percent.
You can think of it this way. People who do not have much
money are able to purchase your items for only a couple bucks at
a thrift store. And if it wasn't for people like
you donating stuff, then they'd have to pay full price and get
it at a department store or or even Walmart where it's going to
cost them more. So you're helping people in a
lot of different ways. It's common for thrift stores to
hire people who are recovering drug addicts or who have
disabilities. So you're helping to provide
jobs for people who otherwise might struggle to find a job.
So there's my little talk on donating, but also no judgement
here. If you just throw something away
because there's not a good place to donate, you live out in the
middle of nowhere or something. OK, don't come at me for that.
I don't want anyone to be a slave to their stuff.
But usually it's good to just put it in a bag, put it in the
back of your car, and then you're going to end up driving
by a place where you can donate it later on.
It might be in the back of your car for a couple months.
That's OK. And hopefully you're just
sorting through things, but and trying things on.
If if you come across something and you're like, I don't know if
this fits, try it on. Or here's another example.
There's a shirt that I bought fairly recently.
I was super excited to find it, but it shrunk and it got a
little short and it wasn't too short.
And I was telling myself, oh, it's OK, I'll wear an undershirt
under it or I'll wear it with higher waisted pants.
But the problem was just the shape of it and where it hit at
the waistline didn't look good anymore once it shrunk.
And I don't care how heavy you are, how thin you are, it's very
important where something hits around the waistline.
Just how things hit. It's important.
And we're all different shapes and sizes.
Anyway, I got rid of the shirt because I remembered the last
time I put it on, I just didn't want to wear it.
And so I tried it again to kind. I tried it on again to kind of
refresh my memory. And it was like, yeah, I think
what it is is just where it hits because I have lots of things
that are this short that come right to the waist.
Now that I put it on, it's just not flattering the way it hits
me at the waistline. Tossed it.
It was super cheap anyway. That's probably why it shrunk.
OK, but let me just go on a rabbit trail here.
I see people who are dressing ultra trendy and in doing so,
they're wearing things that are not flattering to their figure.
You know, sometimes there's a temptation to get on a bandwagon
and, you know, get something that you see a lot of people
have and it looks good on them and it doesn't mean it's going
to look good on you. So I guess I guess what I'm
saying is the older I get, I realize that certain things work
well with my figure and I'm not going to wear things that are
just outdated or whatever, but I'm also not going to buy a
bunch of trendy items that are not flattering to my figure.
Like I'm going to go moderate and wear things that hit me
right at the waist. I think the most important thing
when dressing for your figure is how things hit you at the waist.
Like some people should not be wearing a dress that's tight in
the waist. Some people should not be
wearing a high waisted shirt with a high waisted skirt with
their shirt tucked in. You know, certain shirts can
look too boxy on you. I can hold up a shirt without
even trying it on and know whether it's going to be
flattering to my figure. Call me picky or whatever, but
I'm not going to buy something just because it's trendy.
So that's another category of things that you're going to get
rid of, things that do not look good on you.
And if you come across an item and you remember a time where
you put it on and then decided not to wear it, time dims the
memory and you might be thinking you want to give it another
chance, try it back on and then make the decision.
Like I said, I, I, I want you to try things on.
Because what happens if you don't try things on during a
wardrobe decluttering session is you're going to make these maybe
piles or these procrastination piles and you're going to have
these doom boxes. And I want you to just try it on
and make the decision now, you know, instead of wasting your
time the next time you're getting ready for an event and
put on that same thing that you keep rejecting, try it on.
Now get it out of your system. Get rid of it, OK?
And maybe if you were in a weird mindset where you tried to get
rid of all of your genes because you thought you were going to
lose 10 or 15 more pounds and then didn't try them back on
and, you know, maybe decide to bring them back into circulation
like I did. But needing to bring things back
into circulation is pretty rare. And it wouldn't have hurt me if
I had just donated them because I have plenty of jeans.
So, you know, is what it is. I'm kind of glad that I didn't
because now I have even more. And there was still a part of me
that was thinking, yeah, but I'm going to lose more weight, and
I'm not going to have these. I'll just say it.
I have pants ranging anywhere from size eights to fourteens.
I only have one pair of eight. OK, probably the most common
size I have in jeans is 12. OK, I wear a lot of twelves.
I wear several 10s. I have one pair of dressy pants
that I wear when I'm working at the school that are eights.
It's kind of a fluke, I guess, and I have a couple pairs of
jeans that are fourteens and I wanted to get rid of them
because of that number. But that's ridiculous.
And you can always do what my sister-in-law used to do years
ago. I don't mind throwing this
person under the bus at all. Years ago, my sister-in-law gave
me some maternity clothes. And, you know, she's a
competitive type, and she cut the size tags off of them so
that I wouldn't know what size there they were.
I mean, it, it was just comical because like, how am I going to
judge her for being a certain size when I'm going to put them
on and wear them? Like, obviously she thought
they'd fit me and they did fit me, but she didn't want me to
know what size they were. And no, she didn't cut the tags
out to make the clothes more comfortable.
She literally told me that that she didn't want me to know what
size they were. Don't even get me started on
this person. But nobody can really pin me
down on which side of the family this person is on or which
sister-in-law it is. So I'm going to get away with
it. I'm not going to make a short
clip isolating this moment, but I'm going to get away with it.
And if I don't, I don't. It's still, it's still really
weird. So yeah, don't get hung up on
the sizes. Try them on is my point there.
Hopefully you're plugging away at sorting things into piles
without making a huge mess in the process.
Another category of clothing to get rid of is stuff that just
doesn't fit your lifestyle. For example, I used to go to
churches that were super dressy. But sometimes it's a combination
of things. You move to another part of the
country where people are less formal.
Overtime our society as a whole has gotten more casual.
So combination of me moving to another part of the country
where people don't dress up as much for church and the fact
that society is getting more casual as a whole, and the fact
that I go to a more relaxed style of church than I is to so
many different factors. But Long story short, I don't
need as much dressy clothing. Now don't get me wrong, I still
like to put on a dress for church.
I'm not just, you know, wearing jeans every time or something,
but I do sometimes wear pants if it's super cold or if I just
don't feel like coordinating some dress outfit with the
perfect shoes and fake tanning stuff on my legs or whatever,
I'll just put on pants because it's easier.
Sometimes I feel like just wearing jeans.
I'm recording this on a Sunday. I wore jeans and a dressy blouse
today and we actually go to two different churches and one of
them's even more casual than the other.
But I, I definitely wear jeans to either church.
Again, I do have dresses and stuff, but I don't need a bunch
of unique dressy church outfits. Don't get me wrong, I definitely
dress up for weddings, funerals, job interviews, if you know, if
that comes up. I, I definitely, I'm a firm
believer in the little black dress.
I have two of them. I have one black dress that's
kind of short and sleeveless and then I have another one that's
long sleeve and more form fitting, but not short.
So I either do short or I do tight, but I don't do short and
tight together. I'm, I'm not a prude or
anything, but I don't do short and tight at the same time.
I either do tight or I do short. So anyway, it's not that short.
But anyway, if you have a black dress, you can accessorize it at
different in different ways and you're definitely ready for a
funeral or a formal dinner of some sort.
Since I go to church, I'm ready for a wedding.
The only thing I don't really have is like an actual formal.
And I think the only reason I would need that is if I went on
a cruise a while back. My best friend Amy, who handles
my social media on Facebook, her and her husband put a deposit
down on a cruise for us to go with them on a cruise.
And we were super excited about it.
And I was going to get a formal and all that, but it ended up
getting canceled due to COVID. So this was during the pandemic.
So we never really ended up, we never ended up going on a
cruise. But I don't own a formal, but
I'm pretty much, I mean, I think a lot of people don't own a
formal like once they get out of high school, but that's the only
thing I can think of that I don't have.
But I could definitely go to it, you know, a dressy wedding or a
black tie affair of some sort, you know, in one of my black
dresses. So anyway, can't go wrong with a
little black dress. So I'm not saying to get rid of
all of your dressy clothes. If you don't dress up much, you
need to be ready for things. And some of us like the
opportunity to go shopping. Oh, weddings coming up, I'm
going to go buy an outfit. You know, that's always fun, but
it's, it also feels good to be prepared for something like that
In case you don't have the time or money to go shopping for an
outfit, you're ready to go. So definitely have something for
weddings, funerals, but maybe you worked an office job where
you wore a lot of Blazers. You could always declutter your
wardrobe down to like one favorite blazer that you could
wear for a job interview or something.
One of the things that I decluttered was a blazer that
didn't really hang right on the shoulders.
But yes, I still have the quintessential black blazer that
I'll wear at some point when I need to look professional.
But it's not going to be often that I need to wear a blazer.
So I only need 1 and I only own 1.
And I got rid of the ones that were too big.
So yes, it's OK to let go of clothing that you wore for a
prior life or a life that you aspire to have.
Dress for the life you have right now.
Be prepared for, you know, the occasional night out.
I'm big on being prepared for different occasions.
Like if I go to a country concert I've got a pair of
cowgirl boots, I've got AT shirt, you know, with a country
singer's name on it. I've got jeans with little
rhinestones on the pockets. But I don't have a whole
wardrobe of things like that because that's not what I wear
on a day-to-day basis. I mean, no judgement here.
If you're really into dressing country like every day, then
that's your everyday clothing. But you only need one or two
things for specific occasions, I guess is what I'm getting at.
And when you go to the concert, you want to have an excuse to
get another T-shirt. So here's a little tip.
Make sure your husband's not listening for this one.
If your husband tends to complain about how much clothing
you buy, you got to get rid of some stuff so that he doesn't
think you have too much and then gripe about you buying new
stuff. So sometimes getting rid of
stuff gives you an excuse to get new stuff.
Just just a little marriage tip there.
Anyway, you might have clothing from a job or a different type
of church or whatever that you don't need any more.
Let's see, what about releasing things that make you feel bad?
They make you feel angry, sad, like there are certain things
that will take you back to a real negative experience.
OK, now I'm definitely in favor of keeping something that it
helps you relive fond memories of your dear, dearly departed
loved one. But what if it was the shirt you
wore when the person died and it and it just brings back these
terrible memories or whatever? That's different.
You see what I'm saying? What?
Or what about just a mildly negative memory where you put
something on and somebody made a weird comment about it?
I don't know about you, but if my husband makes a negative
comment about something I wear, I might never wear it again.
Now sometimes I'll just disagree with him and wear it when he's
not around or something, but a lot of times it ruins it for me
and I get rid of it. Or one of the things I
decluttered today, like I told you, like a lot of these
emotions are fresh. One of the things I decluttered
today was a pair of pants where when I put it on and I work at
my kids school so they do care what I wear.
I put it on and one of my one of my teenagers was like, mom, why
are you wearing those pants? And I went ahead and wore them
because I didn't want the kid to like when or you know what I
mean? I didn't want them to think that
they're going to tell me what to wear.
I didn't want to set that kind of precedent.
But yeah, I don't want to just keep embarrassing them.
So they went the donation bag and I have at least three other
pairs of black pants, 3 or 4, four or five.
OK. I didn't need them, by the way.
I have a lot of black clothes. I was saying earlier, I like the
idea of a capsule wardrobe, but I'm not that minimalist.
But at the same time, I do like my wardrobe to center around
certain colors. I wear a lot of black, white,
burgundy. Those are kind of my primary
colors that I wear. Not primary colors in the sense
that they're called primary colors, but main colors that I
wear, black, white, burgundy, but to a lesser extent.
I like wearing purple, rose, pink, Navy blue, fuchsia, and I
like to have a lot of purses, tote bags, crossbodies, and it's
always a bonus when a bag has both black and tan on it.
In fact, I recently got a small purse that's black, tan and
Gray. And it's, it's the type of purse
you'd wear to address the event where it's, you know, it's super
small. Like there's enough room in it
for a small wallet and some essential items of makeup and
maybe a tiny comb or something in case your hair gets
windblown. But it's super small.
And it could go with any of my shoes.
So except the burgundy shoes, I probably wouldn't wear it with
my burgundy shoes, but it would go with all of my tan shoes, all
of my black shoes and a pair of Gray shoes that I have.
So I like that. And one other thought on purses
and handbags, I'm not going to tell you to downsize those
unless you want to. But something that I learned a
long time ago when my kids were little and you know, I'd have a
baby and start carrying a diaper bag, I would sometimes
accidentally leave my purse in a restaurant.
And I never did that before I started carrying a diaper bag.
And it's because I'm only used to carrying one purse.
So something that I did in those days was I would downsize to a
really small purse, and then I would keep it inside the diaper
bag when we'd go out to restaurants and whatnot.
And it was also convenient if I dropped a baby off in the church
nursery, I could pull my purse out in case I wanted to put on
some chapstick during the service or whatever, but leave
the diaper bag there. And then also, there were phases
where I just kept my wallet in the diaper bag, but I kind of
liked the small purse within a bigger bag method.
And I still do it and I'll explain in a minute.
But you go somewhere, you're out running, running around with
your baby and you're like, OK, I'm going to go in the store.
I don't want to carry the whole diaper bag.
So then you pull out the little purse, you leave the diaper bag
in the car and you pull out that little purse when you go into
the grocery store. But when you're at church or
restaurants or friend's house, you got the little purse inside
of the diaper bag. So you only have to grab one bag
and not forget it. Well, now my version of that is
sometimes I carry a small purse and put it inside of a larger
tote bag. And for a while it was stressing
me out to change purses because I tend to put like my bank card,
my credit cards and random compartments in my purse instead
of in the wallet. You know how it is when you're
in a hurry at the register or whatever.
So sometimes I would switch purses and I'd accidentally
leave an important card in the purse that was at home and then
I wouldn't have it. And that kind of freaked me out.
So I went through a phase where when I was getting ready for
church, if my shoes did not match the current purse I was
using, I would place the purse into a larger tote bag.
For example, I have a Gray and black tote bag.
So when I was dressed in Gray and black, I would stick a brown
purse inside that tote bag and then with my Bible and stuff and
everything matched. But I didn't have to like do the
dreaded purse switch. Lately, I've been more
comfortable with switching purses and I've I've created a
new habit of putting my debit card into my wallet.
So that's a thing now. And when I go teach in the
school, I grabbed my makeup bag and my small wallet.
I have a small wallet and a big wallet but I grabbed my big
makeup bag and my small wallet, put them into my tote bag.
Then if I want to stop by because sometimes on the way
home my husband's like can you stop and pick up blah blah blah.
I will sometimes just grab the wallet and walk into the store
with it rather than take the whole tote bag in.
But anyway that's a rabbit trail but might help somebody.
I've talked about it in the old episodes but I don't expect you
to have heard all of the episodes.
But you definitely need a way to organize your purses and tote
bags, whether it's wide hooks or you're putting them on a shelf.
If you have really expensive bags they say don't like hang
them on a hook, but I use hooks that have like a rubber coating
on them and that's fine. But I also have a shelf in my
closet I could use if I needed to.
I definitely recommend having a shoe rack in your closet.
Just an organization tip there and don't store too much on the
floor of your closet. Part of cleaning out your
closet, other than sorting through your wardrobe is just
getting the floor clear. From time to time I have to pick
up clothes that have fallen in my closet and I cleaned my
closet floor today while I was going through my wardrobe.
So that might be something you need to work on when you when
you're decluttering, a lot of times you'll find something and
it actually saves you money. I was just saying earlier that I
needed to buy a pair of insoles for a particular pair of shoes,
and I was literally going to do it.
And then I found a pair of insoles that were mine that I
forgot I even had in the bottom of my closet.
So it was like, boom, I don't have to buy these anymore.
And it's also always fun when you're cleaning out your closet.
Check the pockets of all of your coats and jackets and all of
your handbags because sometimes you'll find a $20 bill and
that's always nice. So just to recap on things that
you should get rid of, hide or get rid of clothes that don't
fit your body today. You might just want to set them
aside and take them out of circulation temporarily.
Get rid of items that someone gave you that you never wear.
Get rid of most of the clothes that don't fit your lifestyle.
You know what, if you used to play tennis all the time, you
might want to save one tennis outfit or something, for
example, or save one blazer. Even though you work in a casual
environment or you're a stay at home mom.
If you have a formal and you wear it on a cruise and it still
fits you keep it for the next cruise.
I've never even been on a cruise, but I just know it's a
thing. Amy told me about the formals
and stuff. Let's see.
Release anything that makes you feel sad or bad.
We talked about that. If you only think these certain
negative thoughts when you see a certain object, why would you
keep that object? Just get rid of it.
And here's another tip. You don't have to tell your
spouse everything you're getting rid of when it's yours.
You know, obviously my husband doesn't want me to get rid of
anything of his, just like I don't want him to get rid of
anything of mine. But I also don't need to explain
what I'm getting rid of and why. You know, put it in a black
trash bag, tie a knot in it, and don't tell anybody what's in
there. It's your business.
It's your stuff, your business. Let's see.
Oh, here's another tip. If you think that someone's
going to ask if you still have something, they're probably not.
Because if you ever been in a situation where somebody's at
your house and they're, they see something that they gave you
like decades ago and they're like, oh, you still have that.
They're surprised you still have it.
That means it's OK if you would have gotten rid of it because
they wouldn't have even thought of the item.
They weren't even expecting you to just carry it with you
through life. And every time you've moved and
every time your weight's fluctuated, etcetera, etcetera,
they're not expecting you to keep things forever.
Maybe if it's a family heirloom, like a piece of jewelry, but in
most cases, they're not expecting you to keep these
things forever. No, I'm not going to give you a
lecture on minimalism, but what I am going to say is if your
drawers are overstuffed and you don't have the space or the
money to get another dresser, try to hang up as much as you
can. But if you still don't have room
to put away all your clothes, get rid of some stuff.
Whenever my dresser gets too full it, it's not usually
because I need to get rid of stuff because I'm not a clothes
horse and I am kind of minimalist and I do get tired of
things and I do decide I've been photographed in something too
many times or, you know, it looks too worn out or whatever.
Eventually I do give up on things and get rid of them.
And I'm rough on stuff. You know, I stay in stuff, I
wear stuff out. But a lot of times it's that
I've been getting a little lazy and putting things in the drawer
that I could be hanging up because a lot of us have more
room in our closet than we do in our dressers.
So that's another tip. Maybe your dresser could be just
for things like undergarments, pajamas, little tank tops and
shorts, Little small things that you know, the smaller items that
are harder to put on a hanger. I guess your little cami tops,
your slips, things like that, socks and a lot of your other
stuff you can hang up. This is super extreme, but I've
seen some videos about this where people will have a basket
for each of their kids and when they do the laundry they just
put, they just put each item into the basket.
Like this lady had three kids. She pulls out a load of laundry
and it's her kids laundry and she sorts it into baskets
depending on what kid it belongs to and then they just live out
of that little basket. Some of you are really cringing.
I'm even cringing. But at the same time, I have
been guilty of having like, a large, clean laundry pile where
my kids have at times had to dig through the pile to find
something to wear. So it's really not much
different. And it's actually better if they
had this little basket of their own stuff.
So that might work for somebody. You know, some of you are going
to hate it, but some of you, it might resonate with.
Some of you might be like, yeah, I'm just going to do that.
My version of it is I don't fold socks or underwear.
I just put them in the person's drawer.
I mean, my kids do their own laundry, but when they were
younger, I would just, oh, these are so and so socks.
I'd put them in the drawer. And then when that person gets
dressed, they just pull out two of the same sock and put them
on. And my mom always folded the
socks together. At some point I just started
putting them in the person's drawer loose and nothing
terrible happened. Some of you are more organized,
you know, you're former former military or something like this
is not going to resonate with you.
And you know, I was raised with the socks folded together.
You had socks and underwear in your top drawer, Next one was
shirts, next one was pants, etcetera, etcetera.
But you know, we all go through different seasons of life and
some of us struggle with laundry.
When my kids were younger I mainly hung up their dressy
stuff and then their casual clothes were folded and put in
drawers. But at the same time there was
also a clean laundry pile so sometimes they didn't find what
they needed in their drawers. I'm not proud of this, but just
laundry was a weak point. I was good about washing and
drying the laundry, not so good about folding it and putting it
away. So if you are into extreme
minimalism, you could have like a little basket for each kid.
And a lot of experts recommend having a setup in your laundry
room where you do everything right there, meaning you've got
a place to fold and then you have a place to put the clean
stuff. You have hangers for their
clothes and a little bar and you've got a little cubby for
each person's folded items and whatnot.
So you know that that's beyond the scope of this episode.
It's not really about doing laundry.
It's about organizing your drawers and closet.
Another tip for organizing your drawers is to use an old
shoebox. Well, not an old shoebox, but
just a shoebox from last time you bought a pair of shoes or
whatever to separate. Things like that could help you
separate socks and underwear or bras or slips or whatever.
You know, items you want to sort in the drawers.
Large shoe boxes, especially the ones that come with like boots
and stuff, are great for organizing your drawers.
So anyway, I hope you freed up some drawer space, either by
getting rid of stuff or hanging some stuff up.
I hope you've got a good donation bag going.
You're going to feel good kind of giving back, especially those
of us who aren't just writing checks to charities.
It can feel good to donate some stuff.
That's a way to give back. I hope that you picked up your
floor. I didn't.
I didn't really talk a lot about this.
But during my session, after I tried on a bunch of clothes,
decided what to keep, what to donate, I cleaned up the bottom
of my closet. I found some broken hangers,
some trash, some random gloves that needed to be put away and
things like that. And I cleared the floor of my
closet. And the great thing about that
is one of my backup recording stations is in my closet.
It's not even a huge closet, but I have a little table in the
very back with a microphone on it and I can just take a chair
in there and record if there's just a lot going on at my house
and I need a quieter environment.
I mean, some of you a while back said it was cute that there was
a little pug snoring. No, it was actually my husband's
snoring and I tried to edit that out.
But in all seriousness, sometimes I record in the
closet. Right now I'm recording in my
son's room. I'm not always in my desk that
you've seen me in and some videos or whatever.
Like I was thinking about doing full length video podcasts and
I've even I even did one recently.
But The thing is having you sit and stare at me while I podcast
would just defeat the purpose. This is really an odd audio only
show I might make. I might I might make some videos
in the future just so I can put some short clips on social
media, but I think I'm going to keep this show mainly audio.
So if you're, if you're watching on YouTube and wondering why
you're seeing just a little sound wave instead of my face,
it's because you're supposed to be cleaning while you're
listening. And I'd rather concentrate on
what I'm saying then worry about whether or not I'm looking at
the camera. So I, I just know you got a lot
done during this episode. Special, special thanks to my
financial supporters who support the show either through an Apple
podcast subscription. Apple Podcast is that purple
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Spotify or you can go straight to my Patreon link or even the
Spreaker Supporter Club, which is yet another way you can
support the show. I have all those links in the
episode notes, so be sure to check that out.
And you can also visit cleanwithmepodcast.com and
you'll find all the links there as well.
But I know not everyone is able to subscribe to bonus content.
I just appreciate it when someone does, and I know that
you'll benefit from those extra episodes, but even just
listening to the show helps me. So be sure to click follow or
the plus sign or subscribe on whichever app you're listening
on. But most of all, just keep
listening. Even just doing what you're
doing right now helps me. I appreciate each and everyone
of you. And as always, happy cleaning.
I'll talk to you in the next episode.