Have your heard of FlyLady? She is a very popular woman who teaches and supports others on how to keep a clean, clutter-free home. Through her books, tools and website, she promises to help keep you on track.
I have many friends who swear by the FlyLady’s methods for maintaining their homes. I’ve even done a bit of flying myself. But is flying frugal? Well it can be. FlyLady doesn’t ask you to do anything that would break the bank, and she has hundreds of positive reviews on the merchandise she sells. But of course, I started to think about how we could make FlyLady even more frugal. Here are my ideas.
The Timer
FlyLady advocated the use of a timer to separate cleaning and decluttering tasks into 15-minute sessions. Instead of buying a timer (through FlyLady or elsewhere), why not use what you already have? Both my clock and my microwave both have timers on them. My desktop and laptop both have electronic timers as well, little widgets that I downloaded free from the internet. And, if I really wanted something I could carry around with me, the dollar store is full of egg timers.
Daily Habits
Through FlyLady’s daily habits, you learn to clean on a daily basis in quick chunks of time, avoiding a larger mess later. I think that is just wonderful. But, using up seven times the amount of paper towels and cleaner is not very frugal. So instead, I use rags, shampoo (click here to learn more about using it as a cleaner) and vinegar to get everything clean daily.
Boogie Flings
FlyLady frequently calls for boogie flings. A boogie fling is basically an assignment to fling out a certain number or volume of clutter into the trash. Instead, I suggest that you have two containers for a boogie fling. One for real trash and another for usable items. Usable items can be sold on ebay, craigs list on in a yard sale. Or, the items can be donated for a tax deduction.
Mary Ann Romans also writes for the Computing Blog here at Families.com where she shares everything from the latest news on technology to cool downloads and fun websites.
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