Once october hits, it seems that we are bombarded by catalogs. It is hard not to resist the thick colorful books, isn’t it. And they can quickly pile up into clutter that spills over end tables, coffee tables, dining room tables, kitchen counters, desks, chairs and even sofas.
It isn’t easy to get rid of them, once they have actually entered the home. There are a million reasons these catgalogs go from junk mail to part of the family. Someone went to the trouble to send them to us, they are mail, they have lots of nice stuff in them, the kids could use them for art projects, I’ll look through them and get all of my holiday shopping done early, etc. The problem is, though, that when you finally get around to sitting down and using a catalog, you can’t find the one you need amongst all of the clutter.
But it is time to tame all of that clutter. No, you don’t have to just toss them all. I have a great system that will do three things. It will allow you to keep the relevant catalogs where easily available; it will help you purge the catalogs you don’t need; it will prevent extraneous catalog clutter from entering your home in the first place.
The first thing you need to do is to go through your home and gather up all of the catalogs. Look everywhere, including the bathroom, under the sofa and under other mail.
Next, create three piles and separate the catalogs. The piles are: Recycle, Keep, and Remove Me. Every catalog must go into one of the three piles. And you should only keep the newest catalogs. They generally run in seasons. Using an old catalog usually won’t get you very far. Available merchandise changes all of the time, and so do the prices and shipping charges and options.
Check back for part 2, where we get down to the nitty gritty of the catalog de-cluttering.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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