For months and months, our pantry made me cringe. It was messy, contained items we never used anymore, and I didn’t even know half of the things we had in there due to all of the disorganization. I cringe at these photos, but they are to show you that you are not alone!

Brace yourselves…

AHHHHH!!!

Stuff everywhere!

A few years ago I organized our old pantry by buying some cheap dollar store baskets and putting chalkboard labels on them, and for a while, that worked just fine.

But eventually, those labels fell off and truth-be-told I just wanted something prettier to look at when I walked into our pantry, but that also didn’t break the bank, either.

So when I stumbled upon THESE baskets on Joss and Main, I knew I had found “the ones.” And even better, I read some reviews, and one reviewer let us know that these baskets are also sold on Walmart.com (sadly, not in most stores) for even cheaper than on Joss and Main! HOLLA! And I LOVE THEM!

And, they come in a giant box your child will enjoy playing in while you organize, too. Win.

The best part? These baskets are less than $7.50 each! 

Iiiiii know. I’m excited, too!

Get them HERE.

I was looking for something that I could write on since I love when things are labeled, so the chalkboards are just perfect for that, AND I love that the cloth buttons on and off for easy cleaning. I am a fan of the lined baskets so that you can’t see everything that is there, giving it all a cleaner look.

To help organize and store some other foods, I keep our pasta in jars like THESE:

My baking ingredients in containers like THESE:

And our cereal in containers like THESE: I realize the box the cereal comes in is just as easy, if not easier, to store the cereal in. But truthfully, I just don’t like looking at the boxes and prefer a cleaner look.

Our pantry has now been organized for about six months and it is holding up well! In fact, these photos were taken only a few days ago. Still looking good in there! I really should get rid of all of those protein powders down there at the bottom, though… six containers of that stuff is a little much!

So, here is what you need to do to clean up and beautify your own pantry.

1. Take everything out. This is sooooo not fun, but is necessary. Then, throw away or donate anything you really don’t use. You will be surprised by how much you get rid of!
2. A big help for me was taking out all of the appliances I really didn’t use anymore and getting rid of them and moving the ones we did use to our cupboards. The only ones I keep in the pantry are my crockpot and my mixer, which are a little too big for the cupboards.
3. Group like items together to see what kind of categories you want to create. Here is what I ended up with:
   1. Seeds and blends- chia seeds, sunflower seeds, a digestive blend from Costco…
   2. PB and Syrups- Honey is also in this category because we use honey as a syrup, and on our PB and honey sandwiches
   3. Pasta- boxed pasta and rice
   4. Baby snacks
   5. Baby food
   6. Breakfast- Pancake mix and oatmeal cups
   7. Dressings and sauces- salad dressing, pasta sauce, BBQ sauce, teriyaki sauce
   8. Salsa- Apparently we like a variety of salsa because it needs its own basket…
   9. Adult snacks- adult bars, popcorn, pretzels, Triscuits
   10. Nuts and fruit- almonds, pistachios, mixed nuts, Craisins, raisins, fruit cups
   11. Kid snacks- Squeeze pouches, cheddar bunnies, fruit leathers
   12. Bars- Z bars and any others we may be trying out
   13. Oils and Vinegar
   14. Drinks- this basket was extra so I just put the extra drinks we replenish in the fridge with in here, like my daily shake and our Moscow Mule gingerales.
   15. Kid cups- I got this idea from my friend, Kristin. I got tired of always getting the kids’ cups down from the cabinet, so now they can come in the pantry and grab their own. Love it!
   16. Coffee, Tea and Juice
   17. Bread- tortillas, taco shells, breads
   18. Other- Produce that doesn’t need to be refrigerated and that I don’t want on my counter, bagged beans, bread crumbs and anything extra.
4. To save money, I did use some extra baskets and bins I already had in the pantry to hold things like aprons, mixer attachments, paper goods, pitchers, and two big baskets hold my small baking goods and the larger Costco snacks
5. Shelves like THESE really help maximize your space. I doubled my canned good space, and added extra space on my pantry floor to make some of the smaller items more accessible- kids lunch boxes, spare Pedialite, and my food saver appliance and storage bags.

This may sound silly, but doing this has made me so happy! Ha! I LOVE going in our pantry now and seeing a pretty space. Again, HERE are the best baskets ever.

Here are some other options I thought would work well in addition, and I think I will most likely end up upgrading my bottom row baskets to a few of these bigger ones, too, once they come back in stock.

HERE

Or maybe just go with this one since it’s in stock right now…

HERE

And because everyone loves a good before and after…

Thanks for stopping by and let me know if you end up doing this, too!

The post How to Organize Your Pantry on a Budget appeared first on Living with Lady.

I have had a few garage sales throughout the years and feel like I am the garage sale queen.

I’m not joking.

While I have only had two for my own family, I threw one for my parents last summer and I am proud to say that all three have brought in more than $1500.

$1500 for stuff that was no longer wanted!! What could be better!?

I am here today to tell you how you can do the same after just throwing the most successful one yet.

1.) Outsource on Craigslist and in consignment shops

a. Craigslist- Post big ticket items on Craigslist. This will buy you some extra time to get the price you want because you have to accept the fact that items at a garage sale are going to go cheap. At my most recent sale, I sold a little kitchen island on Craigslist beforehand for $60, with an original price tag of $120. At the actual sale, it probably would have gone for $30, if not less.

b. Consignment shops- I took all of our clothing, baby and adult, to three different consignment shops. They took what they wanted and I put the rest in my sale.

c. After the sale, I took my leftover books to a local book store and received $20 in store credit. Score!

2.) Signs

Your sign play a HUGE part in the overall success of your sale.

a. Get bright poster board in the same color, and get more than you think. I bought 9-10 pieces of poster board. You can get these for cheap at Walmart or the Dollar Store. You want the same color so that people are able to look for your signs when they are on the way to your house and know they are on the right path by the consistency they see.

b. Use 2-4 different colors when writing on your signs. You want your info to stand out and breaking up the wording by using different colors for each section will help people to see it quickly when driving by.

c. Cut the large poster board in half for the big, “informational” signs, and cut the poster board into fourths for the smaller “directional” signs. (This will make sense later.)

d. Prioritize your info! I can’t stress this enough and this might be one of the most important aspects of this entire post. People usually waste a TON of space on their signs by writing “GARAGE SALE” in huge letters at the top, leaving little room for the important info that really matters, making it too small to read. It is  quite obvious that you are having a garage sale since you are putting poster board up all around your town, so put the important info at the top, starting with the address in large numbers and letters. Then, list the days and times the sale will take place, and if there is room, then you can add in that you are having a “huge moving sale,” or whatever it may be. Lastly, put an arrow on your sign telling drivers which way your sale is.

***TIMING! Start your sale BEFORE the majority of other sales. That way, people are spending all their money at your sale!***

e. Post your “big” informative signs at every major stoplight and stop sign near your house. I painted our town pink and my signs were VERY noticeable. Also, post these signs BEFORE everyone else posts their garage sale signs so you have prime real estate. I kid you not. My sale was on Saturday and Sunday, so on Friday morning I was up at 7 am putting my signs out. I may have even put them up Thursday night if I had them made already.

f. Make smaller signs on 1/4 piece of poster board that guide your drivers to your house. Trust me, this is huge. Once someone spots one of your clever signs, they will NOT turn around. All these signs need to say are things like “This way!”, “Keep going!”, “Almost there!”, “Turn here!”, and “You made it!”. Also include an arrow on these signs pointing which direction to turn.

People will get such a kick out of this and you will receive many compliments on your signs.

3.  Organize, organize, organize!!!

a. Display it nicely– People do not want to dig through your crap. If it is nicely displayed and easily visible, people will know what you have available and will be more inclined to buy it. I highly recommend getting as many tables as you can as well. If people don’t have to bend over to look at everything, they will browse longer.

b. Organize by similar items-All kitchen items on one table, all baby items on another table, etc.

Before…(Different stages of the organizing and sorting process)

After…

Note: Before we moved, I went through EVERYTHING and if I didn’t love it, or it wasn’t necessary, out it went. This included my entire classroom, (from when I was a teacher) baby items, house decor, clothing from the entire family, etc. This took me SEVERAL hours to do, but it is WORTH it. I am talking over a FULL day.

c. Label it! I had a LOT of clothing for sale, so I labeled…. EVERYTHING. I not only organized it by gender, I organized it by size so that people knew exactly where to go for the size they were looking for.

d. Hang it.– If some of it can be hung up, do it! It reminds people of their own closet and they will visualize that clothing in their own closets.

4. Pricing

a. Price it CHEAP. Do you want to have leftover crap at the end of your sale, or would you rather accept a buck for it? TAKE THE DOLLAR. I priced MOST of my baby clothing for $1. ONE DOLLAR for clothing in perfect condition. Complete outfits. Gymboree, Children’s Place, Old Navy, Target and boutique outfits. Items like snowsuits, large jackets, costumes, etc. I priced $3-$5. Jammies and onesies I priced at $.50 and put all of those in labeled bins below the coordinating sizing signs. I will also add that not one thing in the sale had a stain on it.

b. Price EVERYTHING. Yes, this takes time, but it will save your sanity in the end. This way, people aren’t swarming you simultaneously asking what something costs and they most likely won’t low-ball you with ridiculous offers, either.

 5. Be prepared.

a. Get up early!- Be ready for those early-birds! People will come AT LEAST 30 minutes before you are supposed to start! Have everything out beforehand so that people aren’t sifting through things they shouldn’t be while you’re still trying to set up. I had everything set up the night before and just covered the things in the driveway with sheets. That being said, I lived in a very safe and trusting town.

b. Change- have enough change on-hand so that you aren’t looking in couch cushions for extra coins during your sale. You will want a lot of one and five dollar bills, as well as quarters.

c. Get help! Two of my friends and The Hubby were all there to help me during those early hours, as that is when it was the most hectic. Have someone man the money and another help answer questions. If you have an extra body, send that person on the coffee and lunch runs. It can actually be a fun time to spend together, so utilize it!

d. Play music- We had light music playing in the background, and it made for a more relaxed environment. Plus, The Hubby informed me that people tend to buy more when music is playing, as he used to work in retail back in college.

6. Accept all reasonable offers.

If it is close to your asking price, accept it. If it is way off and you are certain you could get your asking price, then hold off. I only did this for my big baby items that I knew were priced fairly. In the end, they all went.

7.) Half Price

My sale was on Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday, everything was half off. People were leaving with armfuls of stuff on the second day. Better than me hauling it away for nothing! Also, don’t give up on Sunday if a lot of people don’t show up until after 11 am. Those church-goers will come swarming in that afternoon, so be patient!

Tip- *Because I feel it is cheesy/rude to keep old signs up after the sale, take them down as soon as you can. As in, that same day if possible.

In conclusion:

In doing all of these things, I did pretty dang well at my sale. The most expensive item we sold was a stroller set for $90, followed by that island on Craigslist for $60, and a baby swing for $40. It all went down from there. We didn’t sell any large pieces of furniture, or any expensive items.

And we made…

Garage Sale- $1,471.57

Craigslist-$ 140.00

Consignment shops (So far)- $396.20

Total- $2,007.77

And, this was all that I was left with! It immediately went to the donation center and was off my hands.

It feels SO good to be clutter-free and know we got rid of everything that we didn’t need or was no longer used or worn. There’s still a little bit of summer left, go for it!

Hope these tips help!

The post How to throw a successful, organized garage sale. appeared first on Living with Lady.

Top Five (Six) Tips:

1.) Color-coordinate your boxes and designate certain areas of the room for only one or two colors. For example, all kitchen items were labeled with an orange Post-it (on top and bottom so it could be seen from various angles) and all of these boxes were kept in the corner of the kitchen. I did this so that if I needed to find something already packed I knew right where it would be and so that whoever was moving boxes into the new house would know exactly where to put each box.

2.) Get paper products- I kept our dishes unpacked for as long as I could stand it, but then bought paper products so I no longer needed to wash many dishes and could pack the majority. I did keep my favorite coffee mug and Keurig out, as well as one pot, one pan and the kids’ sippy cups.  

3.) Organize, sort, and throw-away/donate as you go. You don’t want to just keep moving clutter from house to house. If you have enough for a garage sale, do it. A little extra money to have someone haul away your junk seems like a given.

And those projects you’ve been meaning to do to help organize but haven’t had the time, just do them. Otherwise, you never will. My lingering project was this DVD case and you can see just what I did here.

4. Leave a box or two out at all times for your kids to play in. They’ll play for hours minutes at a time and it’ll give you time to pack in peace. Throw some snacks and a drink in the back and add a few more minutes to that time, too.

5. Bag the clothes, don’t box. It’s absolutely silly to pack clothes in a box when you’re not moving far away. It’s a waste of time and only adds more work on both ends. Instead, bag them. Take a trash bag and make a hole in the bottom. Then, insert the hangers with the clothes still on them through the hole, hang them back on the pole and tie the bottom closed so no clothes fall when moving. Then, just lay flat on top of one another either in a box, or just in the trunk of the car, like we did.

For the kids’ clothes I used kitchen trash bags and for our clothes the big black trash bags so the clothes could all fit lengthwise.

6. While this really isn’t a tip, I thought I’d throw it in. If you forget to keep a pillow unpacked for your hubby on the night before you move, improvise!

Hope these tips help if you’ve got a move coming up soon!

The post Five tips for a more organized, stress-free move appeared first on Living with Lady.