Piler or filer

When someone says you should get organized.... what mental picture do you see?  Spare?  Minimal?  Picture perfect? Empty? Sterile?  Personally, I believe that being well organized means simply having a place for everything and everything in it's place. 

When it comes to organizing, my daughter is a piler and I'm a filer.  Even as a child my daughter would create piles of stuff in her room.  She knew exactly what was in each pile and could find whenever she wanted.  The piles would drive me crazy sometimes but I allowed her to find her own style and use it.  As long as her piles didn't become breading grounds for icky critters the piles were ok.  She never had food items or junk in her room.  Just piles of books, piles of clothes, piles of shoes, and so forth.


I, on the other hand, prefer filing my things.  By filing I mean neat little drawers and containers to fit exactly what I'm organizing.  Ideally I would love to have a house full of drawers or cabinets with areas that exactly fit everything I own and want to keep organized.  Ha! Like that would ever happen. 

Regardless of your organizing style it's important to know where everything is. Organizing is simply another word for knowing what you have, how many, and where it's stored.  This is the cheapest way to start saving money.  It keeps you from buying duplicates because you can't find the one you already own. 

Ever since the end of WW11 we've been taught to be good little consumers and buy, buy, buy.  We've been taught that our self worth is directly connected to the amount of stuff we own.  A person who gets a raise is more likely to go out and buy more stuff than they are to seek out investing options.  A person that wants to show their grandchildren how much they are loved buys them lots of toys instead of spending time at the museum.  Holidays are no longer simply to celebrate the reason.  Holidays have become excuses to buy more stuff.  Not only are we buying ourselves more stuff but we use holidays to give other people more stuff too.

The more stuff we own, the more space we need to keep it.  Everything we own requires something from us.  We must feed it, oil it, clean it, store it, and so forth.  Before long, our stuff starts to own us instead of us owning it.  We become overwhelmed and over stimulated to the point we feel we must organize.

So along comes the organizer companies.  It's a whole industry devoted to helping people own and store more stuff.  If we run out of room in our homes we can rent space in a storage facility.  I sometimes hear about people buying another house just for keeping more stuff.  To me, that's very sad.  Their stuff truly does own them.  The stuff is so important that they pay a mortgage payment to own it. 

Back when I decided to semi-retire it was with the intention of giving myself a simpler life.  A life of meaningful things instead of cold, unfeeling STUFF.  Giving up most of my income meant returning to the money saving things I did in my younger days.  Organizing is the first step for me to have my simple life.  Less income helps me avoid the temptations to buy, buy, buy.  I hope you keep me company and read my blog as I travel this journey to a simpler, happier life.