lets organize!

i don't know about you guys but i just love to ORGANIZE!
whether its my calendar, my desk, the kitchen cabinets, my clothes, the garage... its all organized. everything has its place. but this week i miiiight have gone a little ocd but hey, its what i do. :)
so lets talk about it.

i decided to organize the refrigerator & my coupons.

let me begin with the refrigerator.
i know what you're thinking... what?

the original idea came from an organizing queen i found on youtube - her name is alejandra & you can find her under homeorganizing. she has some pretty good ideas if you want to take a gander at her videos. 

i started by separating my foods and placing them in their appropriate bins {which i found at walmart for $2-$5}. i have four different bins: cheese & deli, grab & go, fruits & veggies, dairy & extras. i placed my milk and coffee creamer in the back, and my condiments on the door shelf.

 before and after...

the grab & go idea is seriously my favorite. i package up fruit & veggies as soon as i get home from the grocery in small snack size baggies. that way i can just 'grab' great healthy snacks throughout the week and 'go' - pretty great, huh?

ok whats up next...
i decided to organize my coupons in a new way. originally, it just put all my coupons {newspaper clippings, gift certificates, mailings, etc} in a vera bradley small zip pouch. the coupons were hard to see and often never used because of that. bummer, huh? so i made a binder for all my coupons & separated them into four different categories: food & dining, household, health & beauty, and retail. {again, the idea came from homeorganizing on youtube}.

i purchased a small binder from staples and then used martha stewart clear pockets, also purchased from staples, for all the coupons. these are the best because they have little flaps at the top that prevent the coupons from sliding out when you flip and turn the book. in each flap i used different colors so that the coupons are easy to see on each page. and yes, you guessed it - i color coded the different categories. food & dining: green, household: blue, health & beauty: yellow, retail: red. hope that all makes sense. :)

as if all that isn't confusing enough...
the martha stewart clear pockets come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. so depending on how many and what size your coupons are, you may want to get a variety of sizes. i did!

whew, no wonder ms. homeorganizing explains this via video.

 

well y'all, have fun organizing! share any ideas or questions. :)
XO