I need budget organization help

[barbarabini]

My kids bedrooms are - in a word- atrocious.

There are just toys and clothes everywhere. A hundred barbies here. Clothes, legos, matchbox cars. Books, action heros, baby toys. Art supplies.

Too much of everything. I have a very large family, on christmas, birthdays, valentines, easter, last day of school thanksgiving they get stuff. I have asked them to tone it down and to here credit my mom has stopped but the great aunts and regular aunts just keep going.

I need some organizational help. Real organizational tips for kids rooms and playroom. The house is not big. Think small NJ colonial.

I spend my days just picking up toy after toys. The attic is full. The basement is a playroom that we don't even go into anymore. Too much stuff.

Also, I think I may have a garage sale. I usually donated bags but I am thinking the strollers, highchairs, pack and plays ect may sell.

 

[delmar411]

yard sale. Massive one. Be ready to haggle and price it all at reasonable prices in the first place. NJ folks love a good yard sale! LOL Make sure to advertise it in the paper and put up good signs.

I had to draw a hard line on the kids' toys. Limit the barbies, cars, etc. I can't spend my life picking up toys and they become crazy overwhelmed when it's all out of place anyway.

What worked for me on organizing is the 9bin cubes from target. Everything has a home and if it doesn't then we decide if they really want it.

Also I really had to step back and think about what I bought for them and if it would have a home or not. If it wouldn't have a home, then I needed to figure out where it was going to go.

Just bringing things into the house randomly doesn't work when you are already overwhelmed with toys.

Good luck on your purge/clean up!

 

[Madison'smommy]

My kids bedrooms are - in a word- atrocious.

There are just toys and clothes everywhere. A hundred barbies here. Clothes, legos, matchbox cars. Books, action heros, baby toys. Art supplies.

Too much of everything. I have a very large family, on christmas, birthdays, valentines, easter, last day of school thanksgiving they get stuff. I have asked them to tone it down and to here credit my mom has stopped but the great aunts and regular aunts just keep going.

I need some organizational help. Real organizational tips for kids rooms and playroom. The house is not big. Think small NJ colonial.

I spend my days just picking up toy after toys. The attic is full. The basement is a playroom that we don't even go into anymore. Too much stuff.

Also, I think I may have a garage sale. I usually donated bags but I am thinking the strollers, highchairs, pack and plays ect may sell.

If it was me, I would go through the stuff and get rid of anything that may have missing pieces/broken etc.... I would make a (big) pile of stuff that I would sell in a yard sale. I know my DD 6, is not always wanting to give up stuff, but if she knows she can sell it at a yard sale and "keep" the money, she in MUCH more willing. I also know that if I go through and get rid of stuff, she never notices.

I swear, organizing is not cheap. I keep all of our barbie stuff in one of those like rubbermaid things with drawers. It has 3 drawers and about 2.5 ish feet wide. I have another 3 drawer thing (smaller), that I keep pet shops and ponies in. I have another thing about 4 feet tall with drawers, I am not sure how many (6-7, maybe). A few drawers are used for arts and crafts stuff, paper etc. 1 drawer is for DSi stuff (games, charger etc). lol, the rest of her stuff is a work in progress. I am just now going through all clothes/toys etc getting rid of stuff. Wish me luck! I organize and reorganize everything all the time.... weirdo..lol

 

[MomToOne]

I need some organizational help. Real organizational tips for kids rooms and playroom. The house is not big. Think small NJ colonial.

Around here they have a special sale for baby stuff twice a year. It's at the convention center. You can sign up as an individual seller for a small fee or there are people you can drop your stuff off with and they take care of selling it, for a percentage of what your stuff sells for. Maybe see if there is something like that in your area?

Ikea has lots of cheap-ish bookcases and cabinets. I bought a bunch of those for our playroom. I got 2 regular bookcases for books and miscellaneous knick-knacks, and 3 cabinets with doors to hide alot of the toys in. It doesn't look so bad when there are doors that close

Once you have everything under control, make a deal with your kids that for every new toy that enters the house, they need to pick an old one to give away/discard.

 

[wovenwonder]

Get those heavy duty cardboard file boxes at your local office supply store. The one's that hold letter/legal files and have a lid. They come flat and you assemble as needed. You can get a box of 10 for as cheap as $10 sometimes by watching sales. These can then be spray painted or covered in inexpensive fabric to match your decor. Sort toys and mark the boxes - Stack as needed.

Store some of the boxes out of sight and rotate every few months.

eta that over the door shoe organizers work great for barbies and all of her clothes/shoes.

 

[Karenj2]

What my sister does, is that for every toy that comes in, one has to be donated. (plus she just unloaded a bunch of toys to me)

 

[dunningdisney]

Some of the best tips I have ever gained I either read on the disboards or in family fun magazine. I have one of those pop up canvas bins on the side of my stairs--one for each child. As I go thru the house and clean up, I put the stuff in their bins, they are then responsible for putting their own stuff away and in the meantime, it is out of my way. Works wonderfully! For the kids clothes, I put them in the drawers like a file folders. This way they don't have to pull all of their clothes out of the drawer to see what they have. I also would fold outfits or pjs together, so when they take out the top, the bottoms come with it. This has cut my cleaning of clothes drawers down by about seventy five percent.

 

[amoggio816]

Consignment sales are also a really good place to sell.

Same with Craigslist.

What we did was we bought one of those 9 box wire cube storage system (from target... usually one of their colors is on clearence for like $7. Then go to Xmas tree shops and buy baskets and filled them up.
For the small pieces, we have a 3 drawered container.

 

[My2Pixies]

Purge, purge, purge. Go through all of the rooms with two plastic bins (one for donations, one for keeping) and a trash can. Trash the broken stuff, keep only the things that are in good condition and that your kids actually play with and donate the rest. For toy organization I like clear plastic bins with picture labels. They can be stacked easily against the wall to make more room for playing. We have small two shelf book cases for the kids books and a basket with board books and baby toys. Art supplies are kept in a three drawer plastic chest by the table where we do most of our crafts.

Clothes can also be purged, decide how many seasonal outfits you want to have per child and keep to that number. I use a pop up laundry basket to keep clean clothes in until I have a chance to fold and put them away.

 

[mrsklamc]

Go grab the audio book of "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh. It will inspire you while you organize.

He always says though "You can't organize clutter" so it sounds like a major purge/garage sale is in order before you organize.

 

[TinkPirateMom]

First as others have said, you and the kids need to go through and throw away any broken toys and yard sale or donate any toys that do not get used any more. Then work on organizing what's left.

I'm in a small rancher in NJ as well. A portion of our finished basement is a play room for my son. We found inexpensive storage units at Ikea that work really well and are worth every penny.
www.ikea.com

If that is not in the budget, I have also found storage baskets and tubs at Five Below before. But if you yard sale older toys you may be able to use that money for storage supplies to get organized.

 

[barbarabini]

Ok- i have started the purge. so far, I have 5 bags of garbage (broken toys, missing pieces, papers and dried out craft stuff, old spices, cups with no lids ect..).

3 bags of sale stuff, and one plastic bin of superheroes and a large bin of megabloks.

Wish me luck, that was just the sunroon, kitchen, bathroom and dining room. Heading now to the living room.

 

[mrsklamc]

Keep right on purging before you bring anything into the house but when you do want to buy containers the dollar store can be a cheap resource too.

 

[sksjasams]

Ok- i have started the purge. so far, I have 5 bags of garbage (broken toys, missing pieces, papers and dried out craft stuff, old spices, cups with no lids ect..).

3 bags of sale stuff, and one plastic bin of superheroes and a large bin of megabloks.

Wish me luck, that was just the sunroon, kitchen, bathroom and dining room. Heading now to the living room.

Yay for you - you are off to a great start!!

Sorting is the hardest part, really! I agree with PP that letting my son keep any money from his sold items was a huge motivator for him to let things go. And sort of for me too - at least I would feel like he was getting something out of all those like new toys that he had outgrown. We sold lots of toys on craiglist and had garage sales the last two springs. Chances are the older your kids get, the smaller their toys will get - think electronics like DSi or iPod Touch. Legos are another story though, we are still buried in Legos, all in see through bins mind you, but there are tons.

For storage, I like see through rubbermaid/sterilite type bins. I buy the bins for a specific set of items plus a little growing room. I like the industrial look of wire tiered shelving. The shelves hold lots of bins and keep the toys off the floor. Whatever they want to play with can be easily identified and put away.

Good luck...you are doing great!

 

[DCLbrideSept2009]

What my sister does, is that for every toy that comes in, one has to be donated. (plus she just unloaded a bunch of toys to me)

That's basically what I did with my kids when they were younger (toy age). Twice a year, before Christmas and birthdays, they had to go through their toys and get rid of some. I usually had them do it BEFORE the holiday, but it might be a better idea to wait until after, and based on how many they got, get rid of that same amount. But what I did was just make them think about what they REALLY played with and wanted to keep and get rid of as much as possible.