I’ve been working on more home organization and projects, and I’m finding more and more that we are frugal with our purchases. It’s always good to check things out and compare prices, but sometimes it’s even better to make do with what you have. It’s not always easy, but sometimes you can think outside the box and solve a problem you may have.

For example, we were getting tired of our disorganized kitchen. We don’t have a built in pantry, so instead we had a collection of smaller shelves that were stacked to the brim with non-perishables, cat items, cook books, you name it. It was a mess and it looked bad, plus things kept falling off. The first thought was to buy a storage furniture that would serve as a pantry- $80 for the cheapest. We also had to fit our small fridge in the picture, and work around a vent as well. We also considered installing new cabinets, but why stop at that? Do a while kitchen remodel… and $20,000 later… You get my point. As it turns out, getting rid of some things but mostly moving everything around and installing a (free) shelf to store the cookbooks solved all the problems! The space was there all along- I just had to use it better and it didn’t even take money to fix that problem. You can also apply this concept to re-doing a room by repainting furniture you already have, moving it around, perhaps moving some things out of the room and into another place. In my opinion, it’s always better to experiment for free before rushing in to spend money.

Sometimes it’s also nice to make something yourself when the options available to purchase aren’t great, as long as what you need is relatively simple to make (if it’s complicated or needs specialized tools, or if it takes too long and the materials are too expensive, then I advise to DIY only if you enjoy doing the work and plan to do it again). I needed some tassels for a project, and went to the store to find that small tassels were $3.99 each! I needed 10 of them, and that’s $40 for freaking tassels! So instead I bought a yard of fringe for $6 in a color I liked (did I mention that the tassels only came in one color?) and cut that into 10 sections, sowed myself a tassel and done! I also had to buy some embroidery thread to make the tassels, but that was $2.60. The whole project cost me $8.60 and I may have spent about 15 minutes making tassels. .

Sometimes we actually need to buy something, or hire someone to complete a project. But that’s not always needed, and in this convenient world we live in it’s very easy to shop as a go-to. The main idea is to be content with what you have first! Or try to at least.