Who’s on Spring Break?! I’m enjoying my spring break even though we didn’t go anywhere. Its always nice to have some time at home and to be with my kiddos! So far, we had a fun family night, I have seen two out of town friends, had a date night (with other couples but no kids so I’ll count it), and I took the kids to a movie. BUT, the movie was sold out, so instead we went to Barnes and Noble and then ate at a favorite restaurant of ours. I’ve done some house cleaning multiple times, but you’d never know 🙂 And I’m 39 pages into The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and have gotten rid of items for days 1-7 of my own challenge (not Marie Kondo’s).

I think its a bit early to say much about the book, but I was nervous for most of the first 39 pages. She kept saying her method should be done in one fell swoop, not slowly. This seemed impossible, but she finally said that it takes most people six months. That made me feel like it was a bit more doable. So basically, don’t just tackle one room and stop. In fact, you aren’t suppose to go room by room at all. I believe you go through categories instead. I’ll keep reading and fill you in more as I go.

I remembered another tip that I thought was worth sharing if you are working on decluttering/purging/simplifying. I HATE snail mail. I’m terrible at dealing with it. I’ve heard the advice – OHIO (only handle it once), but that never happens. A few years ago, I figured I could at least stop the catalog madness. There’s nothing in a catalog I can’t find online, so I might as well just stop getting them. Plus, it saves paper. If you would also like to stop catalogs, just go to catalogchoice.org. Not only can you stop catalogs, but you can also stop coupons, credit card offers, etc. I need to get the guts to stop coupons. I’m not interested in most of them, and I forget to use the ones in which I am interested. So it really just adds clutter to my house. Ok, I think I am sold. Is it really worth $5 here and there to live with paper clutter? Probably not.

I also got the chance to sit down and look at my Real Simple magazine. There were some great ideas in there about simplifying your purse and eliminating clutter there by taking advantage of some helpful apps on your phone. It always amazes me how much hassle our devices can save us! I’ll probably need to get a new phone before I take advantage of these, though, because I don’t think I have enough storage to add more apps. But, I will definitely keep these in mind for the future! Purses can really get out of hand. I try to carry small purses because if I carry a large purse, chaos ensues! There have been times where looking for my credit card in a large purse required removal of other purses from the big purse.

Yeah, you might need to clean out your purse if it contains other purses. Haha!

Here are some apps you might find useful:

Gyft – Instead of carrying your gift cards around, upload them to Gyft. You can even regift through the app. I love this because now you can ensure you have your gift cards with you at all times without them crowding your purse, and you don’t have to worry about losing them!

Keyring – Scans and stores all of your loyalty cards and even gym and library cards. I think this app will also store gift cards, so you could save room on your phone by just using this app instead of this and Gyft. You can also get coupons through the app so you can feel more comfortable getting rid of mailed coupons when you go to catalogchoice.org.

Grocery pal – See the weekly sales for groceries in your area.

CamCard – Use this instead of keeping business cards.

Are you guys already using these apps? Am I behind? Let me know if you try one of these out and if you like it! Has any one else gotten rid of junk mail? I’m going to get back on catalog choice and get rid of even more!

In other news, our tile for the mudroom has been ordered and should arrive in about a week, so stay tuned for some exciting things coming this way!