Everyone knows that being more organized can save time. But it can also save you a lot of money. How many times have you had to go out and buy something just because you couldn’t locate it in your house?
Some time ago we were having someone come over to house sit for a few weeks. I felt bad because we didn’t have a television in the house, so I set about hooking up an old DVD player to my computer monitor so they could at least watch some movies while we were gone.
The video worked fine, but I needed a connector to hook up the audio. I looked through a box of audio cables, but finally gave up and went to Radio Shack. 25 minutes and $7 later (which seems ridiculous for 6 inches of wire), I had the cable I needed.
I am sure I own the necessary cable, but after several moves in the past 12 months, I couldn’t locate it. After thinking about it, this isn’t uncommon and I’m probably at least a bit more organized than the average person. I imagine I’ve spent several thousand dollars and countless hours over the past 5 years buying duplicate items that I didn’t really need.
How much do you spend on things that you already have?
You’re absolutely entirely right about that. I still live with my parents, but I keep nagging them about the fact that all that pile of junk we’ve built over the years have got to eliminated or at least organized for when we actually do need something, we find it.
It’s hard to make my point with numbers as in the question you asked because this thing just happens over the years and nobody keeps track of how much we had wasted buying redundant stuff we had already lying around in the house, but misplaced.
I couple years ago i turned my ibook laptop box into my cord container. Anytime I come across an adapter or cord I put it in this box. I am positive it has saved me hundreds of dollars and lots of frustration.
One of the items on my todo-list for next week is to organize all cables in our office. We have cables from 10 years work with computer. A few months ago, I already threw more than 50 per cent away, but now I’ll create a spreadsheet to know what we have.
Whenever I purchase a piece of new piece of equipment, I immediately put a tag on the cable, plug or transformer, identifying what it goes to. Just using a small piece of paper and tape either on the transformer or around the cord. Serves a dual purpose when trying to unplug something from a power outlet.
Good idea. I used to use colored dot stickers to do the same thing.
This is a good point that I hadn’t thought much about Mark.
When you are disorganized you both have to spend lots of time looking for the things you need, you need to spend energy obsessing about it, you need to spend time cleaning it because if looks awefull, but it also costs money because you keep buying things you have or throwing things away that you really needed in the future.
There is a lot to be said about being organized.