Simple organization tip!

So, I went to Dollar General with a simple goal in mind: finding myself some sort of cheap small tubs to organize the hall closet's piles of junk. In one corner was a pile of bar soaps, with a mound of spare toothbrushes and extra toothpaste next to it. Shaving kit bags were piled on the top shelf filled with extra disposable razors, and there was a large bin in the top of the kids' closet with even more spare toothbrushes and toothpaste, as well as disposable travel toothbrushes (just add water... toothpaste is already applied in a powder form) and hotel-sized soaps and shampoo/conditioner/lotion bottles. mixed in among the entire mess were the few perfume/cologne bottles we own, and a few samples of others. It was 2+ shelves worth of MESS. So, at Dollar General, I found some "shoe-box" sized tubs for $1 each. I got six, and only used 4 in the closet. I even condensed the hair clipper blades (and one of the clippers) down into a tub with my razors. I wish I had some before pics! I didn't even think about it, though! 

Here's an after shot. I took it with my phone, so it's not the greatest quality. That's just one shelf, obviously. The closet is super narrow, and the shelves are all widely spaced, which is GREAT for towels, not so great for other stuff!

Here you can see the 4 tubs (could have gone 3-high, but I thought 2 looked neater for now). The black blob on top if the hair clipper case. We have 2 sets of hair clippers (no idea why... I think one set kinda sucked, or we lost a set for awhile. I forget!) but only one set had a case. To the right is all the tall bottles of stuff, like carpet freshener (not sure why that's there? I didn't really clean out the closet, I just neatened it up.. lol), contact solution (which probably needs thrown out. I haven't worn contacts in a couple years), bottles of lotion, clipper oil, sunscreen, and stuff like that.

Shaving tote: Spare disposable razors, extra set of hair clippers, hair clipper attachments, and an extra electric razor of Philip's.

Soap. Bar soap, to be precise. Yep, that's it.

Uh.... other stuff. Small bath poofs, nail brush, travel lotions/shampoos/etc, and, well... other stuff.

Spare toothbrushes (kids get one EVERY time they're at the dentist, no matter what. Ditto for small tubes of toothpaste.), extra toothpaste, a small (green) bag of gauze squares from the dentist, and the clear bag is full of those disposable toothbrushes I mentioned earlier.

 See? Big mess, contained easily and neatly. Heck, only one tub is full, but I was going for ORGANIZED.

So, remember I mentioned I got 6, and only used 4? I used the other 2 in the kitchen. One is now holding tupperware lids, which opened up a whole drawer for use, and the other is now holding 2 1/2 boxes of instant oatmeal packages. Do I plan on getting more of these boxes soon? You betcha! I plan on using one for vitamins, another for a more organized first-aid kit than what we have, and I can probably find use for more, even. Kids' art supplies, craft supplies.... And there are more sizes for bigger uses. I also thought of another thing that makes using totes and tubs for organizing REALLY useful: Moving. Packing sucks. I've done enough in the last 31 years to know! I always thought "no need to buy stuff like that, I'm not staying here forever", but now that I've done it, all I can think is how much EASIER moving would be stuffing those into a box (or not even bothering) rather than dumping all the loose stuff into one... And the unpacking would be so much simpler as well!


Wowza... This was supposed to be a short post! lol So, was this helpful to anyone?