Most of you probably do your actual organizing yourself; that’s not too unusual.  Unless you hire a professional organizer — which is appealing, but I’m guessing out of most of my readers’ budgets — you’re going through the process yourself.  (If you need help with this, I highly recommend Julie Morgenstern’s Organizing from the Inside Out.)  But one of the steps of organizing is “containerizing” the stuff (as Morgenstern puts it); this post is going to tackle the containerizing of the physical “stuff.”  (We’ll talk about “containerizing” mental “stuff” later this week.)

If your budget is comfortable enough to be able to just purchase whatever containers you prefer, and count it done, that’s fantastic!  If that’s not the case, keep reading for some inexpensive options.

1. Use Your Trash

The very least expensive way to store your stuff is, of course, in containers you would have thrown out anyway!  Sturdy boxes, like diaper cases, and jars, tins, and canisters all work well.

If you’re looking to organize the inside of something, you can even put things like cardboard tubes and egg cartons to use, to create compartments.

Some people may balk at the idea of using old containers for this purpose because they don’t look good.  I understand!  It’s not just vanity (although that may sometimes be a factor, too); it’s only so useful to organize all of your belongings if they still just look like clutter!  There are a couple of “tricks” that can make them work much better.

• Make use of repetition/consistency.

Multiple items that are the same look like a unit.  Do you regularly buy the same kind of peanut butter in the same kind of jar?  Use all of those matching jars in the same space.  They’ll look like a set.

Are you using diaper cases?  Group together the ones that are the same size and shape.

Even if you’re using items that are inherently different in size and shape, if you can give them consistency by repeating some other element, they’ll still look more like they go together.  Paint them all the same color.  Wrap each one in a matching ribbon.  Use the same labels on them all.  Which (sort of) brings me to the second trick:

• Cover up the clutter.

The “ugly” of used containers is typically all the sales copy and other “advertising”-type marks, not the container itself.  So can you coat or cover it with paint, tape, wrapping paper, shelf paper, fabric, or something else?  I’ve seen burlap-covered and duct tape-covered diaper cases on Pinterest, and they both looked pretty good!

2. Repurpose Something

Organizational items are often sold for premium prices.  If you can find an item meant for another purpose that “happens” to be well-suited for your use, it’s often far less expensive.  (Pay attention, though, because that isn’t always the case.)   You’ll also have more success finding things secondhand if your search is not as narrow.

Ice cube trays are good for sorting/store small things like beads or buttons.  Cups and vases can be used to hold any number of things: salt, cotton swabs, nails, pens…that list could easily become 1,000 items long.  Dish drainers have been used to hold standing files.  (It depends on the drainer’s design.)  Paper towel holders can hold spools of ribbon or cones of crochet cotton.  Kitchen linens can be hung up on clothes hangers.  Serving platters could as easily be trays.

So try thinking a little outside the box.  Ask yourself what size & shape a container needs to be, and if it needs to have any particular traits (like a lid that seals), and then ask yourself what else might fit that description.

3. Look for Inexpensive Options

Sometimes the most efficient use of space requires neatly-matched storage containers.  It just does.  But these don’t necessarily have to be super-expensive, depending on your needs. I’ve found some handy things at the dollar store on various occasions (including some pretty cool stacking shelves to go inside an existing cupboards to increase the usable shelf space).  We’ve used Ziploc leftover containers to store school manipulatives.  (We have a whole 4-cup container full of mini “popsicle” sticks for counting!)

And Wal-Mart has some great Sterilite containers that come in a variety of modular sizes that have been awesome for organizing our homeschool manipulatives and some of the craft supplies. (They stack beautifully so there’s little-to-no wasted space.)  I’m actually storing a lot of the bulkier craft supplies in cardboard banker’s boxes!  They’re inexpensive, just the right size, and stack nicely because they match and have lids.