Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Saving Money by Organizing

Once again Thrifty Decor Chick came up with an awesome idea for me to steal... I, too, have a toddler and each time we want to watch a movie that's kid-friendly, then we have to pull out a million DVDs to find the G rated ones. Usually we end up watching the same ones over and over to avoid having to pull out all the movies.

We had our movies stored in stacks and stacks in an antique armoire handed down to me. I love the armoire and refuse to part with it. I thought it would make the perfect DVD storage area, but I didn't think about how many DVDs we actually have. There's just no organization to the cabinet and no easy way to find what we're looking for.

I ran across this blog post by Sarah over at Thrifty Decor Chick. She put the DVDs in a CD case to help cut down on the space. So my wheels got to thinking and I decided to steal her idea. I mean her exact idea.

I started out with an armoire full of movies. This picture was taken AFTER I removed the G rated and PG rated movies out it!


After I pulled out all the G and PG rated movies, I started out alphabetizing the DVDs. Then I put the DVD in each sleeve and piled the cases on the table in order. That altogether took me about an hour to do. This morning I got my coffee and pulled out my handy-dandy Friskars cutter that I bought four years ago to hand-make my wedding invitations. I thought I would never use the contraption after the wedding, but honestly, I keep it handy at all times. I LOVE this cutter. It's so useful. Once again, it came in handy this morning to cut the movie covers to size. I cut each one 4 1/2" by 4 1/2" to fit into the sleeve with the DVD. I guess my OCD took over because I had to make sure that as much of the original cover was saved as possible.

I love the fact that once you remove the DVD to watch it, the cover insert shows where the movie belongs. That way you know if you're missing any movies... Which, after this project, I hope will no longer be an issue.

So I went from a 28" stack 7 1/2" wide to a CD binder that takes up less storage space. Here's the difference...


Now, let's put this into dollar and cents. How much did this little organization project cost me? Let's first see what it saved me....
So I called a local storage unit place and had a quote provided for a 5' x 5' area and a 15'x20' area climate controlled. The price ranged from $51 a month to $256 a month. So we can assume an average cost of $153.50 per month for an average square footage amount of 162.5. That's $1.06 a square foot on average for storage.
Have a I put you to sleep yet??? Stay with me....
So, my stack was 28" high and 7 1/2" wide. That means it was taking up roughly 1.46 square feet. Now let's multiply that by $1.06 per month, and I'm figuring on $18.52 storage cost for a year. So for a little more than what I would pay in yearly storage cost for the movies, I have invested in the CD binder. Now hold on, there's still room for another 136 movies!!! WOOT WOOT
So let's go back to the first picture I posted.... See all of those movies still in stacks. Yeah, that's what I still have left to do... Uggg. I can't wait for this project to be over! Wish me luck. It'll be worth it in the long run. Our house is growing by two feet (we're expecting baby #2, but it shrinks with clutter and STUFF more and more each day..... I desperately need this extra space.

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