Wednesday, March 5, 2008

It PAYS to clean and organize....


















It really did pay off today to purge a few bags of collected junk mail, catalogs, receipts, etc...

Since we have, literally, six - YES 6!!!!, sources of mail - the personal PO Box, the business PO Box, the home mail box, and the three business location mail boxes - you can only imagine the amount of junk mail we receive. It ends up laying on any willing (and some not so willing) flat surface at home, at work, in the car(s) - which could also be more than one, depending on which one I'm driving on that particular day.

So, to try to manage it all, I've been trying to make a consorted (or sorted) effort to throw it away before it leaving the Post Office or sort out the good from the bad and throw the bad onto the floorboard to later throw away. The "good" stuff gets sorted into any open receptacle - the center console, the front seat OR most times, the latest WalMart, Fred Meyer, Safeway or Albertsons shopping bag. There it will remain until further sorting...aka more IMPORTANT mail and receipts from the next day and the next.....

To make matters worse, a ton of receipts (I shop alot for the business as well, so don't get the idea that I'm just out there always spending!) Well, maybe a few too many stops at the "treasure" shop of the day...but....well, anyways, I ultimately end up with numerous bags of stashed paper.

So, today (I stayed home from work!) I began ditching and purging the bags and totes and my purse....When I do this at work, I use my shredder to purge anything with my name/address, but at home, instead of making a pile to shred (this would only add to the chaos) I rip and tear the pieces into strips and then tear the strips into smaller squares. (Maybe this is therapy???)

As I was ripping, tearing, and shredding, I looked down into my transport bucket (this is the galvanized pail that sits between our chairs in the living room as an effort to eliminate the build up on our end tables) and noticed a piece of what looked like a dollar bill. Of course this caught my eye. Who wouldn't have dumpster-dived for a buck? Sure enough, it was a piece of a dollar bill. So in Tina fashion, I dug deeper into the bucket, through all the bits and pieces and found another piece tucked neatly into what looked to be a survey from the Nissan dealer - now mind you, the Nissan got traded in over 3 months ago. The survey looked to be from when we purchased it...oh, say 2005!!!! Oh boy!!!!

Well, I began to dig for the other pieces of the ripped up survey and sure enough, there was another (the 3rd and last) piece of the dollar bill. Whew! Lucky for that dollar, I had only ripped the survey into thirds!

THEN....yes, there is more. I was sorting (cleaning) out the pile of paper that I took out of my purse and dumped on the kitchen table, oh say 2 weeks ago (I'm trying...I really am!!) and as I was finding movie ticket stubs, receipts and even the rogue after-dinner mint, I found a bank envelope with....drumrollllll please......a $20.00 bill and some coin. Good thing I didn't shred it!

So, today's lesson(s) learned....It REALLY does pay to clean and organize. Now if only I could stay on top of it all......cause I ALSO had to throw away a number of FREE PEPSI coupons and shred my unused/unopened Fred Meyers rewards...$$$ that expired in OCTOBER 2007!!! AND more $$$ that expired in JANUARY 2008!!!!






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