1. Wooden hangers save the shape of clothes and make your closet neater because everything hangs uniformly.

2. Keep your blue jeans blue.  Wash your blue jeans inside out and let them air dry. Throw in dryer for 5 min to soften.

3. Back in black. Wash black garments together & use detergent specifically for black clothes.  I love Perwoll Black Magic Laundry Liquid Soap.

4. Never ever put brassieres in the dryer.  Mesh lingerie bags are a great way to prolong the life of your unmentionables.

5. Keep the girls lifted!  Rotate brassieres daily to insure that the arms don’t get stretched out.

6. Dry clean your cashmere sweaters, but do so sparingly to preserve the fibers and shape, and invest in a sweater shaver.

7. Keep jewelry neat and easily accessible in a jewelry box or jewelry organizer.

8. Prolong the life of your favorite handbags/totes/clutches by storing them in dustbags.  If your purse didn’t come with a dustbag at purchase, wrap it up in an old sweathshirt or t-shirt.

9. Store shoes on shoe racks or in clear plastic shoe boxes so that you can see what you have.  Almost all of my shoes are sorted and stored in them – so much easier to find what you’re looking for when you’re rushing in the am!

10. Organize clothes in your closet by garment type.   Shirts with shirts, dresses with dresses, suits with suits and so on.  Once you get everything organized by garment type, go back and organize each type by color.  Trust me, it’s time well-spent.

Happy Organizing!

Frugal is as frugal does.

Are you getting ready to pull the trigger on that dress you’ve been eyeing on Bluefly? Planning to order photos on Snapfish?  Need to buy necessities at drugstore.com?  Before you click “purchase”, make sure your items are saved in your shopping cart and look around online for discount coupons.  These coupons knock off anywhere from a little bit to a lot from your purchase prices with deals that include free shipping, 10% off, $5 off and the like.  Never buy anything online without looking for a coupon first.  Simply google “[item] coupon” and websites like CouponCabin.com, Retailmenot.com, momsview.com, couponmountain.com, dealtaker.com, and gogoshopper.com will pop up – some of these sites feature over more than 1,000 online retailers.  The savings are definitely worth the extra 5 or 10 minutes that it takes to locate the coupon.  While not all of the coupons you’ll find are valid, if you persevere and are shopping at a name brand retailer – Bloomingdales, Target, Walmart, Neiman Marcus, JCrew, Saks, Victoria’s Secret,etc – you will find a coupon!   Take a moment to shop around and guarantee yourself some savings.

And you thought clipping coupons was something your Grandmother did – get with the times!

The Relative Market Value of the Item ≑ The Number of Wears Per Year = The Expected Rate of Return on Clothing Assets

Look at it like this, most of us have, at a minimum, a few items we regret purchasing. You know, those items you haven’t worn because: (i) it looked better on the hanger in the store than it does in your closet; (ii) you thought you’d lose that 5 pounds you needed to in order for it to fit properly, or (iii) you bought it in a pinch because you didn’t have something to wear, you wore it one time and each time you reach for it you put it back because you just don’t love it … So, let’s say you’re in the process of dusting your resume off and your old interview suit as well. If your old interview suit doesn’t make you feel like a million bucks, you may want to consider buying a new one that does – think of it as an investment in your future. Now, its time to do the math. If the suit is on sale for $600 and you wear it 10 times in the next year (let’s say you wear it to 4 interviews, a Bar Mitzvah, 2 luncheons, and to work 3 times because you did get that new job), the suit only ends up costing you $60 per wear. That’s as much as you spend on Starbucks in a two-week time span …  Think it over while you sip that latte.