Looking for ways to save money? Look no further than your bathroom, linen, and bedroom cupboards! Everyone has heaps of toiletry products. You probably have piles of lotions, perfumes, gels and creams that have never or only partially been used. Well use them now! I bet that there's no need for you to buy anything new for a long while. Here are some tips for organising and making the most of your toiletry products:
- Go through all of the locations that you store products... bathroom, shower, linen cupboard, bedroom wardrobes, etc.
- Gather everything into one work space, ie the lounge room floor, or the dining room table.
- Sort products into categories as follows:
1. Keeping - further sort into like item categories, ie all face cream together, all makeup together.
2. Throw out - you can combine the 3 bottles of shampoo that have only 2 cms of shampoo left, all into one bottle. Recycle the empty bottles. If you can't stand the shampoo, send it right to the recycle bin. Throw out anything that you haven't used in months.
Take a look at what you have in your shower. Throw away empty bottles of shampoo or shower gel and bits of soap. Look at each item and ask yourself if you will use it in the next week.
Throw out any makeup product that is past its shelf life. For example, mascaras should only be used for six months and nail polishes become gluggy and unusable after a few months.
3. Give Away - this category is for items that are unused, never opened, and you won't ever use. If they are mostly full, you can put them in a swap category and have a swap party with your friends. Do you have products such as perfume or bath gel, that were gifts? If you don't like the fragrance or never take baths, put them into this category.
Many women's shelters or charities would gladly take unwanted beauty products, soap, shampoo. Just be sure the items are unopened and unused.
Make sure to BRING them to the charity!
- Put the products that you will use immediately into accessible locations, such as the shower or on your bathroom countertop. Use small plastic baskets for sorting in drawers and pretty baskets or boxes on the countertops. Label everything!
- Put your backup stock - the stuff you do use, but you have 3 bottles of the same thing into a plastic container...label it as "backup toiletry products" or "extra bath products".
- Always shop your "extras" container before going shopping. Do not buy products on a whim, always plan for buying them.
- Try the practise of when you are attracted toa product, to try a bit on your skin, smell it, and make a note that if you want it in a week, you will buy it them. Often this experience will be enough for you.
- You probably have a stockpile of samples from hotels or promotions that you are saving for 'another time'. Start using these immediately! They are likely to go bad before you would normally use them and most of the time, these samples are far nicer than any of the products you would normally buy. If you don't want to use them, put them in the Give Away category.
