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Everywhere you look, there are products for body cleansing, colon cleansing, sinus cleansing, etc.  Search online or at your local Target® or Walmart®!  There is a cleanse for every part of you!  But are they safe and worth the money?

They prolly' won't kill ya' foot-in-mouth

The simple fact of the matter is that few detox products, diets or plans are significantly beneficial.  Most won't put you in the hospital and the majority aren't going to break the bank. 

As someone with a limited budget and a known skeptic, I trust my body with the job to purge, as needed.  If there is a reason to suspect my body has fallen asleep on the job, I'm confident a medical professional can make some suggestions that won't lead me to 1-800-DTOX-R-US.

Much of our well-being depends on our surroundings

The whole thing got me thinking.  My body is a living organism.  It runs best when I maintain good health and wellness.  When I don't, it usually lets me know. 

But my refrigerator, garage, basement, and other living areas of my home are pretty dumb.  Some areas are clean, some beautifully decorated and some not so much.

While my home runs best when well maintained, it's still completely reliant on my family to keep its contents under control.  If it needs a "cleanse", "detox" or "purge", it's up to us.

The simple fact of the matter is that as a typical American homeowner, my cup runneth over

I'm busy.  Work, kids, gym, friends, health, dating, and then housecleaning somewhere along the way.

As I said earlier, my home simply knows no better though if it could talk, it too would have some choice words for me as a homeowner that are a little more colorful than "dumb". 

It needs some attention!

No time like the present

It's time for Spring Cleaning!   But, this year, I went further than under the fridge, behind the couch and steam cleaning carpets.  I gave my house a Spring Cleanse and you can too!  It provides a profound sense of accomplishment and uplift in mood.  It improves your household functionality and has the potential to save money!

My goal is to do this every season or more depending on how much I overbuy, overspend, poorly plan, purchase crap, forget to return stuff and have a fridge and freezer too full for this week's groceries cause its stuffed with a food I don't eat.  In most cases, healthy stuff that looked or sounded better than it was when I opened it. 

One new KETO diet or smoothie cleanse and most people can totally relate to my dilemma.

I decided it was time for a house cleanse!   I focused on three areas and plan to do this every 3-months. I started with the kitchen, then moved onto the bathroom, then bedroom closets and teenagers' floors (if you have teens, you understand).

Second-Hand Food

I'm a penny pincher and living paycheck to paycheck.  I'm trying to pay off my debt, so I cut back on some things, reorganized my debt, and picked up a side hustle.  But, still, with my lofty goals to utilize my overage for debts, I still had little in my budget for gas and food.

I looked in my freezer and saw the same old ice cream, chicken, pork, lean cuisine, waffles, and bread.  My fridge, not much different. 

My pantry?  Filled with power bars, waffle mix, half-eaten KETO stuff, taco shells and more.   If there was a goodwill for leftovers, I'd have quite the write-off for large donations. 

Since there isn't, I'll need to save my money another way.

Skip the pitch; waste less and save more.

Last week, I vowed not to go to the grocery store altogether and guess what.  We didn't starve. Seriously.  Nobody really noticed the difference in food, even me.  I found stuff I totally forgot I purchased.  While some things absolutely needed to be pitched, a good deal of food was ready to be made or remade. 

I checked "use-by" dates and then cooked, baked, and opened boxes of food of yesterweek and before. 

With a little creativity, I made things appetizing once again.  It was food I may have otherwise pitched in the coming months or weeks.  We had brownies, pork fried rice, chicken fettuccine, pork carnitas, oatmeal, oatmeal cookies and more. 

I stretched the meat by making dishes like fried rice and carnitas that required less meat because it was cut into small pieces or shredded.  I got creative with the other items I included when serving and my family ate it up!

I finished off the power bars that weren't as tasty as they looked on the box by taking them and rice cakes to work for a midday snack.  I realized that when you are hungry at work, rice cakes and power bars look and taste good around 2pm.  This kept me from dropping about $8 in the vending machine that week.

Purge Kitchen Mission Complete

By weeks end, I could see the back of the fridge, now filled with mostly staple items, it was ready for a normal grocery week.  I felt good that I didn't throw tasty food away and saved $129 total all week by skipping the grocery store, vending machines, and having my kids brown bag their lunches.  

Bathrooms Await

Next up, bathrooms.  That means, half opened bottles of who knows what ready to be used or pitched. Honestly, health & beauty items are what really got me thinking in the first place. 

I ran into the local Walmart recently to get a few cosmetics I frequently use.  As I was there, I started to fill my cart with other items that added up to $50.  I wasn't surprised, but then thought of my debt and how I would feel if I could add $30 to it rather than buy these extra health & beauty items (which did not include a cleansing kit btw).  So, I put everything back except the items I originally planned to purchase which were about $20.

I went home and opened my bathroom closet where I kept all my unwanted health & beauty items.  Guess what I found!?  I found four of the five items I was going to buy at Walmart.    They weren't the exact items and while they were old enough that I completely forgot I had them, they weren't expired.  

I placed them in my line-up of commonly used cosmetics, and they were new to me, once again.  They were perfume, body lotion, nail polish and nail polish remover. They saved me $30 and really were no better or worse than what I would have purchased.

Once I found the items in my bathroom closet of misfit cosmetics, I went ahead and started the cleanse.  I eventually added a bunch of stuff to our daily items.  I found an unopened bottle of kid's shampoo that I didn't mind using up even if my teenagers were too cool to use it anymore.  I found a nail kit, self-tanner, tons of hand and body lotion and more!

All our bathroom closets, medicine cabinets and vanities were cleansed.  I threw away a bunch of expired cosmetics and old OTC medicines.  But I felt good that so many other items were still useful. 

It was as much fun for me to go through stuff I forgot I had as it was to stroll the aisles at the store!  Try it. It's free and super therapeutic!  

Adding it all up, including the $30 from my recent trip, I saved about $98 on all the stuff my family and I could use and then avoid buying in the coming weeks.

One hundred hangers

What can I say, I'm a clothes horse and my daughters are clothes ponies.  My closet and their floors are proof.  So, this had to be a group effort.  My goal was small on this first purge.  I asked them to locate twenty-five items each that we could sell to a resale shop, donate, or pitch.  I vowed to pull one hundred hangers.  I mean really, none of theirs were on hangers.  But each of us needed to gather twenty-five items.  Each article of clothing needed to be washed and on hangers in the laundry room by the weekend.  No excuses.  

It was a bit harder for me than I thought.  I found twenty-five items right away, then after looking at them, some looked good to me.  Interesting as it was, trying on something that hung in my closet for ten years was a bit depressing.  I didn't gain that much, but the fit was all wrong.  My body changed quite a bit and remembering how well these items looked on me before, it inspired me to make it to the gym a little more than twice a week and buy some power bars. 

What!? surprised Then I realized, am I doing it again?

So, this time, after I finally let go of my twenty-five items of the past, I signed up for free Palates and cardio classes at the gym instead of continuing to do the same workout on the treadmill.  I met new people and burned my flab right off.  It's fun and something I look forward to rather than dread at the end of a long day.

Took out one hundred, added twelve

I don't regret purging a few things I liked that may fit again one day because I'm recently divorced, and my primary mission is to move forward in my life.  I'm ready to let go of what might fit someday for something that fits today. 

We each made room for a few new, yet gently used items from Plato's Closet where we sold most of the old stuff.  We donated most of the rest of the clothes and I got a $200 tax write off.  

Despite buying a few items, we made about $56 from Plato's Closet.  That, along with the write-off, made our mission a successful one.

We did it!

The total monetary gain here was $215 which was applied to my highest interest credit card.  It's a great feeling to know we squeezed that money out of stuff around the house.  The house is cleansed, and the entire process has fostered my renewed sense of value. 

Where you start, how you purge is up to you

Now it's your turn.  Start with a kitchen drawer, vanity, or desk if my suggestions are too much.  Even a small cleanse will turn up items you forgot you had and give you a profound sense of accomplishment. Your household will slowly run more smoothly, and your home will be forever grateful!

-OurDMK.com


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