January 4th, 2012 
Jessica I was recently inspired by the Money Saving Mom’s Budget to get my home organized. Although anyone who knows me could tell you that I am very organized person, I have my limits. I’ve moved so many times that I often give the wrong address, state, and zip-code, so you can imagine that some aspects of my life have become a bit disorganized. As I was looking for a recipe recently, I found myself digging through a file folder full of loose recipes, some of them copied more than once.
So I decided to organize my recipe folder. I began by sorting the recipes into categories. After looking over my piles (which by then covered the entire kitchen counter) I decided that I needed something to hold them. I thought about gluing them to pages and putting them into a binder, but then settled on the simpler (if only temporary) solution of using envelopes.
As you can see, I opened the top flap of the envelope and labeled it with a pen. Then I put them in an order that made sense to me. When I was done, I slid them back in the file folder. You would not believe how much easier it is for me to find the recipes I need now! I am very pleased with this system. Although I will probably outgrow it eventually, it works perfectly today.
Do you have any frugal organizing tips for your kitchen clutter?
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When I was growing up, my dad used to do this with coupons. He used the return envelopes (the ones with postage prepaid) from his bills that he didn’t need. Nowadays, I would imagine that people have more since the advent of bill pay.
For my recipes, I use a big wooden recipe box with index card filing tabs. Same idea, but the recipe box holds up the index card for me when I’m cooking (so I don’t get yucky grease or splatters all over it).
That’s what my mother used, but with all our moving I kept everything light-weight. Once I outgrow this method I’ll have to look around for something that holds more. Thanks for the suggestions!
I just redid mine as well. I’ve been struggling for along time to find something that works for me. I think I found it. I am using the colored index cards. Each category is a different color. This also allows me to easily put it back in the right spot j
ust by looking at the color of the card.
That’s a good idea!
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