Kitchen - Pt. 2

Things have been progressing slower than I would like. Aside from washing as many dishes as possible, I've only had two days over the past week to further this project. Not having much time to push forward, I started pressuring myself, "okay, I should do this in one big chunk". I imagined how I might tackle it all in one day... then I started to feel overwhelmed. I had to remind myself that small parts move projects along quicker than big tasks do.

Living life in the midst of change is always a bit of a dance - two steps forward, one back. I've also been working on seeing boundaries with family so I can focus on my own priorities. That's harder than doing the actual work, I find.

Focus: Fridge & Coffee Nook Area

We cleaned out our fridge about a week ago, and we still need to go through a lot of food, so I didn't bother with the inside. First, I cleared all the junk we had hanging on the fridge, and arranged the magnets so everything looked neat. Then I cleared off the top of the fridge, cleaning the surface and replacing only the large container boxes (and a couple smaller ones that still have their items in them).

After that, I turned my attention to our current nook table/coffee area, and microwave/toaster set up. My husband has a huge collection of coffee that we are going to be working through, and a while ago I gave him a large basket to store the one-pound bags in. On top of that collection is a bag of vitamins and medicine that we haven't found a home for.

The biggest issue with the microwave/toaster area is that we have no counter space to set down plates when we are using these devices for food prep. It's lead to some interesting dinner prep balancing acts. 

Along with these areas, we also have a display case, that I had been storing in the kitchen. I got it for free at my parents storage unit, in a drop area where people leave things they don't want to keep. Because it's skinny, I knew it would fit well in our apartment, but up till now I wasn't sure how to incorporate it. 

I decided to put all the coffee bags in there, clearing out  the basket, and im very pleased with the result. There was enough space to put the coffee maker on the same table, getting it off our nook, and a little room on the front edge for coffee mugs when preparing our drinks. 

I then decided to turn our nook table, pulling it out from the wall, to give us more table space. Placing the microwave and toaster oven at the wall, we have more table space and the option to pop up both leaf's for a full table if needed.

Due to time and energy, I had to stop there. Leaving the table a bit cluttered and items strewn around the kitchen area. This is sometimes part of working thru spaces though. Especially with all the clutter we're sifting thru, there will be some areas that look messier before they are cleaned up and organized. The mess that comes from cleaning and reorganizing can really give a solid picture of how much extra stuff shouldn't be there. It's all part of the process. 

Financial focus:

Beyond our Minimalist Decluttering, we have begun tracking our finances down to the penny. My plan is to compare the last two months to our spending habits in August. My suspicion is that we can cut our food budget way down, but I'm curious to see if there are other areas we can cut from as well.

I've transitioned to a new day planner. One I purchased this at the end of last year, with blank months to fill in. Since it's a year-long planner, I thought it would line up nicely with the Spend Less Year and other goals o have for the next 52 weeks. 

It has multiple sections for notes and lists, and I'm actually tracking the first 10 days for the first week of August so that I start fresh on a Monday for the following week. I also don't want to waste any pages.

I had initially started traking our spending in the day planner, but it got way too crowded on the page. Moving forward we are going to track everything on a separate pad - just for finances - something we also already have at the house (thanks to my obsession with notebooks and office supplies).

What's new for you...?

I'm curious if anyone out there is doing anything similar to my project. Are you working on anything long-term? What's your approach? Please comment below!