Budgeting Space

Money
If you ask, read, or listen to any financial expert, they will likely tell you that the key to financial stability is to live within your means. This means that you cannot spend more than you make. They key to becoming wealthy is living well below your means. Most experts recommend something similar to the 10/10/80 rule.

They usually recommend giving 10% of your income to charity. This can be to a religious organization, an organized charity of your choice, or to homeless people on the street. It doesn't matter who you give it to, 10% should be gifted to others.

The next 10% should be saved. Gifted to yourself to use for retirement or an emergency.

Then the tricky task is to fit your living expenses into the remaining 80% of your income.

Space
Organizing gurus will give you a very similar statistic. For a storage space to be functional, it should not be more than 80% full. This applies to bookshelves, pantries, cupboards, filing cabinets, closets, toy bins, drawers, garages, and anything which needs to be accessed. Some long-term storage bins or boxes can often be packed to capacity because they will hold up better if the contents of the container are supporting the sides and top, but the majority of spaces should be no more than 80% full.

Setting the Budget
While it might be nice to have a limitless income, and limitless space, the fact is that we don't. Increasing our income might help us spend within our means, but often it simply increases our spending. Likewise, increasing the space we have available might help us fit all our junk in while still feeling spacious, but often it allows us to accumulate more junk.

Just as God has given us different incomes, He has also blessed us with different size homes. But we all need to work with the resources we have been blessed with. So, we work on setting limits for ourselves within the finite boundaries of the space we have.

Define a Space
This is similar to breaking down your budget into categories such as "groceries," "entertainment," and "auto."

I currently have 3 file drawers. I actually have a couple of drawers that I could potentially use as file drawers if I needed to, but I have decided that 3 enough. These drawers hold 1)Finances & other Important Documents (such as copies of government identification and medical information), 2)Instructions & Warranties (including the owner's manuals for most appliances and gadgets), and 3)General Reference. The general reference drawer is where I put all those random papers that I think I might use or reference in the future, but I don't need right now (like the article I found from my college days on teaching teens about chastity).

Don't Exceed 80% of Capacity
Just as we rein in our spending when we are getting closer to the end of the month, we need to purge before we exceed our budgeted space.

When these drawers start to get tight, and it is difficult to pull files or papers out of them without others coming along for the ride, I've more than exceeded the 80% rule, and it's time to dejunk. Most of the time, this simply involves me flipping through a few files and tossing (often shredding) paperwork I no longer need. Like the instructions & warranty for the curling iron I got rid of a year before because it broke and I replaced it.

Shift if Needed
Sometimes we realize we didn't originally budget enough in "groceries," but we gave ourselves too much space in "entertainment." Then we make a shift.

Occasionally, I can't get rid of enough with just tossing things I don't need. So far, this has only happened with the Financial bin. In that case, I can still get the drawer back to the 80% rule by moving some of the files out of the bin. With finances, there are often documents I need to keep, but don't actually need to get into on a frequent basis. These include documents from previous employers (like the receipt that proves my husband returned the company issued laptop before he left), previous tax returns, and other accounts that have been closed, but it's better to be safe and hang onto some of the documentation. These "dead files" are moved to a long-term storage space, and my drawer is back to 80% or less (since I will be adding to it as I use it).

Keep the Overall Budget
Just shifting the "stuff" doesn't fix everything though. When my long-term storage space gets too full to neatly stack the boxes, or access things I need... it's time to dejunk that.

Each and every space should be kept less than 80% full for maximum efficiency.

Theory in Practice
Later this week I'll do a demonstration type post with before and after pictures of an area or two that I'm currently working on. But tomorrow's post will be the Toy Rotation!