Get Your House In Order

Do you find that your life seems chaotic? Can I submit to you the possibility that this may be because you have not yet gotten your house in order? I mean this in both a figurative and literal way.

Figurative:

If you think that there is one man or woman in government or business that can fix all the problems in your life, or even a financial influencer, please wake yourself up and realize that not only can they not fix this situation, but they also tend to make things worse for everyone else.

There is not one charity nor church organization that can take on the responsibility of providing for a community, especially if you live in a large metro area. Caring for those in need starts in your own home and branches outward.

What has God convicted you on that you haven’t been doing but you know you need to be doing? What goals did you once sit down and create but haven’t since thought about? What projects are just sitting around waiting to get knocked out?

Literal:

Have you ever heard the term dostadning? This Swedish term translates to ‘death cleaning’ which is this basic idea that we are all going to one day die and we don’t want to burden our family when we are gone. Do you feel like you have way too much stuff in your house and just visually feel overwhelmed when you look around? This could be a sign that you need to participate in dostadning.

Do you find yourself asking where ‘x,y or z’ is and the resounding answer that comes back is, “Oh, that thing is somewhere.” As a neuro spicy person, I can attest that many of us struggle with having what’s commonly referred to as ‘doom piles’ or ‘chaos zones’ which are just clutches of clutter randomly throughout our home that hasn’t been thoroughly organized and put away.

Once I became a mother, I noticed a habit of feeling incredibly guilty when someone would offer me clothes or toys and I would just take it home and shove it in some random space in my closet. In addition to well-meaning friends giving me things, there was always a gift giving holiday or birthday almost monthly that added to the immense clutter.

When someone offers you something, you should be able to immediately know if you in fact need that item because your house is in order, and you’ll know if your kid needs those 32 pairs of pants and 18 pairs of shoes that your sister-in-law is offering up to you from her child. Do you have a homeschool friend who has just offered you a stack of homeschooling materials? A mother-in-law that insists on buying your toddler a toy on the monthly.

One of the great benefits of getting your house in order is that you can begin to donate anything you don’t need to other families that may be in need of clothes or toys due to various unforeseen circumstances. You could even donate the items to your church or community center for their annual garage sale.

Ask yourself the following questions when considering an item whether it’s given or something you already have in your home:

• Have I used this item in the last 6 months?
• Will I ever use this item ever again?
• Will giving this to someone else make them happy?
• Do I really need more clothing for this child? Or more shoes for them?
• Does this piece of clothing fit me/them anymore?
• Will getting rid of this reduce my chore load?

Preparedness:

If your unable to determine how many boxes of pasta or canned soup you have for SHTF, then you may over buy on one item and under buy on another item. The last thing you want is to have 100 cans of canned beets and 3 cans of tuna fish, unless you really have a need to eat some beets.

If you plan on gardening this season and you don’t know if you have 10 tomato seeds versus 100, you may run into some issues that require you to buy much more expensive plants from garden stores so that your required produce is available for your family.

Financial:

You don’t need to burn the gas to go to play dates, if anything takes the money from the gas you would spend and put that towards the purchase of outdoor equipment for your own yard.

Get rid of any extracurricular activities that cost you money. If your child was advanced enough to understand, they would rather have you tucking away food for an unsteady future versus ballet classes.

Get your bills paid down and if possible, debt paid completely off so no one can put you in any shackles for something you owe them. It’s one thing to need to pay on your house, car and utilities but it’s everything to owe hundreds of dollars on your credit cards.

As we enter a time of uncertainty, you will want as much stability as possible, so please get your house in order.