I’ve always been a neat freak. When I was 11, I took over my own laundry, requiring uniformly white plastic hangers and hung my shirts organized according to the color of the rainbow like I learned in science class.
It didn’t stick forever though. I grew up and moved out. And by my early 20s, I found my neat ways slipping. Instead of neat hung-up clothes, I had a few piles of clean clothes and a few piles of dirty clothes. This was in a time of cheap real estate and my clutter expanded as my square footage did.
And as my clutter expanded so did my credit card statement. I could totally use a new outfit. And why not go check out that new restaurant, it’s not like I wanted to be at home.
My spending and my home was a twin spiral into chaos. As one got worse so did the other. My credit score went from “pretty good” to “deal breaker” to most major financial institutions in a matter of a year.
Way #1 Clutter Hurts You: Not Having an Accurate Inventory
Just like not having a budget is a surefire way to get into financial trouble, not knowing the items you own can cause you to overspend.
For me, it was clothes. The excuses always came easy with clothes because how much is a great new shirt? $40? It’s not like I was buying a new 55’’ television. It was just a few things here and there. I knew I didn’t need another TV, but did I need another pair of black pants? Sure I hadn’t seen my good ones in a while. Maybe they weren’t even that good anymore.
Then I got to the counter and they offered me 20% off if I opened their store card, and I thought of course I want to save money! Enter hundreds of dollars in credit card debt that had interest payments long after the clothes were no longer new.
A big part of credit is the number of new accounts, and let me tell you, that was a major factor in bringing my score down. Since I didn’t know really what I had, I kept opening accounts and kept racking up more and more debt to “build a professional wardrobe.”
Way #2 Clutter Hurts You: Not Having a Home Base
It wasn’t uncommon for the entryway of my house to have a few clothing store bags and a Target bag sitting by the door.
The place was a mess. Unfinished projects that I didn’t “have the time and money to finish” loomed and made me feel bad. There was always a giant pile of mail to go through that I never got around to.
The mail was a big part of the downfall: Hard to know you have a credit card payment due when it’s buried under a pile fliers and ads on the floor. (This was compounded by all the new accounts I was opening up.)
Because of all of this I didn’t want to spend any time at home. So I went back out shopping. By not having a home base, where I knew where stood and liked spending time, the spiral continued.
Way #3 Clutter Hurts You: Not Having a Place to Cook
The turning point for me was picking up the book Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? by Peter Walsh. Throughout my clutter-acquiring time I was steadily gaining weight. Thirty-five pounds later a very brave friend recommended it.
By not having an organized kitchen or a house I wanted to be in, I ate out a lot. And that’s expensive on your waistline and your wallet. Credit card statement after credit card statement had charges from everything from fast food joints to sushi restaurants.
Walsh’s book was a breakthrough moment for me. I organized my home, painstakingly, room by room. It wasn’t quite an episode of Hoarders but it was pretty hard.
The root of Walsh’s philosophy is this: in disorganization and in weight gain you have to get to the underlying causes. For me, my cluttered home was making me unhealthy both literally and financially.
4 Fixes to Get on Track
If you’re thinking that these problems sound familiar, don’t worry. I got through it and so can you. Here were my biggest steps towards an organized home, smaller waistline and higher credit score:
Treat your home with the respect your home deserves.
For many of us, our rent or mortgage check is the biggest one we write each month. Reframe it in your mind as a valuable asset worth taking care of. (Because it is.) Clean up after yourself. Put the couch pillows in a nice arrangement at the end of the night. Make it a place when you walk in from work you feel proud to call home.
Always deal with your mail when you bring it in.
For me, that means I only check my mail once a week and I go through it and sort it before allowing myself to sit down. I have a filing system that once a month I audit to make sure everything is paid.
Purge and then organize your closet.
The way to prevent overspending on clothes is a well-organized closet. This means getting rid of the stuff that’s not serving your needs. Trust me, if you still have ill-fitting stuff you don’t like in there, you’ll want to overspend. Over-purge to underspend. Then out the remaining like-items together. When every day you know you have three pairs of black pants to choose from it’s a lot harder to rationalize buying a fourth pair.
Organize your kitchen to make it somewhere you like spending time.
I get it. It can be hard to be excited about a grilled chicken salad, muchless in a messy kitchen where you can’t even find your good knife. By creating a clean, welcoming space within your kitchen eating healthy is much easier. Turns out less really is more.
Now several years later I have a much cleaner home, a much smaller waistline, and a 150 point higher credit score. Cheers to a happy home and a happy life!
