16. Toss Old Leftovers in the Fridge

Once per week give your refrigerator a once over and toss left overs that are more than 7 days old. No one is going to eat them at that point anyway. This is also a good time to check your produce and get rid of food that is beyond edible.

15. Organize and Store Your Batteries

It is a good idea to organize your batteries so you are able to easily locate the correct size. Proper storage is also essential. Batteries should be stored in a refridgerator or freezer to extend their life. According to Storage magazine, batteries stored a room temperature lose 2% or less of their power annually and 25% of their power if stored in a hot garage.

Gather all of the batteries in the house. Check all the drawers and don't forget to search through the garage. Once you have all of your batteries, you can store the batteries by like size. For example, have a container for size AA, a container for AAA, a container for D and so on. Each container should be labeled with the appropriate size. Use old coin purses, ziploc containers, shoe boxes, or whatever storage you may have on hand.

Another option is to store all the batteries together in a molded container designed for batteries. This can be mounted on the wall or place in a drawer or shelf. The example below was found at The Container Store.

14. Organize Your Cords & Cables

Most people have an abundance of wires, cords and cables that they have collected over the years. They end up in a big ball of mess in a box somewhere in the house. I have a solution to get your mess in order.

1. Gather all of the cords, cables, and wires that are not in use from around the house. 2. Separate by type. 3. Determine what each cord, cable, and wire goes with each electric device you own and label accordingly.

4. Roll up the cord, cable and wire and secure with a twist tie or rubber band. You can purchase custom bundling devices at evriholder.com, 3m.com, cableclamp.com, griptwist.com, velcro.com and containerstore.com.5. Recycle all the remaining pieces. You can try to sell at a garage sale, give them away, or take them to your local Best Buy Store. Best Buy will recycle them properly so they do not end up in the landfill.

13. Organize Your Home Movies

Gather all of you home movie and separate into two piles. Keep and Discard. From the Keep pile, sort them into media types (VHS tapes, 16mm, 8mm, MiniDV, BetaMax, slides etc.) Once separated you can label them by date and store in acid free cardboard boxes. These boxes can be found at local chains like Target, Wal-Mart, IKEA and Container Store. Make sure you label the outside of the box with the contents including dates. Keep the boxes out of light, humidity, and heat. These harsh elements can cause permanent damage to your home movies.

Another option is to have your tapes, slides etc. converted into DVD's. This will make watching home movies much easier than having to pull out your old equipment. There are several companies available that do this type of service. I use Scan Digital, http://scandigital.com/ They are fantastic! I've had several tapes converted to DVD without any problems. The DVD's come back with photo images from the video printed on the DVD case. I love this feature since many home videos contain several events on one tape. I can just glance at the DVD cover to see what is contained on the DVD instead of trying to remember dates.

ScanDigital has offered a 5% discount for my readers. Use coupon code 1826131046 when placing your order online. From the Discard pile you have the option to give to friends/family, donate to your local film school, library or charity or recycle to keep them out of the landfills. Following is a list of recycling options: GreenDisk Freecycle

12. Check The Expiration Date On Your Salad Dressings

Check the expiration date on all the salad dressings in your fridge. Discard expired dressings. Before you trash the bottles, check to see if they can be recycled.

11. Collect Your Change

Instead of emptying your pockets or purse just anywhere in the house, pick a location and stick with it. Place a jar or piggy bank in this spot. When you clean out your pockets, drop your loose change into your jar. Once your jar is full, take it to a local coin counting machine and cash it in for cash. Some banks may even convert your change into cash for free. Deposit this cash into your saving account or spend it on something fun. You would be surprised at how little it takes to get a lot of money. According to CoinStar.com, a 1 gallon container could result in $228.34 in cash. Not bad for a simple task of emptying your pockets in the same spot every time. You will gain some fun money and have a house free of loose change.

10. Purge and Organize Your Undies

Pull all of your underwear out of your drawer. Separate into to piles 1) Purge: This should be a given but you need to purge all undies that are stained, torn, worn out, too big and too small. Give your pile a once over and add anything that is uncomfortable or you haven't worn in over a year. 2) Keep: This pile can then be organized back into your drawer. You can separate by color, style, season, etc. Pick a system that will be easy for you to remember and maintain. If you space is large enough you can place in drawer dividers create sections. Each section will contain a category from your organizational system you created. Good luck!

9. Purge and Organize Your Belts

Locate all the belts in your closet. Separate into 2 categories.

1) Purge: Your purge pile should contain belts that are too small, too worn, or out of style. Are you having trouble purging your belts for fear of needing them in the future. If you haven't worn it in a year, chances are you won't wear them again. Get rid of it.

You can donate the purge pile to your local charity or if you are crafty, you can recycle your belts into cute accessories. I found this video on YouTube on how to make a vintage bracelet.

2) Keep: Your keep pile can be organized back into your wardrobe. Some people like to roll up their belts and place them into drawers. Another option is to hang then onto hooks in your closet. You should organize them by size or color. You can find several hangers for belts online. Find the best option that works for you and your space.

8. Purge & Organize Your T-Shirts

If you are like our family, you have tons of t-shirts. Seems like every new activity comes with a new t-shirt. Join a sports team, get a t-shirt. Run a 5K, get a t-shirt, each grade level in school has their own class t-shirt not to mention the school t-shirt. Time to purge people!

Gather all the t-shirts from your closet and dresser. Pull out t-shirts that have holes, are stretched, stained, or faded. Place these in your dis

card pile.

Now you can go through the t-shirts again and pull out t-shirts that are too small or too big. Place these in your discard pile.

Of the remaining t-shirts, you can once again purge by placing them into a box. When you wear a t-shirt it comes out of the box and stays out of the box. After being washed, fold it and place it back on the shelf or in the dresser. Do not hang t-shirts. This will cause them to be stretched or misshaped.

evisit the t-shirt box in 6 months. The remaining t-shirts can be discarded. Be honest with yourself, if you haven't worn them in 6 months, you probably aren't going to wear it again.

Now, what to do with the discarded t-shirts bes

ides the obvious donation to Goodwill.

You can:

- Make a shopping bag tote.

- Cut up into 1/2" strips to make a weaving project.

- Frame your t-shirt to display the cool graphics on your walls.

- Make a quilt.

- Turn you favorite t-shirt into a pillow.

My favorite idea is to cover my dog on cold winter days.

7. Organize Your Socks

This is a simple task and should only take about 30-minutes to complete. Before you organize your socks, make sure all of your socks are clean. Check the dirty clothes, washer, dryer for any socks that may be hiding.

Start my pulling all of your socks out of the drawer and put into groups:

1) Matched socks: These socks are complete sets that you plan to keep.

2) Unmatched: These socks are singles without a mate. From this pile, go through and try and find matches. Separate again by putting new found matches in the matched socks pile and then place the remaining socks into the discard pile.

3) Discard: This pile contains socks that are loners, have holes, too small, stained etc. You can use the discarded socks as dusters for your furniture, to make dog toys, make hand puppets or donate them to http://www.themismatchedsock.com/

Visit http://www.wikihow.com/Recycle-Your-Socks for more creative recycling ideas.

Once you have purged your socks, place a plastic or cardboard shoe box into your sock drawer to create a divider. Depending on the size of your drawer, multiple boxes can be used. Each section should contain different types of socks: sports, tights, color vs. white....whatever best fits your needs.