In the previous blog post, I challenged you to organize your space in the next 30 days. I also introduced the possibility of being completely organized in one month. How? By spending less than 60 minutes a day organizing your stuff for 30 days. Did you take on the challenge? How organized are you after the first 14 days? Do tell (in the comments below). Organizing your space yields great personal satisfaction. So keep going. Work through the next 16 days listed below to reach that personally satisfying state of accomplishment called “organized.” It will be worth it!

Organized in Less Than an Hour a Day: the Last 16 Days

Take the time to put your plan to get organized into action every day for another 16 days, and you’ll be organized by month’s end. Here are the next 16 steps, one step per day, for less than an hour a day, to reach a personally-satisfying goal.

Organized in the Living Room

Day 15. Gift or Donate Stuff on Your Shelves

Knickknacks, books, and stuff you’ve compiled over the years are probably taking up valuable space on shelves in your home. Donate those books you’ll never read to the library. Get rid of what doesn’t absolutely delight you. Now arrange the few items that do bring joy in ways you’ll love to look at every day.

Day 16. Control Your Cables

Tame the maze of cables behind your entertainment center. It’s easy to do. First, create ID tags made from bread wrapper tags or cable ties for each plug. Then, bundle the mayhem with Velcro strips or run them inside a heavy-duty paper roll center from newspaper end rolls. You could even paint it black to match the cables. Corrugated wire looms are a great idea, too.

Day 17. Switch Your Hangers

Slim hangers that grab your clothes well use less space and keep your clothes on the hangers. It’s worth switching all those bulky hangers to skinnier ones. And while you’re at it, go ahead and pitch or donate the clothes you haven’t worn in a year.

Day 18. Give Your Accessories a Place

Belts, scarves, purses, and hats organize well in bins or clear, stackable boxes with lids. If your belts and scarves have a home in a drawer, you can roll them up and organize them in a drawer lined with dividers. A simple series of hooks will work well, too.

Day 19. Claim the Space Under Your Bed

Storing out-of-season clothing under your bed is ideal. But when you’re not wearing those clothes when they are in season, it’s time to donate them. How much storage space can you claim by booting those old clothes out from under the bed?

Organized in Your Office

Day 20. Declutter Your Workspace

When my workspace has too many things in addition to my to-do list, my thinking gets cluttered. A workspace with minimal items on it helps me gain clarity and allows me to focus on the task at hand.

Day 21. Feed the Shredder

Make sure you’re not wasting space with years of old paperwork. Shred all that is over seven years old. Consider digitizing paperwork to create more space. And don’t just throw your old paperwork in the trash. Shred them to ward off would-be identity thieves.

Day 22. Organize Your Files

Once you’ve shredded all your old paperwork, tidy up your files. It’s the perfect time to do so. Organize and label them clearly. Use colorful folders to help you organize them by theme.

Day 23. Free Up the Drawer Full of Electronic Stuff

Do you own a drawer full of black cords you have no idea what they are for? Does it contain chargers and oddball electronic things, too? Take the mystery out of it and pair the items with what they work with IF you still have what they work with. Otherwise, throw them away. Why let dead and useless stuff take up valuable space?

Organized in Your Bathroom

Day 24. Throw Out Expired Personal Care Stuff

Check for expiration dates on cosmetics, skin care products, medicines, and even hair care products. If they’ve expired, throw them out.

Day 25. Claim Space Under the Sink

Because most of the items that end up under the sink are out of sight, they go out of mind. Pull out everything. Discover cleaners, tools, and gadgets that are still useful and use them. If they’re not useful or you can’t figure out why they were saved, discard them. And when you put what is still useful back under the sink, put it all into bins. It will be easier to take out and put away your under-the-sink stuff.

Day 26. Hang a Shelf

Mom always told me, “Get it off the counter and onto the wall.” There is lots of storage space on a wall that is often overlooked. If there is space for a shelf, and a shelf would solve a storage problem, by all means, hang a shelf there. I like the idea of hanging a ladder with wire baskets hooked on the rungs over the toilet for storing toilet paper, guest items, towels, washrags, and such.

Day 27. Reduce the Number of Towels and Linens

There are the towels you use every day and the towels you use for soaking up spills and cleaning the car. But how many of those old towels and rags do you really need? Donate most, if not all, to a local animal shelter and throw the really bad ones away. Same goes for pillowcases, napkins, dishtowels, pot holders, and such.

Organized in a Closet

Day 28. Install a Shoe Organizer

Hanging shoe organizers solve more than just shoe storage problems in a closet. Scarves, mittens, cleaning supplies, craft supplies are just a few of the things a shoe organizer can be good for. You can even cut them to custom-fit inside a cabinet door.

Organized in Your Garage (if you have one)

Day 29. Organize Your Tools

Finding the right tool for the right job should be a “piece of cake.” Wasting time looking for a hammer or the right screwdriver is frustrating. Arrange your tools on a pegboard and always put them back in their original spot.

Day 30. Enjoy Your Organized Space!

Now, sit down with your favorite beverage and ponder on what you have accomplished to get and be organized! As you put everything you use back in their places after each use, you’ll find that cleaning is actually easier to do. You’ll also find more time to plan and paint your bedroom or sew curtains for the kitchen window and door or do a bit of landscaping or ….

Space in your brownstone or studio apartment is a precious commodity. Make the most of it. Purge, sort, organize your space and keep it that way.

Organized space helps potential buyers fall in love with your place when selling. If you’re ready to enter the real estate market and list your home, contact Charles D’Alessandro, your Brooklyn Real Estate Agent with Fillmore Real Estate. Call (718) 253-9600 ext.206 or email [email protected] today.

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 Charles D’Alessandro

Your Brooklyn Real Estate Agent

718-253-9600 ext. 206

[email protected]

I challenge you to organize your space in the next 30 days! Organizing the place you call home is an action-packed self-improvement project that yields great personal satisfaction. But how do you move past the feeling of overwhelm and what feels like an insurmountable undertaking? In order to organize your space, you actually need to first organize a plan. For without a plan, you won’t reach that personally satisfying state of accomplishment called “organized.”

Organize Your Space in Less Than an Hour a Day

Say what? Organize your space in less than 60 minutes a day? Uh huh. And when you take the time to put your plan into action every day for less than 60 minutes every day, you’ll be organized in less than a month, too. “How,” you ask? With this 30-day or 30-step plan.

Organize Your Space in 30 Days: the First 14 Days

Day 1. Just Begin

Eat the frog first. Start with whatever it is that annoys or stresses you most. Tackle that paper pile in your office, no matter where it landed. Get rid of or put away the pile of clothes on your bedroom floor. And all that “stuff” on your counter in the kitchen? Pick up just one item, and put it in its place. Then, move to the next item. It’s amazing how simply starting on what feels so overwhelming will set you in motion on a path to completion.

Day 2. Create a Give Away Box

Put everything you want to move out of the house in a “give away” box. And set it by the door. As you come across items you wouldn’t miss “if you lost it in a fire,” put them in that box. Once it’s full, donate everything in that box to a friend or places like Goodwill and Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center here in Brooklyn.

Day 3. Make Holidays Happy

You might have decorations for every holiday. After you decorate for the next holiday, donate anything you didn’t decorate with, and separate the rest of your decorations by holiday. Then, sort the decorations for each holiday in their own clear, stackable box. When it’s time to decorate for the next holiday, you won’t waste time or energy digging through your 4^th of July decorations to find your Halloween decorations. Plus, your decorations won’t get tattered, dinked, crumpled, or worn as quickly either.

Day 4. Take Command of Your Entryway

Set up a “command center” at the door your family uses to come and go. Add hooks for coats, bins for shoes, and a mail sorter. Without hooks, bins, or a place to sort everyone’s mail, everything will “land” on the nearest flat spot available. Oh, and don’t forget to save a spot for your give away box.

Day 5. Put Your Pet’s Things in Convenient Places

It makes sense to put leashes, sweaters, water bottle/bowl, doggie waste bags, and other outside activity items in a bin conveniently near the front door. It also makes sense to put your pet’s dishes, treats, and food in their own convenient spot in the room where you feed them.

Organize Your Space in the Kitchen

Day 6. Organize the Spice Rack

Choose to arrange your herbs and spices in one of three ways: alphabetically, by cuisine, or by brand. Whatever works best for you or makes the best sense to you while you’re baking or cooking determines the arranging.

Day 7. Eliminate Unused or Unnecessary Utensils

The longer you’re married or on your own, the more utensils a body seems to acquire. Some are god-sends, and you use them all a lot But do you really need to create space for four of them?! I can’t imagine using fewer than two spatulas or sets of measuring spoons, but four can openers? If you can pare down your kitchen utensils to one or two of each, do. Then organize what’s left with drawer dividers.

Day 8. Organize Your Pots, Pans, and Lids

I speak from experience on this one. Digging around in a pile for the right lid is annoying, inefficient, and very noisy, especially when they fall. If you have pots or pans that you hardly ever or almost never use, donate them. Purchase and install cupboard organizers, like these for lids, to manage the rest.

Day 9. Check Expiration Dates

How often do you use figs or dates? Once a year? What about anchovy paste? Check the expiration dates on whatever is sitting in your refrigerator, freezer, or in your pantry. If it’s expired, pitch it. And when you need it for that annual dish you prepare, buy just enough to use for the recipe and throw the rest away.

Day 10. Sort and Stack Your Staples

Your pantry would be put to better use with airtight, stackable containers. Sort your flour, sugar, pasta, oatmeal, dry beans, rice, noodles, and other staple dry goods. Then put them in containers that are stackable. They’ll be much easier to retrieve when needed, and you’ll be pleased with the added space you now have.

Day 11. Get Rid of Unnecessary Kitchen Gadgets

Yes, that spiralizer. I have one, and I never use it. Maybe if I enjoyed eating zucchini noodles … I’m going to give mine to someone else who needs to discover why they don’t need one either.

Day 12. Just Say No to Another Coffee Mug

I have a coffee mug fetish. I collect them, on purpose. You can only use so many mugs at a time, right? Like how many times do you entertain coffee or tea drinkers 30 at a time? Keep one or two mugs per coffee or tea drinker in your family, and either donate or pack the rest. I like to change them out once a year.

Day 13. Pair Food Storage Containers with Lids

If you’ve got a container that has no lid, toss it. And if you have any lids that have no container to use with them, toss them, too.

Day 14. Organize Your Junk Drawer

Junk drawers are a necessary evil, and they exist in more than the kitchen. But wherever it is, why not organize it? How? Dump all of its contents onto a sheet in the floor. Then sort everything into piles. Add some drawer dividers to the drawer and place each pile in its own spot in the drawer.

Now that you’ve reached day 14, take time to think on what you accomplished. Wow! And there are only 16 days left to completely organize your space! Don’t let what you’ve done “go to pot,” as some say. If you use it, put it away. You are creating a place for everything, so put whatever you use back in its place. Space in your brownstone or studio apartment is a precious commodity. Make the most of it. Purge, sort, organize your space and keep it that way.

Organize your space and help potential buyers fall in love with your place. If you’re ready to enter the real estate market and list your home, contact Charles D’Alessandro, your Brooklyn Real Estate Agent with Fillmore Real Estate. Call (718) 253-9600 ext.206 or email [email protected] today.

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 Charles D’Alessandro

Your Brooklyn Real Estate Agent

718-253-9600 ext. 206

[email protected]

America, we’re getting older. Those of us born in the USA after World War II and before 1964 (ages 51-69 respectively) are known as Baby Boomers, and we’re nearing retirement. Are you financially prepared to get to retirement or through retirement? Is there a chance you will not get through retirement because you are not financially prepared to do so? It’s time we evaluate our fiscal health.

None of us knows what’s ahead in the next 1, 5 or 10 years, but there are ways to prepare financially to get us through retirement One of the best ways to ensure your money lasts through retirement is to plan on living longer than you think. Here are four ways for Baby Boomers nearing retirement to get financially prepared:

Reduce Your Expenses and Get Rid of Debt

Take charge of your spending. It’s important to create a budget that you can stick to now in case your income is reduced in the future. If you’re looking for ways to save money, look here: Federal Citizen Information Center.

Stop Self-Investing and Go Pro Instead

The pros can manage a lot of money cheaply. How?

• Their costs to do what they do for their clients are at an institutional rate
• They get lower commissions on buying/selling securities
• They can manage money for a lot less

Your 401(k) and IRA returns can amount to little because money managers charge you “retail” and overcharge for their commissions for sales, management and securities. Costs matter. Find the lowest-cost provider in every retirement fund you have, particularly in your 401(k) if you have one.

Add to Your Income-Producing Investments

Take a look at your investment portfolio. Is it heavy on the stock funds side?  If so, now is a good time to increase the percentage of bond funds or other investments that are designed to provide a steady income for you throughout retirement. Ask your financial pro to review your money distributions.

Invest in Real Estate to be Financially Prepared for Retirement

Real estate is a secure investment, and homeownership is critical in building wealth and financial security over time. That’s important when planning your retirement. Owning is much wiser than supporting a landlord financially and having no equity to show for any of it. Homes appreciate. Owning is far superior to renting because it locks in your housing costs and over time your real costs decline.

In the past two years, home prices have increased more per year than the 4% average that rents have risen per year. And homeownership comes with valuable tax benefits, too.

If you don’t own a home, consider purchasing one. Real estate is a secure investment to use as your retirement fund.

Take advantage of the great real estate market situation. Brooklyn real estate is at an all-time high, but we don’t know for how long.

The bottom line

Because we are nearing retirement, don’t take unnecessary risks to get financially prepared. There is no wisdom in trying to recover losses we may have incurred by putting even more money in risky investments. We will need that money for living expenses throughout our retirement.

But do get financially prepared for your retirement now. Save with purpose and intensity, invest wisely and take advantage of the benefits of today’s great real estate market.

Are you financially prepared for retirement? Are you ready to downsize and simplify as you near retirement? Is it time to sell your real estate investment? Get the help of real estate agent Charles D’Alessandro, your Brooklyn real estate agent with Fillmore Real Estate. Call (718) 253-9700 ext. 206 or email him at [email protected] today!

As a Baby Boomer, chances are you have had to come to terms with one or more of the following by now:

• Your home has become too big. You’re an Empty Nester now and no longer need 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Cleaning rooms you no longer use or need just isn’t practical.
• You want to downsize your home maintenance. Lawn care and maintenance of your home’s exterior is overwhelming and burdensome.
• You’ve retired. You need a new and more manageable lifestyle.
• Your neighborhood is deteriorating. You are concerned about safety.
• Stairs in your home, if you have them, have become hard to navigate.
• Cash is needed, but your assets are tied up in your home.
• You no longer drive. The availability of adequate transportation is a must.

Whatever the reason, choosing to move or not to move in Brooklyn takes a lot of planning. Moving is always stressful, but if you do your homework and know what to expect before deciding to move in Brooklyn, you’ll be happy with your new location.

There is a wide variety of independent living options available to you:

• retirement homes or retirement communities
• low-income or subsidized senior housing
• 55+ or 62+ communities
• senior apartments or congregate care housing
• Continuing Care Retirement Communities
• Active adult communities

Ask yourself these questions about each independent living option listed above before you make a move in Brooklyn:

1. Will I have common interests with my neighbors or other residents?
2. Are the people that will be around me friendly and helpful?
3. Are support services timely?
4. Is this move going to take me farther away from friends and family than I want to be?
5. How active is the community? What kinds of activities are offered?
6. How large is this community?
7. Is medical care available at the facility? If not, is a medical care facility nearby?
8. What amenities and services are included? If none are included, how much does it cost to add on services if I need or choose to want them later? Are the amenities and services outside of the facility within walking distance or is transportation needed?
9. What is the climate like here?
10. Do you feel safe coming and going at any time of day in this community?
11. Are pets welcome?
12. Can I comfortably handle the initial investment and monthly fees?

Moving is a major life change that can be tough to do. Feelings of anger, embarrassment, regret, grief for the loss of your home and memories of the old neighborhood, vulnerability, anxiousness, loss of control, longing for the way it used to be, are normal. It’s okay to admit that you are not as independent as you once were. It’s time to reach out to those you trust for support.

Give yourself time to mourn what once was and to adjust to your new home and living environment. A new chapter in your life has opened up. Look forward to and enjoy new experiences and relationships. Explore new interests, too.

To move or not to move in Brooklyn? For help with the answer to that question, call your Brooklyn Realtor, Charles D’Alessandro Your Brooklyn real estate agent with Fillmore Real Estate, at (718) 253-9600 ext 206 or email [email protected] today. You can trust me to sell your home for the best possible price and find the perfect independent living home for you.

More help for independent living for seniors:

• Senior Housing Options: Making the Best Senior Living Choices
• Assisted Living Facilities: Tips for Choosing a Facility and Making the Transition
• Home Care Services for Seniors: Services to Help You Stay at Home

 

Article Resource for this post:

http://www.seniorresource.com/house.htm

by Charles D’Alessandro | Leave a Comment

What is downsizing? It is the concept of living simpler, utilizing space to its fullest. It is having fewer financial burdens, living in a home that requires minimal maintenance. It is getting rid of excess stuff that has been accumulated over time and paring down to basic essentials. After all, how much stuff do we really need to live a normal life? How much living space do we really need? There’s a trendy movement among us called micro-living. Fans of micro-living swear by it, and they are encouraging others in Brooklyn to start thinking big by living small.

Many people live beyond their means and accumulate stuff over time. Living beyond your means creates one or more of the following realities in day-to-day life that must be dealt with, sooner than later:

• Excessive debt
• Too much stuff
• Debilitating stress

Enter the desire for change, the desire for simplicity, the desire for downsizing. Downsizing in Brooklyn can be stressful, but the benefits listed below far outweigh the negatives. Advocates of micro-living say downsizing will:

• Increase cash flow
• Provide more time
• Lower utility bills
• Reduce consumption
• Minimize stress

Downsizing in Brooklyn requires:

• Assessing your actual needs
• Prioritizing needs versus wants
• Getting rid of clutter. (If you don’t need or use an item within 6 months, give, sell or throw it away). (When you come across boxes of items that haven’t seen the light of day for years, get rid of them at once. You don’t need them).
• Donating electronics and furniture
• Moving to within walking distance of work, grocery shopping and downtown amenities

Once your downsizing in Brooklyn is complete, try to stay organized. Be ruthless about what enters your space. Then, relax and enjoy surrounding yourself with only those things that are truly most important to you. You’ll be able to rest a little easier knowing that a move to living a simpler life will be smoother, too.

And, of course, your Brooklyn area real estate agent, Charles D’Alessandro, your Brooklyn real estate agent with Fillmore Real Estate, knows where the smaller and good-quality houses are. I will find you just the right location to meet your needs for downsizing in Brooklyn. Contact me by email at [email protected] or by phone at (718) 253-9600 ext. 206 today.