I know it has been a while since I posted but life kind of got in the way.  Everyone has ups and downs so I won’t bore you with my challenges the past 30 days.  Everything is going better now so it’s time to help you be more organized.

One thing that happened a couple of weeks ago is that my husband borrowed my car and was in an accident with a deer.  My husband didn’t get hurt and the deer ran off.  My car on the other hand wasn’t so lucky.  It’s amazing how much money it costs to fix what looked like moderate damage.  Our estimate came in over $6,000 just to fix the bumper, hood, fender and a little metal underneath.

The insurance company wanted to settle with me for an amount far less than I expected the value of the car to be.  I asked them why they valued my car so low.  They told me that the mileage on it was too high.   I told the adjuster that the engine in my car wasn’t the original one.  We had to replace the engine last year because it wasn’t repairable.  Well, the adjuster wanted proof of the new engine.  I was able to go to my computer and pull up a scanned copy of the receipts for the engine and for the engine installation that showed there was only 43,500 miles on the engine when it was installed.  I have only driven 20,000 miles on the newer engine so my engine really has only 63,500 miles on it.

After reviewing my case the adjuster added $1,000 to the settlement.  Ka-ching!  I am so grateful that I kept the copies of the receipts and was able to find them because I am organized and all of my documents are scanned.  The lesson I learned from this is to keep all my receipts and keep them organized because you never know when they will pay off.

This weekend I will be shopping for a replacement car. Wish me luck!

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photo credit: currybet

I am helping a friend sell some stuff on ebay and Craigslist because her one goal before winter is to be able to fit her car in the garage.  Wow, she has so much stuff in there that only one of their two cars fits in the three car garage.  There are couches, dining room set, exercise bikes, dog crates, a Christmas tree, bicycles, a treadmill and just mountains of stuff.  You should have seen us.  We pulled everything out into the driveway after work last night to try to get the big stuff out and take pictures so we could list it online.  Her neighbors kept stopping by and wanted to know if she was having a garage sale this weekend.  The actually thought she was starting on Tuesday to get ready for Saturday.  It is so much stuff but a garage sale is not in her plans.

We managed to get the photos we needed before it got dark and got everything put back (tossed) in the garage.  We then went over to the local Home Depot and picked up some shelves and big hooks so she can hang the bicycles up on the ceiling when they aren’t in use.  I figure that even if we sell everything, she has hours of fun ahead of her to get everything she is keeping put away.

I am luckier than most since my husband built two large connected garages that are larger in square footage than our house.  I found that the best way to keep them organized is to use all available space from the floor to the ceiling.  We have pallet racks in our garage now that go almost all the way up to the 18 foot ceilings.

At our last house we had a standard three car garage and we put in retail shelves, the kind they use at Walmart, with the pegboard back and adjustable metal shelves around the perimeter of the garage.  They were 7 feet tall and only 3 feet deep but the metal shelves made them very strong.  The retail shelves can be rather inexpensive if you watch for store closings and liquidations.

Your Daily 15 – Okay – let’s be real.  This is going to take more than 15 minutes but if you schedule just 15 minutes a day for a couple of weeks you may be able to get the garage in shape.  This is the perfect time of year to do a good cleaning of your garage, before the cold weather gets here.  Schedule a garage sale if you are so inclined to quickly get rid of the stuff you aren’t using or don’t want.  I know that people in my area are still having garage sales since the weather has been so nice.

Then, decide what really needs to be stored in the garage and get it off the floor.  One benefit that I have found to keeping stuff off of the floor is that there is less of a chance of something getting wrecked if you park a wet car inside or water seeps under the door.  Putting boxes of holiday decorations on shelves instead of stacking box after box on top of each other will help avoid the inevitable avalanche that always seems to happen when you want the box on the bottom.  If you have rafters in the garage get some industrial quality hooks to hang up things like bikes, weed eaters, etc.  If you or someone you know is remodeling their kitchen, put the old cabinets in the garage for extra storage.  You can even put shelves on top of the cabinets to make your storage space stretch all the way up to the ceiling.

There is nothing nicer than being able to open the garage door and drive your car out without having to scrape the ice off the windows or get soaked in the pouring rain.

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