Because we have so many BIG projects going on around here, some of the little projects and progress can get overlooked. So, here’s a list of a few things I’ve crossed off the ever-growing list in my head of things we need to do around here.

1. Sending my wedding dress off to be cleaned and preserved. Yes, it’s been almost 3 years since I walked down the aisle in my absolute favorite outfit ever.

And it’s been hanging in my closet, needing to be cleaned, and taking up valuable space since then. So, a few weeks ago, I drug it out and decided it was finally time to say goodbye…temporarily.

Still, I’ve never felt more beautiful than I did that day…which is probably why I was so hesitant to go ahead and ship it off to be professionally cleaned and packaged in its nicely sealed box, guaranteed to be preserved for 30 years.

And after following the instructions on the kit (purchased from David’s Bridal with my employee discount two years ago when I was working there) and waiting a few weeks, it arrived.

It was packaged nicely and neatly and looking bright and clean.

I’m a little sad to see it all packaged away, but I know I can always open it and take it out if there’s ever an occasion to wear it again. And yes, I know it’s likely I don’t need to keep it at all, considering if I do have a daughter who gets married some day, there’s not a high probability we’d be the same size and that she’d want to wear it. But oh well, I can’t say goodbye yet.

2. Going back to the closet, Wyatt’s shoe situation had gotten a little out of control. He’s not one for having a lot of excess choices for clothes or shoes, but lately, he has collected a few more new pairs before wearing the older ones totally out. That didn’t leave enough room for the shoes to fit in his little “shoe area.”

He tends to leave them out and about, under the bed, piled up in the living room…sometimes in the kitchen. Basically, he doesn’t care that he didn’t have enough shoe storage in the closet. But I cared. Especially because if I took the effort to pick up his shoes from the floor in the bedroom, it didn’t feel very satisfying to simply throw them on the floor in the closet. So, I finally grabbed another closet organizer we were gifted as a hand-me-down from my sister and brother-in-law and got to work.

In the end, he ended up with a whole new little shoe area because I couldn’t fit it on the wall where the rest of his shoes were. I put the athletic/dirty/old shoes on this little shelf, which left room for all his nicer work shoes on the other shelf.

He says he likes the new arrangement, and I like it because it keeps the shoes off the floor of the closet. Win-win-right?

I also spent some time reorganizing my own shoe shelf…or rather one of my little shoe shelves. Because let’s face it. I have more shoes than will fit on one shelf. Of course.

Here’s how it looked before:

And how it looks now:

Ok, perhaps I still have too many shoes. I’ll work on it…maybe.

3. Reorganizing the coupons.

Yup, I’m a coupon-clipper. I hesitate to say I “coupon” because those crazy couponers are hard core and I rarely get things for free and hardly ever use more than 6-7 coupons per grocery trip, but it still counts I suppose, so you can call me whatever you’d like.

Anyway, I have been using envelopes to organize my coupons into categories for several months. Then, I just stored all those envelopes in a regular pocket folder. That worked better than just shoving the coupons into the pockets of the folder all willy-nilly like I do with non-grocery store coupons…

…but it was still not a good system for several reasons.

1. The envelopes were always falling out of the folder and spilling out all over the ground.

2. Because the folder wasn’t working very well at home, I never braved bringing it to the store. I just selected all the coupons I wanted to use ahead of time, put them in my grocery list notebook, and left the rest of the coupons at home. This worked decently well, but occasionally I’d forget to grab a coupon I had wanted to use, or we’d get to the store and Hubs would say, “Oh, I need shampoo.” But I didn’t want him to buy it because I knew I had a coupon for it at home.

(Yes, I’m ashamed to say I actually told him no a couple times for items he was almost out of, instead making him use a sample size bottle until we got back to the store, all because I knew I could save $2.00. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it happened because I hate paying more than I have to.)

So, when I saw this little file folder at Target’s dollar spot, I snapped it up (using a 10% off deal from Cartwheel, of course!). Then, I simply organized all my already labeled folders of coupons into the pockets, combining nearby items into the same pocket to save space.

Now, I can grab the coupon booklet and take it with me when we go to the store and Hubs will never have to do without shampoo again!

And, I won’t want to pull my hair out every time I accidentally spill the coupons on the floor…because that won’t happen anymore! Hooray! Plus, it’s adorable. And yellow.

And, to those of you who are shaking your head at the fact that I even take the trouble to use coupons at all, I will admit sometimes I also wonder why I bother with it. But, Hubs keeps a spreadsheet of all our savings, and it’s pretty amazing how using price matching and coupons has impacted our bank account. Since we started keeping track of our savings, as part of a New Year’s resolution in 2012, we’ve saved almost $2000!

Hello, granite counter tops! AND hello, Disney World!

(You can read about our first baby steps into saving money, here.)

So, those are a few of the things we’ve been working on around here that sometimes get overlooked and forgotten. Part of this blog is to share ideas and projects with you all. But we also love to look back and see what we’ve done throughout the year. And posts like this are great for when I’m needing inspiration to finally get to work on something I’ve been putting off for days…or weeks…or months…

So, tell me what projects you’ve tackled lately, big or small. Or tell me what projects you’re putting off for whatever reason. Also, do you coupon? How much have you saved?