Inside this edition: I want to help you care for and organize your handbags .
Hey y’all. It’s your girl Rainey, with more helpful insights for YOU – my tribe – the Rainey Crew. My sisters, did you know the average weight of a woman’s handbag is 10 pounds? I was one of those people. I carried around everything and the kitchen sink. As a mom, you felt that you had to be prepared for every eventuality, crayons, candy, stain stick. Oh my goodness the list was endless. Granted my kids are babies no more, but for some reason as women we feel the need to carry the world on our shoulders one way or the other. We are carrying the burden of the family with us, but we don’t have to do it physically as well. I realized what I was doing to myself when I started having shoulder and back pain never really thinking about my favorite bags.
Ladies like our homes we need to de-clutter our handbags and we need to do it on a regular basis. There are two things that a woman cannot have enough of and those are shoes and handbags. If you love handbags as I do go through this post to learn how to care for and organize your handbags. Make your bags a stylish functional accessory and not a device to make you into a pack mule.
Sort It Out
First thing I want you to do is if you have a scale is to weigh your bag with all its contents. Leave a comment below and let me know if that statistic on the weight is true from your standpoint. Next, I want you to dump the contents of your bag in on your bed or the floor and sort it. You can sort like the pharmacy aisles, medicine, hair care, personal hygiene, kids, receipts etc. Once you have it sorted keep reading.
Look at Your Bag
I mean it really look at your bag. Look at the handles, are they breaking, are they worn, is the stitching frayed. I better than anybody else knows the value of a handbag, and that is why I am writing this post for you. I ask you to look at your bag and examine were the handles breaking. Too much weight is also a prime reason why your handles start breaking and the rest of the bag is not showing as much wear and tear. If your bag has seen better days it maybe time to say so long to your old friend. If she looks good – great keep reading. Maybe she does not – keep reading because we are going to save another old friend.
Is It Still Functional?
If you were like me you have broken crayons, earrings without the backs, makeup. I know what you have in there. Be honest. Find those items, pull your trash bin close by and say goodbye to it. The old lipstick, the broken crayons or happy meal toys. The receipts that you no longer need, free yourself of the things that cannot be fixed.
Reduce
Ladies, we do not need duplicates of everything. If you find two of the same lipstick, obviously leave one at home. Maybe you think you need one for after-hours, if that is the case keep the after-hours lipstick at work in your desk or locker. Keep one pair of sunglasses in your possession. If you have a car keep the other pair there. Let there be only one of anything in your bag at any one time.
Digitize – What’s in Your Wallet
Loyalty Cards
Here is where my bag gained a lot of weight. You know those Loyalty Cards – yeah that weighed me down like nobody’s business. I had one of those nifty carriers for my Loyalty Cards. First mega tip is to use an app to keep all those cards in one place. For Apple iOS users you can use Apple Wallet, Samsung users can use Samsung Pay, or if you don’t use either of those you can use Google Pay. Take the time to enter all your loyalty cards in one place and leave those plastic cards bulking up your wallet at home. This action also reduces the weight and size of your keyring if that is where you were keeping your cards.
Random Paper/Receipts
Do you also find that you are holding on to pieces of paper that you know you will need at some point with a phone number or address. A receipt that you just need the dollar value but not the actual paper. Take a picture. Use your phone an take a picture for anything that does not require a physical copy.
Planners/Calendars
I used to walk around with a planner, and it took a little while to get accustomed to, but I use my phone for pretty much everything now. My calendar is on my phone and I can access it from my computer as well. Check out my post on how to keep your family on track so nothing is forgotten it may have some helpful tips on using calendars for you.
Coupons
Coupons, even grocery store coupons are available online depending on where you shop. When you check out with their app, it will automatically deduct the coupon. If you are into saving money as well as reducing the weight of your hand bag, you may want to read seven ways to trim your spending.
If you are wondering why you may be keeping receipts it should be because you are tracking your spending. After you document the spending you can throw the receipt away.
Pockets
Remember when you bought your handbag. You thought it was sooo cute. It was the right color, the right size and fashionable. Great, but I am almost sure you also made sure that your phone fit in one of the pockets. Those pockets are not there by accident. They are well thought out most times and designed for you. Make use of those pockets. If there is a zipper, only special items should be in there, things you don’t want spilling out if your bag were to fall. Maybe your earrings or your personal hygiene items. Think it through what you want to go in those pockets and use them so everything is accessible.
Inner Bag
I love totes but as a rule a tote is not the best bag if you want to stay organized. Everything is moving around loosey goosey in your bag, and you can’t find anything when you want it. Also, my experience was that I found it difficult to switch bags because of all my “STUFF”. I corrected my problem with what I call for lack of a better term was an inner sack for my tote.
What you would find in this sack are the essentials you would need for the day. You can move it from one bag to another without worrying that you have forgotten something. My sack was repurposed from a previous cosmetic purchase. Before you buy something to duplicate this try to re-purpose something you may already have. The sack should contain at minimum:
- Your wallet. I down-sized my wallet to a 3 ½ x 2 ½ man’s wallet. If you are interested in what’s in my wallet and why, I talk about that in my steps to building financial security.
- A makeup compact.
- Lipstick or lip balm.
- Personal Hygiene item (optional)
- A pen
Do not let this sack be as big as your tote and for all intents and purposes it should have a drawstring. Be sure that what you put in there is essential only for a normal day.
Do Your Bags Have a Home?
A really nice fashionable handbag can cost anywhere from $60 to thousands of dollars. Depends on your budget, your taste, and where you shop. My favorite place to shop for my handbags is TJMaxx. If you have paid thousands for a handbag I implore you to have a special place where you keep them in your closet. It is important to store them well because that will extend their life. I store mine on large 3M hooks on a wall in my closet. Also, be sure to store them empty so you do not distort the shape over time with weight. This is especially true of leather bags.
Final Thoughts
Ladies – my Crew, lighten your load, and free yourself from the burden you carry. When I realized that my husband would hand me things, or would just assume I would carry something he did not want to because I had a handbag. That was a wake-up call. Today I rarely carry a bag, but when I do it does not take me anytime to choose one and walk out the door. Your actions are to dump, sort, reduce and digitize. This is what you must do to care for and organize your handbags. The average leather tote weighs 2-3 pounds without anything in it. Ask yourself, do you really need another 7 pounds of “STUFF”?