A few weeks ago, Dan and I acquired a few organization tools from Staples. We had a coupon and browsed the Martha Stewart collection of office supplies. She has some great stuff that is not only cute, but very functional. I made a mental check-list for more things that I would like to purchase in the future.

Sadly, we are on a limited budget, so we walked out with two items.

The first resolved a big problem. We didn't have a good place for incoming mail. The mail sat in little piles all over the living room and we only dealt with it when the situation got out of control. This created unacceptable clutter. Our solution was this Martha Stewart Letter Pocket that now hangs on our wall, beneath our key holder. It's a visual reminder of the mail and so far, we have been much better with properly filing documents, paying bills and throwing out junk. It has been an indispensable organizational tool.

Our second problem is dinner time. We often fail to plan dinner and this means of course, that we have created a plan to fail. It has led to loads of eating out and unhealthy choices. Admittedly, right now we have a lot going on and most nights, one of us is out of town. However, I'm hopeful that things will calm down in the near future and we can use this board to plan meals for the week, helping us stick to a grocery budget and a healthy eating plan, together as a team.

Our Martha Stewart week board. Unfortunately, it's not magnetic, so we used our magnet collection to hold it up. Please don't judge the meal choices or messy writing!

The week board has a sticky back, but we didn't want to make anything gummy, so we used our magnet collection to hold it up. It made a cute frame of all of our vacation memories. We also had to buy the dry erase markers separately.

I'm trying to figure out a use for the Martha Stewart labels and tags, because I think that they are so adorable. If I can justify their use, they will be purchased the next time we are at Staples. I'm thinking maybe for closet and kitchen organization. There is still so much to be done in the house!

Super cute Martha Stewart Labels. I covet them!!!!

One of my biggest pet peeves, are companies and products that have names that are misspelled in a cutesy way. It's never okay to spell Kids with a Z and I'm looking at you Krispy Kreme and Toys R Us ( you're a double offender for making the R backwards).

When we came across Fridge Binz at our local Bed, Bath and Beyond, I had to avert my eyes from the Z and focus on the cool product. In this year of organized living, I'm aiming to fix every area of our home and the refrigerator is a place that needed desperate help. It's small and cluttered, only made worse by all of the produce that we have recently purchased for our Nutribullet.

I saw the Fridge Binz and started salivating at the idea of an organized refrigerator. They pieces are a tad expensive, but in my opinion, worth the price. We bought a few pieces when we initially saw them and then Dan surprised me, but ordering several more online. Here is what we bought.

Two Wine Bottle Holders

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They made a huge difference. We used to have wine bottles rolling around on our bottom shelf and now they are secure. Plus, the stack-ability frees up space.

Two Soda Bottle Holders

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It's very similar to the wine bottle holder, but thicker for plastic soda bottles. Dan actually thought that he was ordering two more wine bottle holders, but ordered the soda holder by mistake. It's okay though, as we used it for a giant bottle of champagne and a liquor bottle.

Two 4'' x 15'' Containers

I've struggled with the best way to utilize these. Currently, one holds Dan's V-8 juice and the other hold assorted jellies. The problem is the width, they don't hold much. These containers are great for small, miscellaneous objects. It does make the space look neater, even if the size makes it less functional.

One 8''x15'' Container

This is better than the smaller containers and I currently have it in the freezer, holding frozen fruits and vegetables. I want to get another one, to separate the fruit and vegetables, ultimately making everything neater and easier to locate.

One Fruit Shoot

It looks great, but only hold about five pieces of fruit. I think this is best utilized to make the fruit the first thing that you see when you want to grab something to eat, rather than having it hidden the the drawers. I've been putting the oldest fruit in the shoot and it seems like it has helped us to eat better and waste less.

I even got my aunt to jump on the Fridge Binz bandwagon. She bought a few containers and the egg holder.

The egg holder is really only worth it, if you want to be able to neatly stack objects on top of your eggs. It's not so much functional, like the other Fridge Binz products, but it keeps it looking neat and uniform.

I still have a lot of products to buy and organization to accomplish, but when I am finished, I will post a picture of the completed fridge. I am really excited to have discovered Fridge Binz and have liked the early results.

A tip, if you have read this and want to organize using Fridge Binz, I recommend buying a few pieces and playing around with the stuff in your fridge before removing the tags. Everyone has such different needs and not all the products will work for your family. I noticed that when redoing my Aunt's fridge, she has completely different needs than we do and certain products are better for her.It's really like putting together a puzzle and making the pieces fall into place.

Also, before you even buy a single container, go through your fridge and clean out all of the old stuff and really assess what you have and the products that you like to buy. My aunt had old butter, pudding and canned fruit that was hidden and woefully out of date. We tossed a lot. A neater space, leads to less waste!

I am hoping to have this project completed within the next month and looking forward to sharing the results!

The Year of Organized Living- Martha Stewart Edition

The Year of Organized Living - Fridge Binz