The Cost of Clutter and Managing Your Passwords with 1Password
Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show!  Thanks!
              Google Drive Tutorial
Yay!  The Google Drive Tutorial is now available for purchase! This tutorial is just over an hour long and focuses on all the fundamentals of how to use Google Drive for creating, sharing, and storing  documents using Google's free, full-fledged office suite. This tutorial will be available at the discounted price of just $7.99 until 30 June 2013, when it will increase to $9.99. Either way, it's a bargain! In this introduction, you'll learn how to create text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, and even forms and surveys! So, don't wait to pay full price! You can have immediate access to Dan's 1 hour+  windshield tour of Google Drive right now! Simply click here or go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/GoogleDrive. Plus, if you're not completely satisfied I'll give you your money back. So, no clutter and no risk...simple!

Vanessa's Topic: The Cost of Clutter
In preparation for my Certification at the end of June, I’ve been doing a little bit of reading, studying and freshening up on my professional organizing skills.
Well, during my studying I came across some articles and books that talked about the cost of clutter. I’ve talked quite a bit about clutter in previous episodes and I’ve mentioned here and there some of the costs of clutter, but I thought I’d bring all those thoughts and some additional ideas about the cost of clutter together in one discussion.
Now, as a reminder let me define what clutter is:  Clutter is anything we don’t need, want or use that takes our time, energy or space and destroys our serentity (Clutter’s Anonymous definition).
With that definition and with the various things I’ve read, I think there are 4 Main Areas Where Clutter Costs us:


It can cost us in regards to Money
It can cost us Time
It can cost us our Health
And it can cost us our Sanity

Let me explain a little more...
In regards to Money:


10% of American households rent storage units which can cost between $600-1000/year.
23% of Americans are late paying their bills because they lose the statements or just plain forget to pay their bills altogether. And of course, late payments result in late fees. Even worse, repetitive late payments can even cost you your credit score! (Which by the way can cost you time as it may now take longer for you to pay off your debts)....oooh...clutter can be a vicious cycle!

Let’s talk about food:


You know what happens to us when we don’t have a plan for our weekly dinners? We end up going out to eat right?! Which cost 2-3 times more than if we ate at home!
Food can also cost you at the grocery store when you don’t know what you have at home because your pantry is a mess and you end up buying duplicate food items or throwing things away because they’re expired! That’s one of my peeves at home....I do not like to waste food!

Ok...so this also happens with other things in the home like office supplies, cleaning supplies, toiletries, light bulbs, batteries etc.


When your home is cluttered and you don’t have homes for these things, it often results in them being misplaced....and increases chance of duplicates being purchased....because you can’t find them!
At work, clutter has the potential of costing you a promotion because clutter can result in disorganization, missed documents, missed deadlines, and so on.

Now, let’s not forget about digital clutter:


Having to buy more memory for your computers, or more storage space on the cloud...or what about apps that you purchased and never use?
All that digital clutter can cost you money!

And of course, another way clutter can cost you in regards to money, is having to pay an organizer to help you get organized! Although I’d like to think of a professional organizer as more of an investment.....