Let’s Be Frank: A Hard 1’s Guide to Clearing Household (and Financial) Clutter

Have any of y’all ever looked into the Enneagram?! If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend checking it out to see if you can decipher which specific personality profile you and your family members most resemble. (The book The Road Back to You is an incredibly interesting and entertaining roadmap that describes the nine distinct groups.) It has helped explain so much about myself and the people I love most.

If you are already familiar with the Enneagram number system… I am a HARD 1, also known as the Reformer or the Perfectionist!

Let me tell you, I have an immediate physical, mental, and emotional reaction to clutter and mess. Just ask anyone who lives in my house! This is an incredibly tough trait to carry when you have a busy family of five, and literally none of them share your same perfectionistic tendencies.

When I walk through the front door after a long day at work and the kitchen counters are completely clean and everything is in its designated place, I can’t even tell you how much easier I breathe. I feel instant, stress-free peace. But when I walk in and it looks like 35 grown adults live in my house and absolutely none of them are planning to clean up the mess, I have literally lost my cool (and a few other things) on those four humans who just don’t seem to see any of it!

I was reading an analysis of Enneagram Type 1s recently, and it noted that their immediate home environment is an extension of the state of their life and psyche on the most visceral level. I have never read anything that spoke so completely and accurately to the way I feel. Even though I absolutely hate the act of cleaning, I love and thrive on having a clean, organized home. So, I guess that means I have to do what I hate in order to have what I love!

To help you tame the household chaos without breaking your budget, I’ve put together a handy checklist of creative, budget-friendly cleaning hacks. You can banish the dust bunnies and clear the clutter using common household items, without spending a fortune on expensive organizers and harsh chemicals:

1. Master Your Schedule with Time Blocks

Create a physical master list of every single target area of your home you plan on attacking. Next, divide the chores according to the amount of time you estimate they will take to finish.

• Group them into clear sub-lists of 3-hour deep dives, 1-hour tasks, and quick 15-minute resets.
• Post your lists in a central place like the refrigerator. This way, whenever you find yourself with a small pocket of spare time, you can pull a job to tackle at a single glance.

2. Harness the Power of DIY Cleansers

• The Stainless Steel Lemon Trick: Slice a fresh lemon in half and rub the fruit directly against stubborn hard-water stains and rust spots in your kitchen sinks and bathroom faucets. For really tough marks, sprinkle a little baking soda on top first. The acidic reaction lifts the buildup effortlessly.
• The Microwave Steam Hack: Fill a microwave-safe bowl with 1 to 2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of white vinegar, and a few drops of your favorite essential oil (like lemon or lavender). Nuke it on high for five minutes, let the steam build, and then wipe the loosened splatters right off the interior walls with zero scrubbing!
• The Shower Head Soak: Fill a standard sandwich bag with white vinegar, place it completely over your shower head, and secure it tightly with a rubber band. Let it soak overnight, and the calcium or mineral buildup will wash right off in the morning.
• Screen Refreshers: Use standard paper coffee filters to dust your computer monitors and television screens. The gentle, lint-free fibers leave your digital screens squeaky-clean without scratching.

3. Quick Tips for Rapid De-Cluttering

• Lint Roll Your Fixtures: Stop waving a standard duster that just moves particles around the room. Run a sticky clothing lint roller over your delicate lampshades, fabric light fixtures, and open shelves to trap dust particles instantly.
• Maximize Your Dishwasher: Your dishwasher is capable of cleaning far more than just plates. Load it up with hard plastic toys, hairbrushes, pet dishes, removable refrigerator shelves, tweezers, and old drawer knobs. When the cycle completes, place a single cup of white vinegar on the top rack and run it through a hot, empty cycle to sanitize the machine itself.
• The Carpet Pet Hair Secret: If you have an animal like our Yorkie, Frankie, sitting on the rugs, vacuuming doesn’t always pull up the embedded fur. Take a standard rubber window squeegee and scrape it firmly across your carpet. The rubber edge creates the perfect friction to grip and pull up hidden layers of pet hair in seconds.
• Erase Wood Water Rings: If someone forgot to use a coaster on a wooden table, blast a standard handheld hair dryer over the water rings until they fade away. Rub a tiny drop of olive oil over the surface to instantly restore the wood to its original shine.

4. Create Minimalist Storage Systems

• Ditch the Paper Towers: Physical paperwork is one of the fastest ways to clutter up a clean counter and trigger visual anxiety. Take a major step toward a minimalist home baseline by switching your credit union accounts to digital delivery. Your statements are safely archived online for 18 months, keeping your desk entirely clean. Learn how to execute this shift by reading our blueprint: Tame the Paper Towers: Why eStatements Are the Ultimate Minimalist Hack.
• Affordable Zones: Create a specific drop-zone container for every bit of miscellaneous clutter that passes through your front door. You don’t need to buy premium boutique baskets—swing by the local dollar store to pick up affordable plastic bins and storage trays.
• The Drawer Velcro Hack: To keep small plastic drawer organizers from constantly sliding around and creating a mess inside your silverware or desk drawers, fasten small adhesive strips of Velcro to the bottom of the containers to lock them permanently in place.

Tidy spaces create a tidy mind. By leveraging simple, affordable strategies, you can restore your home environment to a state of total peace and structural harmony. Let’s clear out the clutter together!