Budget Labeling and Organizing - Step Aside Label Maker!

Don’t get me wrong, I do love the clean professional look of labels made from a label maker. And as a professional home organizer, folks often expect that I will expect them to have a label maker and that everything will look like a Pinterest board when we are done. Though we can certainly help you create whatever kind of system you desire, I usually come armed with just three very low budget tools for labeling:

• Super Sticky notes
• A sharpie
• Painters tape

Super Sticky notes

My favorite budget labeling tools are Super Sticky Notes of several sizes, a roll of painters tape and a fine point sharpie. These low cost tools allow us to create systems quickly and there is no need to worry about creating new labels as the systems need to be tweaked and your systems develop. Changing a label is as simple as pulling out a new sticky note. 🙂

I and many of my clients also like to use sticky notes to color code plain manila file folders. See below how I use super sticky notes for file folders.

Before discovering Super Sticky Post Its®, I was reluctant to create files for short term projects. I now use brightly colored sticky notes to serve as file folder labels. The colors can be used to create categories. I like to use:

• Blue for clients
• Green for finances,
• Yellow for health and for plans and visions

The color coding makes filing fun and flexible and is much easier on the budget than purchasing colored file folders. The stickies work best on three cut file folders and the tab spacing can be changed as needed.

Bonus budget organizing tip: Super Stickies can be used for many other purposes: one is often found by my front door as a reminder to take something with me!

The sharpie:

Using a fine or medium point Sharpie® offers the best visibility when writing on the sticky notes.

Painters tape

Another commonly used budget labeling staple is painter’s tape. Painter’s tape is safe for walls and almost any kind of surface, and can be removed without leaving any sticky residue.

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to organize on a budget. Just begin with what you have and make it better later if you need to.

Let us know if you have discovered any time and money saving labeling and organizing tools!