Add These Steps To Your Morning Routine

After you get ready in the morning, do you go to the kitchen? Getting your day started can be tough. However, these five steps may get your day off to a great start in the morning. Keep reading to learn about the five things you should do in your kitchen. You can learn more at The Kitchn.


1. Have some water and lemon.
What? No coffee or tea? We'll get there, don't worry. But before you grind those coffee beans or drop that tea bag in your mug, drink a glass of water. Add a slice of lemon if you want. It's good to rehydrate after a long night's sleep. If gulping down a tall glass of cold water in winter doesn't sound like a good time, sip on hot water with lemon. We all know drinking more water is a good idea, so this is a great way to get that habit going.


2. Put all clean, dry dishes away.
If you followed our suggestion here, then you have no dishes to put away in the morning! Yay! However, many of you said you prefer to let dishes air dry overnight, so if that's the case, put those dishes away first thing so you free up your drying rack and dishwasher for the day.


3. Water the plants or change water for herbs and flowers.
Have anything plant-like living in your kitchen? Take a few minutes first thing in the morning to pay attention to them, and you won't have to worry about forgetting later. Water the plants and refresh the water in any herb glasses or flower vases you have going.



4. Take five minutes to think through your day.
Before the day gets crazy and you suddenly find it's 5:00 and you haven't thought about dinner plans yet, take five minutes in the morning to think about what you plan to cook and eat that day. Make sure you have everything you need, or make a list of anything you need to pick up at the store. If something for today or tomorrow's meal needs to start defrosting, take it out of the freezer and put it in the refrigerator.



5. Set out any necessary cookware for the day.
After you've thought about your cooking plans, go ahead and pull out any cookware you're going to need and set it on your stove. You might keep your slow cooker on a high shelf in your pantry, or your heavy Dutch oven on the bottom of a stack of pans. Take the effort to get it all out now, and you'll save yourself a little time later. That pot or pan can be a cheery, welcoming invitation to cook as you walk back in the door.

Online Shopping Tips

Are you an avid online shopper? Even if this is your first time browsing Amazon, these tips can help you get the best deal. There are many ways to get the best deal and the best product that you are looking for. Keep reading these tips, and you can learn more atApartment Therapy.






Even if you consider yourself a serious shopaholic, picking out the perfect thing online is a whole new set of skills. Lucky for you, we're here to help with these smart strategies so you can easily get what you need at the best price.


Adjust your monitor


It sounds too simple to work, but the first defense against buying the wrong thing is to simply make sure you're getting an accurate representation. Nothing can compare with seeing an item in person, but making sure your computer's colors are on point can go pretty far. If you suspect that the site's photography may be wonky, search that product to see if you can find another photo elsewhere for comparison.


Figure out the "real price"


Remember, your total charge will be the price you see, plus tax, plus shipping. If you need to return, that could be another fee. So do your math and determine if the savings you'll get online are really savings at all.


Double check the return policy


Even if you think you know it, check. Even if you know the store's brick and motar policy, check the site's language, too. The last thing you want is to get stuck with something that wasn't what you expected or wanted.


Brand loyalty will serve you well


That is, if you're familiar with a certain brand's sizing, finishes or fabrics, buying online will usually work out just fine. But if you're trying something new, it's more of a gamble. If you can make the extra effort to see your item in person, it might be worth the hassle of mailing back a return.

Price match


Our favorite dirty little online shopping secret? Stores want you to buy from them. So much so that they'll often match another, lower price elsewhere. No guarantees, of course, but it's well worth it to ask. Another get-the-right-price-trick? Alerts! There are tons of apps that will let you know when the price of an item you're eyeing has dropped to a must-buy amount. Use them. Use them now.

Organize Your Drawers For Free

Do you have a junk drawer in your kitchen? If things are falling out of your drawer, it might be time to organize it. However, that does not mean you need to buy an expensive drawer organizer. Here are some ideas on how to organize your drawer without spending a dime.. You can learn more on Apartment Therapy.

This is how I organized my junk drawer without buying a thing.

Why Didn't I Buy Anything?

First: What was the reasoning behind not buying any organizers?

It was about more than saving money. In her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, tidying guru Marie Kondo says that your home already contains all the storage it needs:

She goes on to sing the praises of shoe boxes, check boxes, business card boxes, jewelry boxes — "basically, any square box or container of the right size will do" when it comes to finding storage for your tidying projects.

I liked her thinking on this, so I searched through my apartment and picked up anything I thought could be used to organize the junk drawer. Here's what I found — all items that have been in my possession for at least a year.

The Boxes and Containers I Found Around My Apartment
A shoe box lid ("the lid of a shoe box is shallow and can be used like a tray" — preach it, Marie Kondo!)
A cardboard box for checks
Metal lids from some tin containers in the kitchen
Various cardboard boxes — bottoms and tops — from an old Birchboxsubscription (bonus: they have cool interiors!)
A couple small pink and green boxes I'd had around for years
A small ceramic bowl
A birch wood container from IKEA
A jewelry box
The lid from an (almost) empty stationery box

I knew I wouldn't need all of them, but it was nice to have options for the next step: finding an arrangement that would work in the drawer.

It took about 10 minutes and a lot of swapping various boxes in and out — changing their orientation, moving up, down, and around — until I found an arrangement that used up the most available space in the drawer, and resulted in a tight fit, with most boxes nestled snugly next to each other.

Then the fun really started:

I assigned a storage task to each container: a box for all our pens, pencils, and dry erase markers; a box for paper scissors; a few boxes for our medicine bottles; and another box for my label maker (http://www.amazon.com/Epson-LabelWorks-LW-300-Label-Maker/dp/B005J7Y6HW/ref=sr_1_2?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1423069340&sr=1-2&keywords=label+maker&tag=apartmentth0a-20I have this one and I love it).

I used the shoe box lid to hold my two kitchen scales, and the ceramic bowl for rubber bands. Two more boxes went to hold all our batteries (which I left in the plastic packaging so they wouldn't roll around and become a fire hazard), and a roll of masking and painter's tape (a very handy thing to have in the kitchen).

And the jewelry box? I stuck the safety pins in there. This solution made me a little giddy, actually. The jewelry box has a snap closure, so the lid doesn't open unless you really pry it open — which makes it the perfect box to store a collection like paper clips or safety pins that you don't want spilling all over the floor.

When I was done, the whole thing looked like this:

And that's how I revamped my junk drawer for $0.



If this project has also been on your to-do list, I encourage you to go around your house and see what little containers, boxes, and storage goods you already have that can be repurposed or recommissioned. I was surprised to find I owned so many readily available containers. Believe me — I love a good "official" organizer as much as the next person, but doing it this way was quite satisfying.