How to Organize Your Car
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Need to do something about all that junk in your trunk? Tired of not having everything you need in your car? Here’s a look at how I fixed that for my family …
First I grumbled for a while. Then, I got down to business. I pulled everything out of the car, inventoried what we had and made a list of what I wanted to put back in the car. I decided two small totes would cover all of our needs: one for all of our car stuff (a combo of emergency supplies and safety equipment) and one for our yard saling/curb shopping supplies (aka all the stuff that we carry, so we’ll be ready to dismantle and haul any treasures that we come across).
Once I had that figured out, I bought a two-pack of Sterilite sweater boxes on sale for $4.99, and started filling them up.
Here’s what I included in the car tote:
- Paper towels
- Toilet paper
- Plastic bags (for cleaning up spills, hauling wet clothing, etc.)
- Rags
- Work gloves
- Ice scraper
- First aid kit
- Umbrellas/ponchos
- Flashlight
- Safety Triangle
This leaves plenty of room for seasonal items like baseball hats in the summer and ski caps and gloves in the winter. If my kids were younger, I’d include a spare change of clothes, too. And I should note that our tire gauge lives in the center console, and our jumper cables live in the tire compartment. You definitely want to have these on hand. Where you store them is up to you.
Lots of people include snacks, drinks, medicine, bug spray and sunscreen in their car kits. I’ve intentionally left these items out because I don’t want them exposed to high temperatures. We just bring these things with us when we need them.
Curious about what I keep in my yard saling/curb shopping tote? I wrote a whole post about that here.
Sticking It Back in the Trunk
The totes that I used are small, and they stack beautifully, so they don’t take up much space in the trunk. I pushed them to the back, added a tote bag filled with more totes and an old blanket, and now, I feel like we have everything that we need, and none of the clutter that we had before. Yay for small victories!
