Tidy home, tidy mind

• A couple of hours spent organising your home can save you time and money in the long run.
• Invest in some storage solutions to help you hide unslightly objects away, sort out the front door pile, shelve your mess, get filing and more.

Do you have armfuls of clutter everywhere? Sorting out your house always seems like a daunting task that is quickly side-stepped by scooping everything up and depositing it in a free space in the back of a cupboard somewhere.  But getting your life organised will let you get everything in order ready to blitz your finances, so it’s really worth doing. 

You can also use the time you would have spent searching for that essential piece of paper that you carefully filed at the bottom of a box of other pieces of paper, making a bit of extra cash using some of our money-making tips.  Take a couple of hours out from sweeping problems (and mess) under the bed, and use our quick and easy guide to home storage to get organised - and hopefully stay that way.

Secret storage

Built-in storage can be a good investment - it's a cunning way to convince guests that you are perfect and have no superfluous possessions at all, when really they are stashed under beds or in shelving units that have sliding compartments perfect for hiding things behind. The Divan Bases with Drawer Storage, £550 for a double bed, from The White Company have a clean designer look and their built-in drawers will keep your bedroom looking effortlessly chic instead of just effortless.

The Next sliding media tower, £90, is a great example of a cunning piece of furniture that looks great and gives you much more storage for the space than it appears able. 

Another refuge for bits and bobs is a coffee table with storage drawers.  The Laura Ashley Garrat Box coffee table, £337.50, is a great example, with tons of draws to fill up and then close, leaving your living room nice and tidy. 

The same principle works especially well in the bathroom. The Marks and Spencer revolving bathroom cabinet, £65, hides all your lotions and potions behind your mirror and prevents anything that isn’t supposed to, being knocked down the sink. 

Front door clutter

A clutter hotspot in every house is by the front door.  The best plan here is to add levels to use all the space possible.  Ikea has some great units that have space above any coat’s pegs and then shoe racks underneath.  You can also add different height pegs and different size boxes to cope with any sports gear or pet toys, leaving your hallway clutter-free.

Shelves

The original storage solution is perhaps now seen as a bit boring.  But, if you invest a bit more money you can really get some funky shelves that aren’t just storage, but can become a decorative feature in your home.  Next does a range of floating shelves, £25, in wood finish or "modachrome" (black and white) which not only look great on the wall, but also give you separate levels on which to put your things giving you more storage space.

Shelves are also great as they maximise unused space, perhaps areas of your house that don’t necessarily have floor space but can still be used.  Coat and hat racks work on the same principle and get all your outerwear high up and out of the way so other things can be put on the floor underneath. 

The Hang It All C&R Eames Coat Rack, £155, from Heal’s is bright and colourful and can fit a whole load of coats on it.  You can, of course, also use the backs of your doors for hanging coats, but a lightweight coat hook is probably better.  The Saturnus Coat Hook, £25, fromHeal’s is equally as bright and funky, but it isn’t quite as big. 

If you're coats are dealt with but you've still got doors with lots of space behind them, try an over-the door-storage rack.  This fantastic one is just £19 on Amazon and it lets you stash your CDs and DVDs (or anything else you might want to put on it) safely out of the way, minimising clutter.

Under the bed is yet another great place to store things. If you don’t have built-in drawers in your bed you can buy big, but quite shallow drawers at Ikea or even somewhere like Homebase, very cheaply. Get ones that are on casters so you can just role them under the bed without any effort at all.   

Fun with filing cabinets

To organise your records, you no longer have to resort to a metal filing cabinet that reeks of the office and doesn’t go with your other stylish storage options.  There are loads of other options on the market.  The John Lewis Abacus three-door filing chest, £195, can be used as a sideboard in your living room or study or you could even have it in your bedroom and use the top two drawers for socks.  Tesco Direct also do a wood effect Modular 3 drawer filer, £72, and Habitat has this nifty little filing cabinet, £139, that could easily double up as a bedside table.  

Boxes and tins

Storage can be decorative and some of the best bits of storage are bright and colourful which will liven up your house whilst tidying it. Retro favourite Cath Kidston has a great New Star set of four canisters, £6, for the kitchen to organise your worktops and a set of Shooting Star, Circus Flowers and Bubbles et of three cake tins for all those sweet creations you’ll have time to work on once your house is all organised.  Amazon also does a variety of funky storage boxes as well as lots of retro kitchen storage goodies.

Show off your best bits

Sometimes what you need to store ain’t pretty, so a general storage tip is to choose units that have hidden and exposed sections so that you can make a design feature out of books, DVDs and photo albums and then hide any less eye-catching household stuff in cupboards or boxes within the unit. The Largo tall room divider, £395, from John Lewis is a high-quality example that has drawers and cupboards, but still open spaces. The unit can also be bought with wheels which allows you to shift it wherever you want, whenever you want.

Cheap and cheerful storage

If you want to fight the clutter, but minimise the price you have to spend to eradicate it, your first stop should be Ikea. It has some great storage solutions, like this Skubb canvas hanging storage unit (£6.99),  that are really versatile and really affordable. But if you don't want to brave the Ikea crowds there are a lot of products available online that  you can get really cheaply from the comfort of your home. 

Wilkinsons has a selection of bargain options for storage like this Cuba three-drawer storage unit which you could use in your living room, or it could double up as a bedside table.

Homebase has a great cheap alternative to a coffee table with built-in storage. Its oak finish modular coffee table doesn't have drawers, but at £17.49 you can get some of your own boxes to put in the gaps or just fill it up with lovely books, candles and CDs.

Store has some great ideas for home storage. This mesh cove shelf again has two levels to get the maximum storage space possible, but at just £12 it's a bit cheaper, so you could even get two. Store also have this mesh stacking shelf that you can use to maximise your space within your cupboards and shelves and increase the amount of things you can stash away from prying eyes. At £7 its a bargain.

Another online boutique which says no to clutter (literally) is clutter-non.com, which has some really fun storage solutions that won't break the bank. Check out the vintage soap racks, £3.50 each, and the wall-mounted stainless steel cd holder which looks fantastic, holds 48 CDs and at £19.99 is half it's original price.

Finally it's always worth having a click onto Argos.com, which has the whole of the Argos catalogue and more online. It has a massive range of products and prices and with things like this white canvas wardrobe for just £14.99 and this two-tiered shoe rack for just £4.99, it's clear there are loads of bargains to be had. 

Useful contacts

Heals The White Company Next Marks and Spencer Cath Kidston Laura Ashley John Lewis Tesco DirectAmazonArgos
• Homebase
• Clutter-non.com
• Store
WilkinsonsHabitat
•  Sorted your clutter? Now start to sort your finances, with our guide to getting richer in half a day.