Day 8: Travel Mugs and Water Bottles {31 Days of Easy Decluttering}

Welcome back to 31 Days of Easy Decluttering!  Are you feeling less cluttered already?  I hope so!

Throughout this series I’m sharing easy decluttering projects that you can complete in 10-15 minutes.  If you do them, then by the end of the month you’ll be enjoying a less cluttered home!

If you’ve missed any of the previous posts, there are links to them all here.

Today’s Easy Decluttering Project

Today we’re decluttering travel mugs and water bottles.  I think those things multiply like rabbits!  Every event seems to have a sponsor handing out water bottles or travel mugs.  Plus when family members play sports they get them at tournaments.  It’s a practical gift, but if you have too many of them they become clutter.

How many times have you opened your cupboard and had 4 travel mugs fall off the shelf onto your head?  Or reached for a sports bottle and knocked over 7 others (like dominoes)?  Yep… you’ve got travel mug / water bottle clutter.

Easy Decluttering Steps

Throughout the series, you’ll follow these steps to complete each daily task.  {Don’t forget to take before and after pictures to share too!}

Note: The main purpose of this series is to declutter so don’t get overwhelmed doing too much cleaning.  Once your house is less cluttered it will be easier to clean so you can always come back and do it later!

Also, if you have the time, you can organize the space while you’re doing this step, but don’t get overwhelmed with too much organizing this month.  We’re focused on decluttering!

Purging Tips for Your Travel Mugs & Water Bottles

Follow the steps listed above, and use these tips as you purge (step #5) your travel mugs & water bottles:

• First gather all your travel mugs and/or water bottles in one place so you know how many you’re dealing with
• Toss any travel mugs or water bottles that leak or smell or that are missing lids/bottoms
• Determine how many travel mugs and water bottles you need for the number of people in your family, based on the activities you participate in, and how often you use them (keep in mind how often you clean travel mugs and water bottles)
• Consider how much space you have to store travel mugs and water bottles
• Based on your answers to these points, donate or give away travel mugs and water bottles until you are left with a number that fits your requirements (use the ideas below to help you)
• Give away or donate any travel mugs or water bottles you have not used in the last 6 months
• Purge duplicates (e.g. 4 of the same water bottle because 4 family members participated in the same charity race)
• Get rid of travel mugs or water bottles that are poor quality
• Keep travel mugs and water bottles that are favourites

To help keep your travel mugs and water bottles from becoming clutter in the future, follow the one-in, one-out rule.  Whenever you bring a new one in your home, donate one you don’t like as much.

My Travel Mugs & Water Bottles

We only have 3 travel mugs. Two of them we only use on road trips and the other one I use about once a week if I don’t have time for my morning tea before heading to a client. The two we don’t use regularly are on the top shelf in one of our kitchen cabinets so they aren’t taking up prime real estate. The one I use fairly often is easier to access. Any time we get a new travel mug we give away one of our older ones so we only keep what we need and use.

For water bottles, we used to have them all over our kitchen.  Some in one cupboard, some in another, a few with my kids’ lunch bags, and more in our pantry. We didn’t need that many, so I purged our collection down to 6 bottles of various sizes.

When I organized our pantry several years ago, I put them all in a dollar store basket.

I still store our water bottles this way, only now I have 2 baskets because we use reusable water bottles a lot more than we did in the past. I love that the bottles are all together and they don’t fall over. Plus I can reach the ones at the back by just pulling the basket forward. I don’t want to go beyond 2 baskets, so as new bottles come into our home, we trade them out for other ones. It’s the one-in, one-out rule 🙂

Pictures and Links to Inspire You

If you need to keep a lot of travel mugs and water bottles, here’s a great way to organize them. I love organizing with over-the-door shoe pockets and this is a fantastic use for them!  Both water bottles and travel mugs will fit perfectly in the pockets.  

You can also use magazine holders to contain your bottles. They’re easily accessible and they don’t fall over.

I also like the idea of repurposing a wine bottle holder for storing water bottles.

*Please share from the original source if you choose to share these pictures.  If you want to share this post please use the image at the top.  

If You’re On A Roll…

• You can find more decluttering tips and lots of motivation/inspiration for decluttering on my Decluttering/Purging Tips & Ideas board.
• For ideas on how else you can use back-of-the-door organizers, go to my Organize Using the Backs of Doors board.
• For DIY organizing ideas, take a peek at my DIY Organizers board.  
• For cleaning tips, you’ll find a bunch on my Cleaning & Cleaning Supplies board.

Good luck with today’s decluttering project!  I’d love to hear how you did, so please leave a comment and use the hashtag #31DaysEasyDecluttering when you share your pictures.

How many travel mugs and / or water bottles did you declutter today?  How do you organize your travel mugs and sport bottles to keep the clutter at bay?  Any purging tips I missed?

If you need help decluttering, contact me for in-person organizing services in the Mississauga area, or virtual organizing services anywhere else.

Happy organizing decluttering!