How to Clean Out Your Purse

Here's the skinny on a quick way to clean your purse out according to Kathi Lipp:

How to Clean Your Purse Instructions

Here’s my super-speedy way of cleaning out my bag. I simply take my purse and dump it out
into a plastic grocery bag. I sort the dump into Put Away, Put Back, and (in this case) Throw
Away.

Put Away

Anything I want to keep that doesn’t belong in my purse gets put away. This is also when I go
through receipts I’ve carefully placed in my wallet (or, more likely, the ones I’ve quickly thrown
into my purse…) and random notes or other pieces of paper. If you’re away from home while
you’re sorting, just put these items into another bag to put away when you get home. And when
you get home, put them away in the right spot.

Put Back

If it belongs in your purse, go ahead and put it back into your purse.

Throw Away

Anything that’s left over in your plastic grocery bag (food wrappers, cash receipts you don’t care
about, and so on,) is now garbage that gets recycled or thrown away.

The beauty of the grocery-bag organizing system is that you can do it anywhere, anytime. Just
grab a grocery bag and start sorting while you’re waiting for your kids to get out of band practice
or while you’re on the phone with your mom.

Clean it Up

Give your purse a good shake and get out any stray bits, crumbs etc. I’ve even used a hand held
vacuum to really get the bag clean.

Label It and Put It Away

Assign a spot for everything that belongs in your purse, bag, or backpack. I use three zippered
pouches. Everything goes into one of those three pouches or into your wallet (or in rare cases,
onto your key chain). The fewer items you place in your purse, the easier it is to know what’s in
there.

Wallet. I recommend you keep in your wallet only cash, receipts, checkbook, and credit, debit,
and gift cards.

Pouch 1: Makeup bag

•Lipstick and gloss

•Eyeliner

•Powder

•Sunscreen stick

•Blush and brush

•Eyeglass cleaner wipes

•Hand sanitizer

Pouch 2: Emergency kit

•Fashion tape

•$20

•Needle and thread

•Nail glue

•Advil

•Couple of adhesive bandages

Pouch 3: Change

Other Things to Keep in Your Bag

•Sunglasses case

•Cell phone

•Keys

Keep It Up

If I sort through the items in my purse once a week, it really is easy to stay on top of it. It takes
only a couple of minutes to keep it up.