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How to Organize a Purse

Your purse goes with you everywhere and is supposed to make your life easier, but a cluttered purse is both an embarrassment and a frustration.  Give the inside of your constant companion a makeover, and learn how to organize a purse.

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From the outside, your purse is a statement about your personality: sleek and simple, colorful and fun, carefree minimalist or Ms. Prepared-for-anything.  On the inside?  It can resemble a junk drawer. 

Follow these purse organization hacks and discover how to organize a purse.

How to Organize a Purse

This article contains affiliate links to products that will help you get organized.

Purse Organization Hacks

Dump It Out

This first step is essential.  Get everything out of your purse.   Start with a blank slate, and keep an open mind about what should return.

Throw the trash away.  Feels good, right?

Sort Into Categories

It’s easy for purses to become receipt cemeteries.  Remove your receipts, sort them, and store them elsewhere.  (Consider taking pictures of the receipts you want to save.)

Separate the contents of your purse into categories.  Each of us have our own go-to items: makeup, medication, pacifiers/teethers, feminine products, writing utensils, wallet, keys, etc.

Downsize

If your purse contains full-size toiletries, switch to the travel size.  Do you really need five pens?  Go down to two.  Use the pocket-size feminine products.

If your purse doubles as a full makeup kit, switch to applying makeup at home instead of on the go.  Then you need only pack a few touch-up items like mascara, concealer, and lip gloss in your purse.

How to Organize a Purse

Redo Your Wallet

If you have a clutch-sized wallet, don’t forget to go through that as well.  Repeat all the same steps you did for your purse:  remove everything, toss, sort, and consider what needs to go back in.

Is your wallet bursting with store loyalty cards?  Try the app Stocard and turn your phone into your wallet (and never miss a point again).  

Now that you’ve slimmed down the contents of your wallet, do you still need a wallet that large?  Consider switching to something smaller and knock some ounces off your purse weight.

Leverage the Pockets

Your purse may already have some organizational ideas up its sleeve.  Does it have pockets?  This could be the new home for your cell phone, your keys, or your pens.

Purse Organizers

Organizing a purse without pockets is also simple; you just need some purse organizer ideas.  Larger purses and totes could house a purse organizer like this one.  Purse organizers have a place for everything. You can also use a pouch system.  These mesh pouches allow you to see their contents without unzipping.  Use one for medicine and bandaids, one for feminine products, one for makeup…they can hold whatever you need.

If you are more of a minimalist, skip the pouch and use a soft glasses case.  Want to protect your tampons to keep them from getting squished?  Try a tampon tube.  

How to Organize a Purse

Store Items Vertically

Maybe it’s just human nature, but we tend to store the items in our purses horizontally. The problem with that?  They aren’t immediately visible, and we are stuck rooting through our purses all the time.

Try storing your items vertically: your phone, your wallet, your sunglasses, etc. Then you can open your purse and see the contents in a snap.

How do you store earbuds or a charger cord vertically?  Use cord tacos, which snap around your wound cords and keep them from becoming a tangled mess.    

Organize a Purse

Now that you know how to organize a purse, what’s stopping you?  Let rummaging through a cluttered purse be a thing of the past, and turn your handbag into a new-and-improved organizational masterpiece.  

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