What's Your Handbag Lifehack?

How to unclutter your handbag -- and keep it that way  

Ever feel like you’ve used up a week of your life (and the patience of various store personnel) rummaging in your purse and/or wallet for the right key/card/pen/gum? Have you tried various purse organizers, but they just end up as clogged with old receipts and gum wrappers as usual?

The right purse from BeautifulBagsEtc can help solve your handbag chaos.

A sturdy lining fabric with enough pockets for your tools (whatever they are) is the first step. The next is how to use those pockets. A few little tweaks will make a huge difference to your daily sanity and to your level of efficiency as you move through your day (and can be applied to any of our handbags).

Use two wallets.  Use your main wallet for your cash and driver's license and most-used credit/debit card. Use another wallet, small clutch or zipper pouch for backup credit cards, reward cards, membership cards, insurance cards, and all the other trappings of adult life which get in the way of simply paying for groceries (or whatever).

Identify one pocket (preferably an external one) for your cell phone.

Handbags and cell phones create two problems: you can't find it, or you can't hear it.  Many of our bags have an external pocket designed specifically as the perfect size and shape for an iPhone and most android phones. That should be the ONLY place to put your phone, and NOTHING else goes in the pocket!  Bonus: because your cell phone now has a specific storage location, you’ll misplace less often at home.

Add a caribiner to your keychain. There are a million uses for carabiners, those spring-hinged metal loopy hooks. But the most useful for me has been adding one to my keychain and hooking it inside a loop in my purse (or to the purse strap ring).  All of our bags include a BeautifulBagsEtc embroidered logo leather fob on a complimentary key chain ring with swivel hook.

Embrace the "shove zone."  One thing will never change: I will always mindlessly shove stuff in my purse. Gum wrappers, receipts, stuff my hubby or kids ask me to hold. Rather than fight it, I've accepted it and identified the main pocket as the "shove zone." Now that I know where my wallets, keys, and phone are, the clutter isn't so much of a problem. And when I find myself with 2-3 idle minutes (often at gas stations), I clear out the crap and throw it away. I love that gas stations have trash cans right next to the pump.

I still need to do a full dump-and-clear every so often, but not as often as before. More importantly, the constant desperate rifling through my purse is mostly a thing of the past.

Find all of our bags and more at BeautifulBagsEtc