How we saved our home with boxes

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This year my wife and I decided to take on a really complicated task.  We decided to take on a new place to live and saw an opportunity to make our lives a little bit better with a whole lot of work.  Due to the housing marketing being so good before the COVID-19 pandemic we moved into a super nice neighborhood at the lowest price that had ever been available in it.  This also came with a caveat of moving into a non-move in ready home.  We ended up with a timeframe to fix up the vast majority of the home and also we ended up with a giant mess doing so.  We ended up using cardboard boxes to organize and save our ability to live there.

The best decision we made was to work more organized.  Moving into a new home was going to be an exciting thing and at first, we were super happy about the ability to move into a great place with such a low cost. We didn’t have a ton of stuff moving from a small apartment into a large home but what we did have was still a bit too much for the location due to all the work we are doing with it.  I think that our issue was we were constantly working on the majority of the house at the same time.  By the time we moved in we only had really one room that was finished and able to be lived in and that was our bedroom. 

With the entire house being under construction we found that we simply didn’t have a lot of space to live.  It was livable until the winter started to kick in hard.  The issue that we had was that we could no longer work on projects the yard and we only had the space available in our garage to do messy jobs such as cutting wood and staining.  This left us with a big issue because our garage was so full of items and products.   This was where we had to organize in order to find room to work.  The house was already too full to add the garage stuff to ti so we had to be cleaver.  What we did was order a bunch of high-end cardboard boxes and we started to get to work.

We began by organizing all of our items by type and use.  This was important because we need to still be able to get to the items that we used constantly easily.  We decided that we could use the vertical space in our garage in order to save space.  We started packing up and actually building our towers vertically as well. 

In order to do this correctly, we ended up creating a system to know what we were stacking.  We stacked our packages by the type of items that are in it and the use we will need it for.  So an item we will use most often we will put a 1 on and a 5 on items that we wouldn’t not use much.  Then we would stack the packages in that order 1 on top so we could grab it out easy.  With this, we had more room to work and a garage we could continue to use. 

Getting the Right Tape

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I never imagined that some situations would happen in 2020.  The movement from brick and mortar business to eCommerce has taken the entire country by storm.  The reality is though that with all the lockdowns and regulations that it is much safer to be an eCommerce company in 2020 than any other.  This is simply due to the demand for shipping.  People are not going out of their homes nearly as much and in many cases, they are not allowed to by law.  This means that the demand for online shopping has skyrocketed.  It has also meant that the need for shipping has increased and the products that are needed to do it.

If you are getting into the shipping industry or your company is now finding that its most important department is shipping then there are some good lessons to learn and know.  The big thing to know is to make sure you are staying competitive in the market.  This is hard to due because technology is so vast and people can learn anything.  But having good relationships with companies is a big way to stay on top of the competitive nature of eCommerce. 

One major area that you need to be competitive in and can really crush competition is having a most efficient shipping supplies supplier.  It is more important to make sure you have good quality contact that can get you the gear you need and on time.  There is no way to ship without product and having a company fail on delivering the things you need is not good.  That is why having a great contact is a good thing and being able to buy products in bulk is a big part of having a great contact.

Shipping supplies are simply expensive and you need to be able to find a place to get them at a good discount.  I have to say that being competitive is more than shopping on Amazon versus going to your local store.  Yes, Amazon will be cheaper, but it will also be way higher than a major store that only sales these items and gives bulk discounts.  Bulk Discounts are a huge part of this industry and making sure you know what you need is part of it.

You need to know every amount of each item you use per shipment.  This is tedious and can end up saving you tons of money. My business found a big problem with spending when we were packing up boxes to ship.  Our packers were using about 10 strips of packing tape per box.  To all of us this seemed normal and was needed to hold the weight of all these items.  But when talking with a specialist in the industry from our supplier we found that our tape was thin and not capable of sustaining our competitive nature.  So he started to inform me and my company of thicker tape that could do the job in 3 strips of tape.  This was shocking but we figured that it would just cost more.  It did, but not relative to the project.  The tape costs 25% more, but also we would be using 200% less of it. The savings were incredible and once we trained our staff they were happy they didn’t have to tape nearly as much. So I hope this tip helps you and your company!

Garage Filled with Boxes?

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This weekend was certainly a lot of work at my house.  We decided to start cleaning out our garage after the COVID-19 pandemic.  It has been a long time since our State got back to any kind of normal but since we are all able to go back to work just about as usual we are finding that going out and doing normal things again is happening too.  That means that housework is getting back to normal and we found that our garage was riddled with Amazon packages.  It was just wrong and it was filling up our garage.  Now we know we needed to organize and move a lot of things from our garage to our shed, and this was the time to do it.

This all started out with us having to clean out a shed that we had never used.  It was filthy because the tenate who lived at out home kept a dog in there and never cleaned anything.  So with a shovel, broom, and preasurized hoze we went to town with bleach.  It took a few hours to clean and to dry but once we were done we were able to start taking all the filled cardboard boxes from the garage and move them into the shed. This took many hours to get it all sorted and filled up but it left us with a good amount of space in our garage.  Then we had to decide what to do with the insane stack of Amazon packages and how to best get rid of them.

We first tried to fill them with things and move them to the shed.  We did this for what we could but we still had a pile several feet long and many feet tall of cardboard boxes in our garage.  It was really hard to figure out what to do because we didn’t want to simply put these in the trash.  The next issue is that we are only able to recycle one trash can at a time and all these packages were simply not going to fit.  We tried just stacking some in the can, but that would literalyl take a year to recycle that way and we knew we were going to have to start breaking them down.

So first we started to break them down with out hands and we ran into trouble.  Those massive staples in some of the packages were simply too tough to overcome.  That left us with a sad feeling and our hands were in pain trying to overcome the stress.  So we then decided that we needed to get scissors to break them down and get them into the can as neatly as possible.  We each got through one box before our hands were red and about to start blistering.  That was a bad idea, but we decided a knife was the answer.  So I went into my fishing kit and got out a nice fixed blade knife.

This fixed blade had a great rubber handle and was made of a good stainless steel to deal with fish and water without rusting.  It was a fallkniven f1 knife and it went through the packages really well. So the next time you run into the same issue as us you now know what to do and how to recycle them all safely and quickly.

Is Candy On your Shopping list?

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This year there are so many words being thrown out. Pandemic and Essential have been played to death and are getting on my nerves.  The topic came up when I told a friend that I was going to the store to get snacks for the family. They immediately chastised me for putting lives at risk over snacks. Let me tell you that snacks are life and I am happy to take that risk in order to live a normal life and have a happy family. I want to let you know that the need for anything outways the risk of freedom and if you need to get some top of the line candy boxes for your family then go right ahead and go to the store.

The issues that have arrived this year are always based on the word essential.  Food is essential, and life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice are as well. It is when someone goes and tells me that any kind of grocery shopping is not essential that I must protest.  I live in the United States due to freedom and going shopping is part of that.  I take a massive risk of driving to the store. The risk of getting into a crash is always there and that is higher than any other health risk in the world. I say this to let people know that they are at risk of dying every day. It is a normal thing and we all have most likely been in a car wreck or no someone who has died from one.  So going to the grocery store has always been a big risk. 

Candy kiosk inside a shopping mall

There truly should be no limits on what is considered essential food.  If your family is going crazy from being locked inside together going on 4 months than anything to save your sanity is essential. That is how I look at many things these days.  It is no one’s right to tell you what food is good and what is not. That is part of why we live in this country and that is the freedom that it brings.  Yes, that even comes down to the candy boxes we choose when walking down that lovely aisle. So indeed don’t let anyone tell you what food is essential or even come close to taking away the choice as to that. It could mean later on that some choices for food for your children may be limited. The FDA says aspartame and corn syrup are healthy. If they are soon the only options then we may all be dying of following the rules if they take away healthy alternatives.

I mean to say that going to the grocery store is really simple.  It should be allowed anytime and there is no reason to ever tell someone not to go.  The right of freedom is involved and even in 2020 when pandemics that don’t seem to be causing much harm are happening essentially has taken a different turn. So do not fret, but go out and be free. Enjoy your amazing groceries and don’t be afraid of news that is proven to be false every day.  Don’t let your friends who have been persuaded to think the world is ending dictate your actions. That would be the end of freedom and freedom of thought as we have known it.

Organizing your Warehouse or Closet with Boxes

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The world is becoming a little more complicated and sometimes we are all needing more space for less cost.  This can be from a business or a personal finance perspective but with the new covid-19 pandemic the whole world is changing.  From an economic standpoint, we are moving in the United States into a more e-commerce centric shopping environment.  Then on a personal level, we are finding that many of us are legally being forced to work from home due to Covid-19 regulations.  So the need for more space in our own homes has been paramount in allowing people to find a place to work from.  Not all homes have the space for an office or even have the space for a desk in a room.  So the idea that warehouses are bing expanded and organized with whatever is possible for the least amount possible has been huge.  One secret is that people have been taking all the cardboard boxes they are getting from all these online orders and putting them to use in making extra room in all aspects of life. 

This has been seen most in the brick and mortar stores.  They are finding that the market demands them to be an eCommerce company or to give up more room for backend shipping.  This means that many stores are literally taking space from their show floor and converting it into warehouse room.  This is because they are only allowed 30 to 50% capacity in the store and online is booming. It really makes sense for them to expand the shipping and storage facilities and using inexpensive ways to do it is wise.  The use of cardboard boxes has been the answer for tons of people and they are creating whole warehouses from it. 

The use of bin boxes is the answer for many stores in that they can take lots of small products and stack them safely all over their warehouse.  They are taking orders in great quantity now and are also expanding their staff in the shipping locations.  this means that they are storing tons of more products in the store and need the space for storage.  The key to these stores success is in planning. They are expanding smarty and without much extra cost due to the products they have chosen to expand with.  The best part of this is it can make up for the losses of COvid-19 and foot traffic. Now at home, it has been a bit different.

Homeowners and people working at home due to the pandemic are storing more in order to make space.  Luckily all of their online orders have given them lots of places to store their goods. A nice orderly system at home can create lots of extra space and room to make a workspace with. Many people are actually taking all the boxes and creating their literal workspace.

It has been a trend to make your entire desk and work area from nothing but packaging supplies that have come in from online orders.  This is actually a cheap way to not lose money on making your home office.  I suggest looking up some plans that are already online and give lots of tips for doing this economically.  It is only wise if it saves you room, time, and money in my opinion.