Too Many Mugs!

How many ceramic and thermal coffee mugs do you have in your house? I hate to admit that for three people, we probably have at least 20 of these things throughout the kitchen, and I'm the only one who drinks coffee or tea! These types of cups can pile up because it's easy to buy a mug from a place you want to remember, or you receive a travel mug as a gift at some conference or event, or someone gives you one as a gift, or you have a collection for certain holidays.

Here are a few tips for managing your mugs:

Find all travel or ceramic mugs and put them on the table. (Don't do coffee mugs at the same time, just one or the other.)

Pick out three of your favorites. They could be your favorite because they fit well in your car or you like the design. For whatever reason pick three.

Pick out two or three that you don't care about. Put them in a giveaway container.

If you entertain with mugs regularly, now pull out a fair number to keep for entertaining purposes (i.e. the small group of four women that come to your house each week for Bible study.) Only save what you reasonably need for entertaining.

Count how many you have left. Are any that are part of the "leftover" mugs ones that you can't bear to part with? If so, consider an alternative use for those. Can one go on your desk to hold coins? Can they be used as seed starter planters? A pen cup? Come up with an actual use for any you want to keep.

Hide the remaining. If you can bring yourself to put the rest in the giveaway pile, put them in a box and hide them in the back of a closet. Make a note on your calendar to retrieve the box six months from now. If you haven't looked for them in six months, give away the entire box to a place like Goodwill without opening the box.

Now, take the three you want to keep and find a suitable place for them. Why are you keeping three? On any given day, if you are a regular hot-drink person, you will be using one mug, and the other may need cleaning. The extra one is there for those inevitable times that you forgot to bring the mug in from the car or forgot to wash the other two. You should be able to rotate with three and always have one available in the cabinet.

Now, repeat the process with the other type of mug.

One additional suggestion. If any of the mugs are holiday related, consider storing them with the appropriate holiday box and putting them on display during that season.

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