How to Maintain a Clean and Organized Car

If you can believe it, Americans have always felt the need to keep everything in their cars. Take, for instance, this old vintage photo! If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time in your car. From coffee mugs to gym bags, sometimes your car can start to feel like an extension of your house and start accumulating mess. Like your home, your car can also maintain a level of organization. To avoid a traveling pigsty, try these easy car organization tips. That way, you can rest assured that you won’t be one of those cars.

1. Garbage container – Just as every room in a house needs a garbage bin, every car needs one as well. Keep it centrally located and get in the habit of using it for your trash. That way, you won’t have coffee cups, straw wrappers and other common car trash hanging around. Additionally, a great time to empty the trash is when you fill up your car with gas. You can also make sure do drop the trash in your outside garbage the night before your weekly trash pickup.

2. No item left behind – If you brought it into the car, there is no reason why you can’t take it back out of the car with you when you leave. Sometimes we can feel tired after a long day of work, and get into the habit of leaving items in the car. This action can snowball into a car full of chaos, so it’s best to take out what you put in.

3. Regular cleaning – At least one time per month, go through your car and remove any unwanted trash or items. If you are waiting at school for a kid pickup, kill the time by gathering trash in one bag and items that need to go back in the house in another. Keep a supply of wipes in the car to do a quick wipe down of the surfaces. Also, this step will go faster if you adhere to the tip above.

4. Car organizers – These things definitely come in handy! Hang a car organizer over the back of your driver and/or passenger seat to store kid-related items like crayons, coloring books, books, stuffed animals and other designated items for your car. When you are doing your monthly cleanup, make sure the items go back in their place and make a mental note if you need to replenish any items.

Remember, just because you’re goal is to have a neat and clean car; this doesn’t mean it should be void of all essentials. Depending on the month or season, it’s best to keep extra supplies in your car to be fully prepared. For examples, jackets in the winter and sunscreen in the summer.

Photo: Etsy