I spent $87 on a 'professional' organizer and all she did was move my clutter into labeled bins

I hired this organizer from a popular Instagram account to help with my garage. She charged $87 an hour and spent 6 hours sorting stuff into bins with labels like 'misc hardware' and 'camping gear'. Once she left, I realized she didn't get rid of ANYTHING, she just hid it in pretty matching containers. Has anyone else had a similar experience with these trendy organizing services?

3 comments

3 Comments

mark4361mo agoMost Upvoted

I gotta push back a little on williams.sage's take there. "She gave you a system" - sure, but a system that doesn't include getting rid of anything is just expensive rearranging. In my experience, if you don't actually purge what you don't need, you're just paying someone to make your clutter look prettier. I've seen garages where people end up with five bins of "misc hardware" and they still can't find the right screwdriver. They just have cleaner piles now. Maybe the real value is in having someone who will actually tell you "look, you don't need three broken leaf blowers" instead of just labeling them.

williams.sage1mo ago

Hold on, that sounds like a win to me. You paid for organization, not decluttering. She gave you a system. Now everything in your garage has a home and a label. Before you had a pile of junk, now you have a pile of stuff that at least makes some kind of sense. If you wanted to throw things away, you should've hired a junk hauler, not an organizer. The bins are the whole point so you don't lose stuff in the mess again.

blair_taylor321mo ago

So @williams.sage, did you pay $87 an hour for a label maker and some Target bins? That's highway robbery. I had a similar thing happen with a pantry organizer - she literally just stacked my cans by type and called it a day. She charged me like $500 and I still had expired soup from 2019 hiding in the back. At least when I do it myself, I can throw the junk out.