Hello Frugal Confessions Readers!

For those of you new to this series, check out the introduction here.

Here is my confession of the week:

I love the Container Store because I love organization and cleanliness. Part of redoing our laundry room means that we took down the ancient shelving in the closet, spackled (a lot), and put up a new shelf system. This was so important and fun to me, and I knew just where we were going to get a closet system from: The Container Store. Their Elfa system was on sale at 30% off in January, and so the timing seemed perfect.

However, they did not have the right measurements that we were looking for (one large shelf up top, and two smaller shelves down the left side in order to keep a lot of space in the middle for things with handles like vacuum cleaners and brooms). Paul had mentioned that I should look in Lowe’s instead, and could probably get the same thing for half the price. Well…he was right!

Lowe’s sells a large piece of finished particle board (oak–the same kind at the Container Store), as well as white-powder coated tracks and everything. My total cost came to: $45.11! I priced the same materials at the Container Store, and it would have been (with the 30% discount): $132!!!! Amazing…though I have to admit I will still be shopping periodically at the Container Store when I want to spoil myself:).

What is your frugal confessions of the week? I’d love to hear them!