Odds are, if you live in an apartment, you have a balcony or patio, and if you’re lucky, you have one if your home is a condo or a townhouse. This tiny little “urban porch” may well be the only bit of outdoor space you can truly call your own, so why not take full advantage of it?

This post is aimed at making your balcony a fulfilling place to be for both pets and their owners, but anyone with a little bit of private outdoor access will benefit from reading these tips.

The pet owners among you will want to give your furry friend a little exposure to the outdoors in a safe way. Of course, your pet getting harmed or stolen is always a concern, so here’s how to prepare your balcony to be a safe, happy haven for your dog, cat, or bunny.

• Real Grass Crate – Growing live grass in a basin on your balcony is marketed toward dog-owners short on time, but cats and bunnies would enjoy sniffing around on this their own tiny yard, too, without you having to worry about bugs or snakes hiding in the grass. If your animal does their business outside, commercial options will have a small sprinkler that washes urine into a collecting area, and you will need to pick up droppings yourself.
• Protective Balcony Fence – Fears of jumping off a balcony probably are not a cause for concern with dogs, but cats and bunnies may well jump or step off without realizing how far up they really are. I used a grid storage set like the ones described here to create a fence all the way around the inside perimeter of my balcony, and held up against the posts of the balcony with cable ties so that I can let my cats out safely. Always keep an eye on your pets while they’re out there, though! Cats especially can be reckless when they’re exploring.
• Separating Pets and Plants – Many pets enjoy eating the fruits of your gardening work, and some plants are poisoning to small animals, so it’s best to keep the two apart. That doesn’t mean pet-owners can’t garden, too, though! Hanging planters and window boxes attached to the side of your balcony will make your balcony a more positive place to hang out, with or without a pet.
• Water Fountains – If your balcony is covered, a pet-friendly water fountain can serve the dual purposes of providing fresh, running water to your pet, and adding natural sounds and sights to your balcony. For non-pet owners, larger water fountains can be very appealing and promote tranquility, but these fountains usually don’t have filters to ensure they are safe for drinking out of.

I don’t know about you, but receiving gift cards makes me feel like I’m being handed a severely-handicapped form of cash, especially if it’s to a store I rarely visit. There are even a few stores that don’t accept gift cards online, so those cards linger in a pile on my desk until I’ve completely forgotten about them and the amount on the card has dwindled down to nothing.

Fortunately, I’ve figured out how to reduce wasting gift cards down to almost nothing, and how to use them and get rid of them quickly, without adding more clutter. Here’s what I do.

1. 

   flickr.com/photos/bimp/3277189986/

   Get all your gift cards out, including gift cash cards, which often have horrendously high usage and inactivity fees associated with them. Most cards don’t have expiration dates, but throw out any that are useless now.

2. For gift cards to stores that you like that also accept gift cards online,  either figure out something you need there and purchase it today (before you forget again), or make a few gift purchases to give to friends or family.
3. With the cards that you can’t use online, decide whether or not they are really worth the trip to the physical location.  Find out where the closest store is, if you don’t already know, and write down your planned trips for the worthwhile cards on your to-do list, and put the remainder of your cards in a separate pile.
4. Gift cards you don’t need can be donated to charity through non-profits like the Works of Life charity or Gift Card Donor, which gives 75% of the value of the gift card you donate to the charity of your choice.
5. Selling gift cards is another option, and it’s especially lucrative for large chain retailers. Gift card “brokers” like Plastic Jungle and GiftCardBuyBack buy cards at a certain percentage discount from you, depending on the store, and resell the cards for a higher amount, but still at a discount, to other shoppers.

The average American home has $400 in unused gift cards lying around – save money and eliminate all your gift cards today.

Kitchen appliances are the type of gifts people tend to get from well-meaning relatives who want to give you something useful or practical. The rest of the kitchen clutter many people acquire either in pursuit of an exotic dish that requires them to go out and buy another tool (lemon zester? electric mixer? deep fryer?), or others who make a resolution to eat healthy meals at home more often, and feel like they need a kitchen appliance collection that’s up to the challenge.

The thing is, most people don’t cook enough to justify dozens of single-use items, though these special items may perform their lone duties marginally better than their more mundane equivalents. Unless you’re are cooking full meals at home more than three times a week, there’s almost certainly a significant amount of kitchen clutter you can eliminate. Here’s the same (albeit mental) list I go through when I’m going on a kitchen purging.

1. Purge excess pots and pans. Most people really don’t need more than a couple pans and maybe three pots, but they often tend to reproduce in the back corners of dusty cabinets, and you’re left with more containers than three stoves could accommodate.  Get rid of them.
2. Clean out the refrigerator. Yes, you might find some pretty gross stuff back there, but then again, you might also be able free up some forgotten containers and not have to keep buying more every time you go grocery shopping. Use a baking soda and water or vinegar and water solution instead of normal cleaning supplies to wash out the inside without getting anything toxic near food. If you want to go all-out in cleaning out your refrigerator, read this step-by-step guide to stripping, washing, and refitting your fridge.
3. Check expiration dates. Or, if you want to preserve your food for a little longer, check out this food expiration guide. Pretty much every food goes bad eventually, despite what you might think. I have found people’s spice racks to be particularly packed with little half-used canisters of spices that expired in the last decade.
4. Keep counters clean. Tall counters are perfect for setting junk down on the second you step through the door, but forcing yourself to keep the open surfaces in your kitchen bare except for the occasional decorative item is good from both a feng shui perspective and to reduce unappealing visual clutter around the kitchen area.
5. Organize your cabinets. Kitchen cabinets tend to have too few shelves for too much height, but you can give yourself more horizontal space by using shelf sub-dividers like this one on Amazon. Suddenly, all your plates do fit in one cabinet. Amazing, right?
6. Get rid of the misfits. My own dinnerware is mostly matching, but there’s still lingering themed cups or utensils that I accidentally walked out of a restaurant with that wreak havoc (visually, at least), on any hopes of having a neatly ordered kitchen. Unless you have a large family, more than a couple dozen each of flatware and dishes is overkill, and purging your cabinets of items that don’t belong will make you much happier with your kitchen in the long run.

Still lost? For inspiration, I usually check out the kitchn for pics of beautifully-designed but still livable kitchens, and the Container Store’s kitchen section for products that might jump-start my imagination. A happier kitchen awaits you!

This post is Part 2 of the Living Without series.

For many urban residents living in houses or multi-dwelling homes that were built 50 years ago or more, laundry rooms are non-existent, and their homes may well not even have the plumbing to handle a modern washer and dryer unit. For others, living without a modern laundry system is a conscious choice, whether for space (most of these appliances are huge, and dual-purpose or stackable units are expensive), to save money, or to minimize their environmental impact.

Since dry-cleaning is expensive over time and uses harsh chemicals, we will assume that is only an option for dry-clean only clothes. Here are some more ways to live well without a washer and/or dryer.

1. Manual clothes washers – You might think old-fashioned “agitators” had gone the way of the telegraph, but manual washers are still in heavy use among the frugal, long-term travelers, and in other parts of the world. Most of the benefit of getting clean clothes comes from the clothes twisting and pushing against each other, so you really only have to use a little bit of soap to get your garments clean, and the process only takes about five minutes. The WonderWash is probably the best-known manual washing product, and it can handle 5-lb loads at a time.
2. Hand-washing – It’s not exactly fun, but to get clothes clean by hand, you’ve really got to scrub and twist, giving your arms a thorough workout in the process. If you have a bucket of water or a big sink, you can give this method a try. Hand-washing underwear and shirts isn’t that difficult, but getting jeans and other thick, heavy clothes clean enough to wear is a time-consuming, labor-intensive process. For more on hand-washing clothes, click here.
3. Laundry pickup and delivery services – These are usually locally-owned businesses, so I can’t recommend any particular company, but you’ll probably find at least a couple by searching for “laundry pickup” + your city. You will usually pay by the pound for clothes to be washed, though some places may offer payment by the bag. This is not a particularly environmentally-friendly approach to cleaning clothes, but it is extremely convenient. If you live in a condo or apartment, your office may have a recommendation of a provider to use.
4. Clothesline drying – This is an almost effortless way to dry clothes, and you can get clothes dry even in cold climates if you give them all day. If air-drying them makes them too stiff for your comfort, shake them thoroughly both before and after you hang them, and add a little fabric softener to the wash. Here’s a huge list of tips on hand-drying clothing at ThriftyFun.

Here at Microliving, we definitely recommend doing a periodic clutter sweep, but you might be throwing items away that could be going to a good cause and reused by others. Here’s how and where to donate some of the more unusual items you might have lying around your home.

1. Rechargeable Batteries – All batteries that are rechargeable are accepted at Call to Recycle, which only excludes alkaline and wet-cell batteries. Recycling is free, and there are over 30,000 drop-off centers at retailers nationwide (US) for your convenience. It is illegal in many states to throw away rechargeable batteries because of the levels of metals that can poison the environment, so look around for appropriate batteries in old cell phones, laptops, digital cameras, and cordless phones. All reclaimed metals and materials are re-used and never end up in a landfill.
2. Unused Medication – Every year thousands of pills are flushed into the sewer system, and scientists have yet to determine the long-term impacts of medicines in our drinking water. Unexpired anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, pain relievers, and HIV/AIDS medication are desperately needed by the Health Equity Project for shipment to those suffering from disease in Africa. Donation is free, minus shipping costs, though they ask that you make a small donation to cover shipment overseas. Unfortunately, few other charities can accept expired medication due to national and local restrictions, so the most environmentally-friendly approach to medicine disposal is mixing the individual tablets with used coffee grounds or clean cat litter and packing the mix into a disposable container such as a butter carton, and throwing the container away.
3. Clothing, Household Goods, and Furniture – The Salvation Army accepts most common items around your house, excluding consumer electronics such as mp3 players and DVD players, though they will gladly take washing machines and air conditioners, among other household appliances. For a complete list of what they accept, along with a useful valuation guide for tax deduction purposes, click here. The Salvation Army has a pickup service that covers most major metropolitan areas in the US, so you don’t even need a truck to donate your old items.
4. Consumer Electronics – Best Buy offers electronics donation areas in all of their retail centers. Two items are accepted per household for day free of charge, excluding CRTs, laptops, monitors, and TVs smaller than 32″, which involve a $10 fee that is offset by a $10 Best Buy gift card for each of the excluded items you donate. Hard drives, and appliances containing freon are not accepted. Large TVs and other big electronics can be picked up at your home by the Best Buy pickup service for recycling for $100.
5. Holiday Lights – If you have broken or unwanted holiday lights lying around from this just-passed Yuletide season, ship them to The Christmas Light Source, who will recycle them and use the proceeds to make a donation to the Toys for Tots charity next Christmas.

This is by no means a complete list of items you have lying around, but it’s a start. Remember to tackle all cleaning and de-cluttering projects a little at a time, and check back in a week or so for another list of recycling options.