My family recently moved and we have settled into our new home. While we love our new house, it did have one glaring problem for a wanna be writer – no home office space for Frugal Dad. Not to worry, as you may remember I’ve had experience setting up a home office in laundry/utility rooms, bedroom corners, and even recently threatened to convert our outside storage building to a home office.

Initially, I dreamed about setting up my own shop remotely. It would be nice to have a place to go to do some writing out of the house without having to share the space with diners, coffee drinkers or teenagers playing online games (this is the setting of most places with wi-fi in my area).

I checked out a few online listings for office space and found a promising lead. A local real estate office was renting out one of their unused offices for only $400 a month, including utilities. I talked with the manager of the firm and rode by to check out the office. It was nice, but something told me not to sign right away.

While I came away with a favorable impression of the space, I added up the annual costs on the way home and realized it would cost me nearly $5,000 a year to fund this extra space. There had to be a more frugal alternative. I returned home to do a little brainstorming.

Setting Up a Home Office: The Before Picture

Yes, that’s our master bedroom closet. Well, half of it. And yes, this is the place where we just threw everything we didn’t have room for elsewhere. The fun part about moving is that you get to discover just how much crap you’ve accumulated over the years. I told my wife I was going to use my half of the closet to create a writing area. Once I convinced her that her side would be unaffected, she went along with the idea.

My first order of business was going through some old clothes I had accumulated over the years and no longer wore. I wound up bagging three bags full of old shirts, sweatshirts and miscellaneous t-shirts simply taking up space. I donated them to a local men’s shelter in our area, and they seemed grateful.

With the clothing racks cleared on one side, I moved that file cabinet into one corner of the office, and relocated an old table sewing machine my grandmother used (bottom right of that picture) to another room. I cleared out the remaining stuff (including the giant Christmas gift bag, which I embarrassed to confess still held most of the contents of our family’s Christmas stockings!).

The Frugal Home Office: After Picture

After sliding the file cabinet into the corner, I had plenty of room for a four-foot folding table. This was the ideal size, and since I already had one on hand, I made it work. The only other supplies needed, in addition to my writing laptop, was a simple scratch pad and pen, and a small basket with basic office supplies (stapler, dry erase markers, etc.).

As you can see, not much decorating going there. I did hang a dry erase/bulletin board and my kids were nice enough to supply a few early Valentine’s Day decorations. That sticker on the side of my filing cabinet has been there for several years and reads, “Live Like No One Else.” You might recognize that quote from Dave Ramsey. For years I looked at that sticker while toiling away on my side hustles with the goal of debt freedom in mind.

The books on top of the file cabinet represent just a small section from my budding personal finance library. You might recognize a few covers as Your Money or Your Life, Work Less, Live More, The Tightwad Gazette, America’s Cheapest Family, and the recent release from Gary Vaynerchuck, Crush It. The supply rotates as I discover new reads, but these four or five books stay because I always go back to them for ideas and inspiration.

In case you are worried about me becoming claustrophobic, I should tell you that since taking the picture I used a bungee cord to band those clothes on the right side and pull them closer to the wall. They were mostly warm-weather shirts, so I won’t be needing them for a while anyway. This freed up a lot of shoulder room, but honestly it felt pretty cozy without the extra space.

I couldn’t be happier working away in my frugal home office. I’m fairly isolated from other noises in the house, even with the door open (I can always close off the bedroom door and leave this one open if the kids get too noisy). I don’t expect everyone to be able to set up shop in their closet, but if you are looking for a place to start a home business, I encourage you to get creative before rushing out and leasing office space.

Chances are there is some tiny bit of unused space in your home to set up a folding table and computer. If nothing else, it was a good excuse to clean out our closet!

A few weeks ago I moved my home office out of the utility room (where our washer and dryer are located) into the dining room. My wife was less than thrilled with my taking over the dining room table, but I was excited to upgrade my “office” from a 4-foot folding table to an entire room.

Without an extra bedroom available, I’ve started thinking through alternative home office locations around (and outside) the house. One idea I had was to convert our storage building in the backyard to an office. It wouldn’t take much – just add a window AC unit, run some ethernet cable for internet access, and maybe some cheap floor covering to hide the concrete. Who knows, this might become my fall project.

Frugal Roundup

What Is a Bug Out Bag? We have been slowly accumulating items for our own “bug out bag” over the last few weeks, and this list had a few things I had not thought to include. With September being National Preparedness Month, it’s a great time to take inventory of emergency supplies. (@Family Survival Blog)

Who’s Better at Managing Money: Men or Women? Like all great questions in life I think the answer here is, it depends. Success with money management has more to do with personalities (who’s the detail oriented one, who’s the free spirit, etc.) than with gender. (@The Digerati Life)

PFBlogger Spotlight: Jason of Frugal Dad. Jim from Bargaineering.com interviewed me the other day. Read on to learn way more than you ever wanted to about the real “Frugal Dad.” (@Bargaineering)

If You’re Going to Consolidate Debt Then You Have to Stop Using Credit. One of the biggest pitfalls of debt consolidation is that many people leave paid-off accounts opened, and proceed to run the balances right back up again. (@Generation X Finance)

An Introduction to Making Jam. I’ve always been interested in canning, making jams and preserves, etc, but know absolutely nothing about how to do it. This post provides a great introduction. (@Simple Mom)

Five Ways I Disagree With Dave Ramsey. As a fan of Dave Ramsey, the title stung a little bit. But after reading Trent’s post, I have to say I have shared the same thoughts about elements of Ramsey’s plan. (@The Simple Dollar)

Learn Personal Finance from The Bible, not the Federal Government. In terms of choosing the right examples to live by, financially, choosing between the bible and the government is a no-brainer. (@Debt Free Adventure)

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I mentioned earlier that September is National Preparedness Month. With a major hurricane spinning in the Atlantic, and wildfires on the west coast, now is the perfect time to make sure your family is ready for an emergency. Check your emergency kit. Talk through disaster scenarios, escape plans, rendezvous points, etc. to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Recently, Frugal Dad posted an article on making space around your home more productive. The options given were:

• Convert spare bedrooms, garages or back porches to a home gym.
• Create a home office with just a feet of empty wall space.
• Plant vegetables in a table top, square foot garden on your balcony or porch.
• Turn your formal dining room into a den, study or playroom.
• Create a reading and meditation nook.

I wanted to focus in on the idea of creating a home office. I have a few suggestions to make it both productive and ergonomic while still sticking to Frugal Dads’ idea of not taking up too much space.

Making Your Home Office Productive

If offices aren’t distracting enough, a home office can be even more distracting. Here are two basic, yet very influential, tips to keeping your home office productive.

Follow the Paper Trail & Keep it Accessible

When I took on my role at my company, one of the things I did was shadow the person who was training me for a few days. I have noticed that a lot of times “shadowing” becomes relaxation time and the biggest accomplishments wind up being office gossip, mastering the new coffee pot, and killer YouTube searches. However, I decided to look at the desk as a “system” and figure out an efficient paperwork flow chart.

What did I find?

• She was wasting paper and money printing paperwork that was never used by anyone. These reports are available through the supply chain and inventory programs we use. She also saved an electronic copy to the company shared server, which is backed up in case of failure. I checked with compliance and asked if this paperwork needed to be printed, or if an electronic copy was ok. Turns out all we needed was an electronic copy.
  
• She would print out a boat load of paperwork to cover her butt, and then toss it every month. Once again, these were all reports that were emailed to her. She printed them so her mailbox wouldn’t get full. I simply created an archive in Outlook and copy any important documents over. I also got a recycling container to limit paper waste.
• Lastly, she would file urgent/important documents together with product forecasts and bills from suppliers. When someone asked her for a copy of ___, it would literally take 10 minutes to find the paperwork. I have since separated everything into logical divisions using the combination of a wire mesh paper rack and filing cabinets and can find paperwork within minutes.

These aren’t huge productivity killers, but it definitely made finding the important paperwork more difficult. It was also incredibly wasteful of natural resources and our companies money.

Find Your Balance of “White Space and Color”

In publishing and art, white space is used to de-clutter, to make things less confusing or overwhelming. White space is emptiness, it is nothing. Without white space, you risk your information being lost down an abyss… never to return. The idea of white space is 100% applicable to your office.

All you need to do is look at this office to realize that:

What are some things that immediately jump out at you? Obviously, the paperwork. If you asked him or her to find you a document, could they do so easily? This person needs a better organization system. Once that is solved, it would be a good idea to make this desk a little more “homey” by adding some flowers, desk “ornaments” or pictures on the wall. If you spend a lot of time at your desk, you need to enjoy it!

What does a well-organized desk that utilizes “white space” look like?

Notice the flowers, lighting on the desk, papers filed on the right in both an organized and accessible manner, and the usage of wicker accessories to give the desk an even more “homey” feel.

Making Your Home Office Ergonomic

If you work at your desk for at least a few hours every day, you probably know the feeling of a sore back, eyestrain, aching wrists, and stiff knees. Well, that doesn’t have to be the case. The idea behind ergonomics is that you design your work area for maximum productivity, safety, and comfort.

Hands and Wrists

The largest contributing factors to the soreness you feel in your hands and wrists are the keyboard and mouse you are using.

You’ve probably seen the funky ergonomic keyboards before. What’s the idea? The soreness you feel in your hands and wrists is due to blood circulation being cut off to that area. This is because people typically have their hands angle in towards the center of the keyboard (think of the “G” key as the focal point with your forearms pointing at the key coming from the corner a bit). Optimally, though, your hands and wrists should be in a straight-line with your forearm.

There are plenty of keyboards that can help in doing this, but here is one: Kinesis Freestyle Solo Keyboard. What are the advantages? It has a zero-degree slope so that you are not extending your wrists. The keyboard can be split into a left and right piece, further aiding comfort and ensuring you keep your hands, wrist, and forearm in a straight line.

And what kind of mouse can help relieve stress placed on your hands and wrists? One of them, the Evoluent Vertical Mouse 3. And I was so taken by the first review on Amazon, that I couldn’t do the product justice:

In terms of my experience with this product, I have assisted several thousand workers with mouse-related injuries over the past 13 years, working for 10 years as a rehabilitation ergonomist […]. I have recommended the Evoluent literally thousands of times and have found it to be highly effective in the rehabilitation of upper-limb disorders, when used correctly.

In terms of training/qualification, I have an MSc (with distinction) in Health Ergonomics,[…]. My thesis was on ‘The Influence of Workstation Layout on Working Postures.’ I have taught many professional courses on computer ergonomics. I am currently (2008) engaged in my PhD at Purdue University, USA. I have been a full member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society since 2004.

Let me say at the outset that I take mouse injuries very seriously; they are far more prevalent than keyboard injuries, and may be far more disabling. I am ‘independent,’ by which I mean I do not sell any products, neither am I paid to endorse any products. As a professional ergonomist, I strongly believe paid endorsements are unethical. I am paid by my clients to give impartial, effective advice, that’s all.

Lower Back

Back injuries are also common from sitting at a desk because of poor posture either related to the height of the seat or the angle of the seat. One way to fix the issue is get a chair that has the ability to adjust its height and angle at which the back rest contacts your back.

However, chairs can get quite expensive. A cheaper alternative would be to elevate your legs while sitting at your desk. Elevating your legs naturally takes some of the pressure off of your lower back. One tool to help you in this quest is the Kensington SoleSaver Footrest. The foot rest has 3 variable heights and 3 variable tilts you can choose from. By using this during extended periods of sitting at a desk, you will increase circulation and decrease pressure on your lower back.

The healthy body can only tolerate staying in one position for about 20 minutes. That is why sitting on an airplane, at a desk in an office chair, or at a movie theatre becomes uncomfortable after a short time.

If you don’t feel like buying it, at least get up and stretch every 20 minutes. Or put some phone books down there to elevate your feet somewhat!

Go Get Some Work Done!

Hopefully, following Frugal Dad’s advice to utilize space in your house for a home office accompanied with my advice to make that home office both productive and ergonomic will set you up for success!

I only touched on 2 ways to increase productivity and 2 ways to improve ergonomics, so there are plenty of others out there. If you have any more suggestions, please bounce them off of me and the readers in the comments!

This was a guest post from MLR @ My Life ROI. If you like this post, check out his website or subscribe to his feed. MLR is currently giving away a gift card to Global Giving for his RSS subscribers.

Earlier this year my wife and I decided to stay put in our current home.  Now we are in the “how can we make this work” mode where you walk room to room with the realization that you will be here for a while, and the chances of building or buying a new home with all your needs will sit on the back burner for a while.  Here are a few ideas for making the existing space around our home more productive.  We’ve already implemented a couple of these items, and the remaining ones are on our to-do list.

Ways To Make Spaces Around Your Home More Productive

Convert spare bedrooms, garages or back porches to a home gym.
Our neighbors recently closed in a garage and added some gym-quality exercise equipment.  They now have a full squat rack, Smith machine, an elliptical machine, bike and treadmill.  To say I was a little jealous would be a major understatement.  I’ve always wished I could lift weights at home, mostly because I don’t care for the social setting at most gyms.  While I don’t think I’ll be able to close in the garage, I could put a weight bench with a bench press rack on the back porch.  I could also add a small set of dumbbells, a used exercise bike (for rainy days), and a heavy bag.

Create a home office with just a feet of empty wall space.
When I started writing here at Frugal Dad, I recognized quickly that I would need to carve out a quiet area to do most of my writing.  My requirements were simple:  a door, enough room for a table to hold my laptop and a few notepads, magazines, books, etc.  Finding a spot with a door proved to be the hard part.  That is, until I got creative.

Our washer and dryer are in a large utility room.  We have a rolling metal rack in there to hold canned goods, along with a spare freezer to store meats and vegetables we occasionally find on sale and stock up on.  The room may have looked full to the “unfrugal” eye, but I saw an opportunity.

I set up a four-foot folding table and small rolling task chair with no arms.  My laptop, a small lamp, a couple bookends to hold five or six of my favorite books, and a scratch pad for making notes all fit perfectly on the table.  The chair easily pushes up to the table, and is out of the way when doing laundry.

Plant vegetables in a table top, square foot garden on your balcony or porch.
Who says you have to have a ton of green space to grow a beautiful garden?  Consider building a square foot garden, or planting in containers, on your balcony or other outdoor space. I had a friend who grew beautiful tomatoes and a variety of other salad vegetables on his balcony.  Before dinner, his wife would pluck a few tomatoes to slice and eat along with their meals.  She also maintained a variety of herbs and flowers.

Turn your formal dining room into a den, study or playroom.
How often to you eat dinner in your formal dining room?  If you are like us, probably not that often.  Maybe a few times a year we gather there to host Thanksgiving dinner, or a similar occasion. But, for the most part it sits empty as a placeholder for our dining table, chairs and hutch.  Consider converting this space to a den, a playroom for the kids, or perhaps a study or home office (the latter may require adding a door or two).

One word of caution:  I once pitched the idea of replacing the dining table with a pool table.  I was half kidding (only half), but let’s just say it didn’t go over very well.

Create a reading and meditation nook.
I’ve frequently heard this advice, but it really stuck when listening to Dr. Wayne Dyer once describe how everyone should have a little “nook” where they can go to get lost in their thoughts.  It could be as simple as a quiet corner of a bedroom, or as large as an unused guest room.  The point is to create a quiet corner in your home, surrounded by things with positive energy such as pictures, drawing, motivational posters, etc.

When thinking about rearranging your home, keep in mind that any configuration changes you make may not be desirable to future homeowners.  Unless you plan to stay put forever, think long and hard about knocking down (or adding) any walls, hanging doors, etc.  For the most part, consider enchancements to your home’s space that do not require any structural modifications.  But don’t be afraid to get creative, and don’t be afraid to make the space work for you and your family.  After all, homes are meant to be lived in.

I’ve been spending some time looking for a secret hideaway where I can get more writing done. I’ve accepted a couple freelance opportunities, in addition to my writing here at Frugal Dad, in an attempt to sprint to the finish of this debt snowball plan.  In doing so, I’m finding myself needing more and more quiet time in front of the computer.

My requirements were pretty simple.  I basically needed a small room with a door somewhere in the house.  All the bedrooms are occupied, and in the summer our garage is too hot to sit in any length of time.  I decided to squeeze into our utility/laundry room, working from a laptop on a four foot folding table.  Have computer, have pen, have scratch pad, will write for food!  I’m enjoying the bit of solitude, even if it is a bit cramped.

The Fab Five

Oversaving Does Not Lead To Happiness.  This post reminded me of my mantra to live frugal, but still have a life.  While saving money is an important part of being frugal, it is also important to find balance and spend some of your hard-earned money on a few things that bring you joy.

Frugal Ways To Get A Good Night’s Sleep.  As an insomniac (and a frugal one at that), I appreciated the tips here.  No Mt. Dews after 2:00pm? No late-night snacking?  No wonder I can’t sleep!

The Dave Ramsey Budget: Budgeting TIps for Successful Savers.  An excellent overview of the process of creating and maintaining a budget (with a Dave Ramsey spin).

When “Free” Things Aren’t Free: Beware the Hidden and Indirect Costs.  Let’s face it; nothing is really 100% free in this world.  There is inevitably some exchange for “free” goods and service, whether it be time or even future dollars.

Are You Emotionally Invested In Your Credit Card? I suspect this is why so many people rush to the defense of credit cards.  They got their first card in college.  It has a picture of their beloved dog on it.  They charged their anniversary cruise on it three years ago (and are still paying for it).  Just remember, if you are starting to feel attached to your card read through the stories (including my own) of companies dropping ten-year members for no apparent reason.  In the credit card world, loyalty is definitely not a two-way street.  (Bonus, an interesting “plasectomy” video here).

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