With two little kids, it’s hard keeping the car organized! Not only do I have snacks for the kids to eat while we are driving, but I have their toys and books to read so they can stay occupied. I have tried many times to keep my car clean and organized and finally came to the realization that my car will only stay organized, not clean. And I am okay with that! With some fun and easy steps, you can have an organized car and be the envy of all the families at the park!
To keep the car organized, I have purchased organizers for a few places in the car. I have a cup organizer that I use to hold my chap stick, nail file and hand sanitizer. Since I always grab my mug of coffee as we are running out the door, the cup organizer is big enough to hold my coffee instead of having it fall all over the car and make a mess.
I keep all of my car manuals, extra pair of glasses and sunglasses in my glove box. I also take a reusable bag and turn it into a trash can by closing one side of the bag in the glove box. This has helped cut the amount of garbage that ends up on the floor of the car. I bought a toy organizer for the car a while ago, which has worked well for us. I have toys, books and some games in the organizer to keep the kids entertained while we are driving. When we are getting out of the car, I always try to put things back into the toy organizer so I don’t have to worry about cleaning up the car later. The kids have gotten a lot better with this the past few weeks!
I also keep some food to snack on in the car. I store all of our food in the middle console so I can grab things easily. I have GoGo Squeeze applesauce, which is a favorite. I also have Baby Mum Mums, since Adleigh is teething. If we are running late and the kids didn’t eat much for breakfast, I’ll use the snack cups to put in fruit for the kids to eat in the car.
But I was noticing that there were some other supplies that I always needed but never had on hand, like band aids or tampons. I tried keeping them in the diaper bag, but if they ran out and I forgot to replenish, I was always out of luck.
So I decided to keep some necessities on hand in the trunk of the car. I felt that keeping things I needed and random times throughout the week would be best served by being stored in the trunk.
I started by collecting all the items that I would like to have extra of in the car. I wanted to keep extra diapers, wipes, hair ties, tampons, butt paste, sunscreen, lotion, hand sanitizer, band aids, scissors, Kleenex, contact solution, and extra clothes for both kids. I also wanted to keep an extra beach towel and blanket in the trunk as well.
I purchased a hanging travel organizer and some small Eagle Creek bags from the Container Store since they are having a travel organizing sale! I decided on these items because after looking at what I had and wanted to store in the trunk of the car, these organizers made the most sense for the items I had. I liked the hanging travel organizer because of all the compartments with zippers. It made it easy to store items separately from one another in case one spills. I loved the Eagle Creek bags because you can unzip them to make them larger for things like clothes or keep them flat by keeping the extra zipper zipped up and store smaller, flatter items like diapers and wipes. The bags are breathable and very sturdy.
Once I got home, I organized all of my items into the hanging travel organizer. I stored the butt paste and sunscreen in the big compartment on top and diapers and wipes in the big compartment on the bottom. In the smaller compartments, I stored my contact solution, lotion, deodorant, scissors and nail files, and hair ties.
I put the extra clothes in one of the Eagle Creek bags, and all the sand and water toys in the bigger Eagle Creek bag.
I bought two S-Biner clips to hold all the goodies in the back of the car. I attached them to the headrests. Then I stored the blanket and beach towel in a side basket I have in the trunk that goes with our stroller.
Now the car is all organized! We have been out and about recently, and having the extra supplies in the trunk have been a tremendous help. I will continue to keep the diaper bag organized, but knowing that I have a back-up is incredibly helpful, especially since my kiddos are very much “outside kids”.
