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Organizing Those Home Appliance Manuals


Appliance manuals, home warranty cards, receipts, furniture warranties and even extra parts! Can you organize appliance manuals? Of course you can!

Home appliance manuals, home warranty cards, receipts, furniture warranties and even extra parts!

Hiding Placing them in a drawer always sounded to me like the best way to handle them, until I had to actually needed one.

As much as I love scanning and keeping as paperless as possible, I do keep owners manuals. Some argue it’s not necessary because they can be found online. Keeping it handy helps to downplay the frustration level, since I only seem to need one when there is a problem.

Factoid: I use things until they fall apart or until I feel as though I got my money’s worth. (I’m REALLY big into R.O.I.) So I consult the owners manuals for care and cleaning stuff. Searching online for owners manual’s can be frustrating, especially when I want it in my hand now. Plus you always need the model number. Who has that anyway?

Here are two great ideas that I like and use:

Three Ring Binder

Sounds easy, but you can make it as involved as you want. Mine currently is a 4 inch ring, no frills binder with plastic sheet protectors. It’s actually fairly utilitarian.

Thank someone that I don’t have to look at it since it’s stored above the refrigerator!

I also use heavyweight 6 mil protectors, this way they don’t rip or sag when loaded up. Each sheet protector holds information on one item and they are stuffed pretty full.

  • Owners manual
  • Receipt (Take a copy before storing since thermal paper tends to fade over time)
  • Warranty registration card
  • Any information from research before purchase. This can be reviews, product pages or any other information you may want to keep.

There are a few advantages to having everything in one place:

  • Of course, less frustration when frustrated!
  • If you decide to sell an item online or give an item away to a friend/family member you have everything on hand.
  • Impress friends and family with your manual organizing prowess?

Side note: Selling on craigslist, I was able to negotiate a higher price for some furniture because I had retained the original warranty. It continued to covered the new owner with a simple transfer. Two points for me! P.S. I sold it for 200 bucks less than we paid, one year later. Booyah!

When selling your house, all that information is invaluable to the next owner. It also proves to the realtor/prospective buyers exactly the improvements you made. Be sure to take out all personal information before you pass it on.

Plastic Zip Bags

Before my ugly binder I would put everything in a gallon size plastic bag. Seal it up and use packing tape to attach it to the back. That worked until I wanted to retrieve an owners manual. It was easier for me to have them in one place for reference than adhered to the appliance.

I still use the plastic bag trick for extra tools/parts. The humidifier came with some extra washers and a weird little tool. All that got put in a bag and taped to the back. BAM! It’s right there when I need it.

There you go. Two ideas, proven to work!

How do you get your manuals under control? Would a binder work well for you too?

 

~V

Velma
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Velma

Suburbia dweller, organizational nerd & ninja, lover of coffee & author of SuburbanCents~
Velma
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