As the weather warms up and summer approaches, many people feel the need to get a fresh start. Most spring cleaning tips you run across are focused on the home, but why stop there? With an intentional reset of your resources and priorities, you can give your whole life a refresh, and you can do so without spending a lot of money.

Home

The cozy cocoon your home becomes in winter may be comforting when it's cold outside, but once the warm breezes begin, it's time to air it out and freshen up. Your basic checklist will be tailored specifically to your home, of course, but there are several extra touches that you may want to make:

• Change out candles and other fragrant items to give your home a new scent for the new season.
• Buy fresh flowers to use as centerpieces on tables.
• Throw out expired medications and toiletries and add the ones you want to replace to your shopping list.
• Take an inventory of household products.
• Clean out the pantry and donate extra, unexpired items to a local food bank.

If the thought of finding time to deep clean your home stresses you out, it may be worth the extra splurge to hire someone to help. In fact, this may also be a more frugal choice if you are running low on cleaning products. 

Wardrobe

As winter gives way to warmer temperatures, it's a good time to switch out your clothing and accessory choices. If you typically put off-season clothing in storage when not in use, take time when swapping items out to cull your collection. Even if you keep all your clothes in your closet all year, you can still look through them for pieces you don't use. For example, there's no reason to keep sweaters that you haven't worn all season. Put them in the donation pile. 

This is also a good opportunity to clean out your purse, briefcase or other bags you use frequently. You may even have another bag you haven't used in a while that you want to switch to. That's the perfect time to make sure that nothing goes into the new bag that you don't actually need to carry around.

Schedule

Are you overcommitted? It's always a good time to take a critical look at your schedule to see if there's anything you need to lay aside, and it makes sense to loop it into your spring cleaning. That way, when you start making your summer bucket list plans, you will have already set aside time in your schedule to truly enjoy them.

Start by making lists of your daily, weekly and monthly responsibilities. Pinpoint things on each list that are not necessary for your happiness or well-being or that of your family, and cross them off. Out of the items that remain, is there anything you can delegate to someone else? If so, underline it and put a plan in motion to offer the opportunity to others.

Goals

The change of seasons is perfect for reviewing your goals for the year. If you created resolutions, evaluate how much progress you have made. You may also want to tweak goals that no longer line up with your priorities so that you can focus on the things that matter without having something that has become irrelevant nagging you in the back of your mind. 

While spring is not the only time you can clean your home or update your life choices, of course, a season change is as good a reminder as any that an occasional reset is healthy. Put aside some extra time to adapt both your physical and temporal environments to better suit your needs.