ORGANISATION is vital in helping cope with the cost-of-living crisis, according to Essex star and Sort Your Life Out host Stacey Solomon.

The massive spike in costs in the UK, which is leaving households dramatically worse off, has Stacey rushing to remind us of the vital role organisation can play in weathering the cost-of-living storm.

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In the second series of her BBC show Sort Your Life Out, Stacey and her team of experts help families transform their homes with a life-changing declutter but this series has the added addition of finding the best ways to be "as economical as possible".

The 33-year-old says a lot of people are trying to be frugal, but perhaps not doing it "in the most efficient way".

"For example bulk buying, and then things are going off because they're not organised enough to utilise it. I think this year it's a lot more of a necessity to be organised because everybody's feeling that it's going to be really difficult for the next few years," she notes.

"And so we're not just looking on the show at how do we organise just to make you feel good and get your life back on track, but also how do we organise and then help you for the future, how do we help you be more economical, save on your washing machine bills and your laundry bills by being organised."

Solomon, who rose to fame after finishing in third place on the sixth series of The X Factor in 2009, says there's a lot more "urgency" in being organised compared to the first series of her popular TV show given the forecast that the UK is set to plunge into recession.

She explains: "When you're watching the electricity prices go up and petrol go up, you're just thinking: I have no control over this and it is a really scary situation."

One of the families Solomon helped for the second series of Sort Your Life Out had a "small fortune" hidden among their clutter, Solomon noted.

"Clutter costs money. We found an obscene amount of cash in their house that they just didn't know about, and they were struggling and it made a huge difference, like a real huge difference.

"That is the cost of clutter, it can literally lose you money on a daily basis. It can be in the back of your jean pockets, fall out and you won't ever find it again or it will be in a bag that you have shoved to the back of a wardrobe and never see again.

"That's physical money that people are losing."

Solomon, who is married to former EastEnders star Joe Swash and pregnant with her fifth child, says she is worried about the increasing prices affecting her family and called it a "scary time" for everyone.

"Unless you're from a background where you know for the rest of your life you're inherently rich, these times are scary. We don't have stable jobs, we know that we could have work today and never a job again tomorrow. That is the fickleness of our industry.

"I said to Joe about the electric prices and the gas prices, I said we need to think of something because we can't sustain our wage forever.

"As much as people think we don't have to think about the cost-of-living crisis, we absolutely do, it's a massive part of our lives and if we're worried about it, then everybody is in that same situation and it's just scary times.

"So if there's anything you can do in terms of simple everyday changes that you can make that will save a substantial amount of money, let's just do it, that's got to be the best option."

Solomon said her favourite part of Sort Your Life Out is transforming a home almost exclusively through upcycling and making a "massive point" of recycling next to everything the family decide to part with to ensure it has "a life beyond when we let it go".

Solomon has a bustling home in Essex, named Pickle Cottage; as well as a new addition on the way, she and Swash are also parents to one-year-old Rose and Rex, three, while she has two sons, 14-year-old Zachary and Leighton, 10, from previous relationships, and is also step-mum to Swash's teenage son, Harry.

Stacey Solomon's Sort Your Life Out starts on BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 9pm on Wednesday, January 25.