The Home Management Binder

I'm lucky to have both grandmothers alive and well--one is 97 and the other is 90.  Both ladies have lived in the same homes for 25-30+ years.

Every time I walk into their homes I'm fascinated with how spotless, organized and comfortable they always are!  By comfortable I mean that despite the apparent "perfection" you can sit on the couch and not worry about messing something up!  I realize they have 70+ years of schedule management down pat--and don't have numerous children & acquaintances in and out of their homes--but that doesn't mean I can't strive for the same thing right?!

To help me get on track I've decided to start a home management binder.

Time to gather:

 Binder

Labeler

Hole Puncher

Pens

Pencil pouch

Dividers

Printer/paper

And get ready to create your home Management Binder! This will be my first attempt and I'm sure over the next little while it will evolve!  Be sure to make YOUR Home Management reflect YOU & your HOME/Family.  You're unique--so be creative and have fun!

The categories that apply to our household are:

Calendar

Schedules

Cleaning

Menu Planning

Finances

To Do

School

Medical

Contacts

Child Care

My first tab is"Calendar"... I used this free printable for my "week at a glance" because it's super cute. I fill this out every Sunday--though I add & subtract things periodically throughout the week too.

You can create your own home keeping printables with various home publishing applications (MS Publisher; MS Excel;) I have Stampin up Digital Studio too. I'm sure there are others I've missed--feel free to post those in my comment section.

For those of you who would rather have something "ready made" you can sift through numerous "free home management printable" blogs/sites or you can just check out this wonderful shop on etsy:

"The best place to get homekeeping printables that REALLY work for you AND make your life easier! Clean Mama Printables specializes in original organizational documents designed to take the work out of organizing your life."

In my binder I like to have the "SCHEDULES" tab next.  This is where I place all of the girls schedules (swimming, dancing, lunch menus, running club, Science club, Kindergarten days etc... and my schedules for work, sorority, running club, etc...& hubby's stuff too!) Its a never ending list!  Make sure you hole punch everything and throw it out when it no longer applies.

The next tab is "CLEANING".  It makes life so much easier to follow along with the cleaning schedule.  

Running a home daycare I HAVE to be organized.  I would be LOST without my Menu Plans.  I find that when I ignore them--like now, because we're so busy packing for our move--meals happen when they happen--and we all know that children don't function as well when they're eating breakfast at 8:30am-lunch at 2:30pm and dinner at 7pm!  (and yes, sadly, that's happened lately!)  Meal plans not only help with running little folk smoothly hehe...but it's one less stress to worry about in the morning--I KNOW what I'm going to be making/baking/cooking well ahead of time and I don't waste time humming and hawing.  Oh, and of course it helps on the old grocery lists/grocery shopping...and actually SAVES you money in the long run.....and who doesn't like that?!? (I'll blog more on that later).

I'm a TOTAL "A" personality and because of that I am constantly making lists/marking things down & keeping track---I'm also one of those people who HAS to write things down and see it in front of them to remember it!  I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the BEST with "numbers" so I NEED a "financial" section to keep me in the know!  I NEVER worry about when something is due/coming out of an account.  I do all of my bill tracking & budgeting here.  In this section I also keep bill acct. numbers & phone numbers on a list. So if I have to make a phone call to a creditor, I don't have to look the numbers up every time.

The next tab is "TO DO"... Pretty self explanatory.

Next tab... "SCHOOL".  This section holds the girls teacher welcome letters, phone numbers, school calendars, newsletters, permission slips etc. Anything pertaining to "school" goes here. It's been very convenient to have all of these papers in one place.

The "MEDICAL" tab is next.  All medical & health insurance information goes here. Phone numbers, copies of health cards, immunization records (copies) & physical records (copies) are kept here.I also like to keep track of any illnesses (type/length of).  I have a "home remedies" section too.

"CONTACTS" is next... The list of contacts you should have in your binder are:

Family

Friends

Neighbours

Doctors

Dentist

Vet (if we had a pet)

Insurance

Schools

Take-out

Work

Local Businesses

Coaches

Kids "friends" Parents

Gas, Electric, Water, Cable, Cell, Mortgage #'s

*I created a spread sheet in "word" and typed up all of the names & numbers.

 

A little bit of planning and organizing makes your life SO much easier, less stress, more time with family/friends and you're rarely "out of the loop" b/c you know EXACTLY what's goin' on where & when and then you can sit back and relax.