Medical Binders

One of my organizing projects for our family was to make Medical Binders for each of us.
I decided to make a binder for each person, but you could easily make a Family Medical Binder, with sections for each person in your family. Individual binders just work best for our family, and our medical needs.

Calendar Pages for the Bills & Budget Binder

Remember the bills and budget binder I had posted about a while back?

Well, if you remember, I said I would make up the calendar pages for the rest of the months.

So, I've done that. 

They are blank calendar templates, so you will need to write (or type) in the dates, but you can use them year after year. 

You can find the printables here.

Pantry Organization (Project: Pantry - Part 3)

Remember my pantry?
{Read Part 1 and Part 2}

Well, now it's time to show you how I've organized it, and I'm keeping it organized!

The Bills & Budget Binder - Reveal

About a week ago, I posted about working on a bills & budget binder.
{If you missed it, you can read it here}

I had found the pin on pinterest, and wanted to try it out for our family, with a little modifying. 

Project Pantry : Part 2

Ahh... The Pantry.

Did you catch the first part to this post?

If not, you can read it {here}.

This pantry cabinet has seriously been the biggest pain!

We bought it at the beginning of July, and it took us over a month to finish it.

Dang. 

Ok, first, we were working on it evenings and weekends.

Second, We were also working on it in our basement.

Thirdly, We've never really done any furniture finishing before.

Bills & Budget Binder

Hello Hello!

I wanted to do a quick post about the newest project I'm working on.
A Bills and Budget Binder.
I think the 2 go hand-in-hand, don't you?

Anyway - I saw a pin on pinterest about making a bills binder, instead of filing everything away.
And it seems like a pretty good idea. And, since it is almost September, I can give it a trial run, and if it's working, we can use it for next year! Yay for thinking ahead.

I would recommend you read the original post first {here}.

And, if you think it could work for your family, awesome!

I am working on putting together my binder now {as I type there are several files minimized waiting for printing}.  I really like her set up, but there are several items I actually file, but would still like a record of payment in the binder as well (like Mortgage payments - We 'auto pay' and don't receive monthly statements, so I file all of our quarterly statements for safe keeping).  I'll also keep files for each of our accounts, for the account information, any policy changes, etc ... but now the files won't have to be crammed full of bills and monthly statements. 

Anyway, I am working on some printables, that I will share with you once I have them made.

You can find them all {here}!

Right now there are some calendar pages up, so if you'd like to make a binder, feel free to print anything you'd like to use.

 - Personal Use Only Please-

I'll post an update once I've created our binder.
(And, I'll also work on the Pantry posts ... )

Project : Pantry

We are in desperate need of a pantry in our kitchen/dinning room. 

Recipe Binder

I've been slowly working on organizing things around our house, to help keep things neat and tidy, and to help us save some money around here. So, I decided to make a recipe binder, which is something I've been wanting to work on for a while now anyway.

The Baby Binder - Printables

The baby binder ....

Getting Organized : Family Binder

One of the things I wanted to do to further organize our family was make a family binder. A go-to book of information for our family.

I Heart Organizing - Household Binder

I saw Jen at iheart organizing's post on a family binder, and it was perfect. It made the perfect inspiration for our binder. She offers the page printables in her etsy store :IHeartOrganizingStore, or if you're computer savy you could figure out what you want & need, then make your own. {I downloaded mine from her site awhile back, when she had them up as a freebie} I jumped off of her binder to make one that worked better for our family (example : She has warranty info. in her binder, but I keep ours in the files).

I used the printables, a 1" binder, page protectors, business card holder page and a photo holder page. I also googled and printed out monthly calendars on colored cardstock, and a 12 month calendar for the front of the binder. { This is the one I used : http://www.livinglocurto.com/2012/01/calendar/ } I just found these printables {http://anythingbutperfect.com/freebies/2012-calendars/ } I wish I had found them sooner. I may print them and switch mine out, they are just too cute!

I placed the calendars in page protectors, so I can write on them with dry-erase markers, or I can slide the page out and write on them, and not worry about it getting messed up. I use the business card page to hold business cards (imagine). I placed the cards for our mortgage company, insurance agent, doctors offices, pharmacy, and other businesses we frequent (like the gun shop), so we have their addresses, phone numbers and hours gathered in one place.  I haven't used the photo page yet (I had to get more ink for the printer), but my plan is to place in a 3x5 picture of each family member with their important information on the back. Things like birthday, allergies, medical conditions, etc...

So this is now our semi-organized go-to information station:

Our family binder, dry erase board for the grocery list, a weekly to-do table, an upcoming events table, and our bills that need to be paid (I keep them in a napkin holder).

And, as a bonus, here is the upcoming activities printable:
(.jpg format, just click, then save to your computer. )

Getting Organized : Couponing

In our house we coupon. It's like getting free money. Really. Especially if it's items you already buy, and if you have a pantry or place to store extra items. We don't extreme coupon, though. Does any one person need 57 sticks of deodorant or 127 tubes of toothpaste (Or have the room to store that much crap)? Exactly. We don't have a pantry in our kitchen, yet, and haven't finished out our basement to give us extra storage, so I have bookshelves in the dinning side of our kitchen to act as storage.

This is where I store the extra food. 

I use our hall linen closet to store extra cleaning supplies and personal items (like toothpaste and body wash).
But I am not trying to blog about my food storage - so back to coupons.

They really do save us money. I usually save at least $5 a grocery trip, but I've saved up to $50 with coupons before (Target). Target is actually one of the best places to start couponing. They will allow 1 store coupon and 1 manufacturers coupon per item (which is great for baby stuff). My mom used this trick to get my son a christmas present (yup, she's that early) - the item was on sale, she used a 50% off Target coupon and a $5 manufacturers coupon to get the toy for $3.50 (regularly about $20). Target is also pretty patient about taking coupons, and if you use eco-bags, they give you a .05cent/bag discount. I've had people in line behind me listen to my total, see my coupon stack, hear the after total along with any bonus giftcards I received, then ask me how I started couponing and stay organized. 

There are so many ways to coupon, and honestly, I'm not sure where my ideas first came from. My system has evolved many (many, many) times. At first it's hard to find a system you like and will actually work for you. If you're super organized, a binder filled with card sleeves to hold each coupon may work for you. Or you may be more of a keep them all in a ziplock bag-er. I'm somewhere in between. I try to be as organized as I can, but don't have the time to spend hours super couponing. We also don't get a weekly newspaper, so all my coupons are mailed to me (with free samples) or are printed off the internet (or given to us by nice people who work with my husband).

To organize my coupons I use a mini-file envelope. I got mine from Target, I've seen them in Walmart and even the Dollar Tree before. What size you go with is up to you. Since I mainly print coupons, I went with one designed to hold receipts and checks (it's 5"x9" or so). They make ones that are letter sized (we use for organizing files), and they make smaller ones that are about 4"x6" and designed to hold index cards and pictures.

I labeled my tabs for how I found it best to organize them based on our family. The very front of the file is open, and where I store any coupons I am using that trip. Once I've gotten the item, the coupon goes into my purse/wallet- for when I pay. My tabs are labeled Baby, Household, Personal, Medical, Grocery, Misc...,  a blank one, Target, Other Stores, and another blank one (which is where I keep restaurant coupons usually).

I also have a clipboard I take with me shopping. The back has a pocket to hold the weekly ads, and I keep my grocery list clipped to the front, organized by stores, item location in store, and items with coupons starred, of course :) .

Coupon sites : Target, Coupons.com,  SmartSource, Cool Savings, Walmart.

Getting Organized : Warranty Receipts and Product Manuals

I have been working on organizing our paperwork around the house, making things easier to find, clearing out what I know we don't need to keep, working on a 'family binder' for us; all kinds of projects.

So, here is how I chose to organize our product warranty information, and our product manuals.

To organize the manuals, I used an expandable file and manilla file folders.
I just grouped my manuals how I thought they worked best for us, labeled each folder, then stored them in the expandable file. On the front of each folder I wrote each product/manual that is inside, so you can just pull the file, and not have to search through each folder just to see what's inside. We really don't use the manuals that often for things (only when something's smoking, leaking, won't work...) so the expandable file frees up space I can use in a cabinet for other things, and can easily be tucked into a drawer or our "file storage" bin until we need it.
I broke down the files into these groups:
~ Small Kitchen Appliances
~ Large Kitchen Appliances
~ Washer & Dryer
~ Small Household Appliances
~ Small Household Electronics
~ Large Household Electronics
~ Computers
~ Outdoor Items

The warranty receipts are organized pretty much the same way as the manuals. I always make a copy of the receipt, then attach the original to the paper copy. On the copies I make sure to highlight the date of purchase, and write out exactly what we purchased, along with any important warranty information (like, 1/2/5 yr warranty).  Each of the receipts are organized into files, and labeled with what's in each folder. These files I keep in the cabinet with our more important info. We don't want these getting misplaced somewhere.

2012 Goal - Organization

One of my goals for this year is to better organize our office.
This was one of my goals last year, and it didn't exactly work out.
Plus we bought a house and moved, which makes it harder to stay organized.

Here is the breakdown of our office :

Our office serves 2 purposes for us:
1 - it's our office
2 - it's also my closet/ dressing room.
(and 3 - catch all for everything that can't go downstairs)

In our office I have a dresser with clothes and accessories, and I use the closet as well.
Since getting pregnant I also keep my maternity clothing scattered throughout the room too.

But, we also need to use the room as an office. Not just a random catch-all room.
So I would like to get this looking a bit better and more organized.

But my number 1 issue is our filing system.
It is horrible.

Yeah - I currently have our files stored in a paper box.
Our file cabinet was broken before we moved, and it didn't get any better when we moved.
So we now just use it to hold our printer and extra supplies (paper, ink, cardstock...).
And, the box only holds our files up until we moved. Everything else is piled on the table waiting to be filed.
Which, may or may not be pointless for a lot of items now.
I do like to keep everything until I have done our taxes and know we don't need things anymore.
And there are some files I keep forever (like taxes, account records, and stuff with hubs work). 

I'm not sure how I would like to better organize everything, though. A file cabinet? Filing boxes?
A plus would be getting super organized for very little money!

Any ideas?

I've been stalking out i heart organizing.