Home Organization 101: A New Take on the Family Budget

 

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Budgetting while I was single and in college was easy.  I just told myself that I had no money (not so far from the truth) and willed myself to buy only the cheapest brands of the absolute necessities, with the exception of shampoo.  Why shampoo?  I think the Pantene smell just reminds me of family, since I and both my sisters used pantene as teens.

Now, though, I have to budget for three people and the running of a family household, complete with diaper wipes, ¨real¨ groceries, and ridiculous amounts of gas for the car.  The budget we were working from last year was beautiful - colour-coordinated and neatly stacked in columns in Excel.  Problem was, it stayed in Excel and my beautiful spreadsheet never spoke to our bank account or ATM cards.  Then Christmas came and went, and a credit card payment was mistakenly skipped, and we found ourselves in need of a much more visual, ever-present budgeting system.

I probably watched 15 episodes of Til Debt Do Us Part at my parents before figuring out how to make the system they use on the show work for us.  Basically, we wrote down our fixed monthly expenses - tithe, rent, phone, internet, insurance, and debt repayment, and subtracted that from our monthly income.  Then we made a list of all of the ¨variable¨ expenses - savings, food (including restaurants), clothes, fuel and car-maintenance, household (for everything from toothpaste and diapers to furniture and home decor), entertainment, and the all-important ¨guilt-free¨ money - money Andrew and I each get to spend on whatever we like, without having to answer to the other about our purchases.  This guilt-free money can be used toward coffees on the way to church, video games (after saving for a couple of months-we don't get much each month), fabric, or model railroading stuff.

We divided the cash left after our fixed expenses between the variable categories, and are actually using ALL CASH this month - each variable expense category has its own jar and its own budget.  Receipts from each category go in the jar when some of the cash is spent, and we always have a visual reminder of how much cash we do/don't have left for the month.

This system is working fabulously, especially for my husband, who needs to see things to understand them.

What kind of budgeting tips and tricks do you use?

Home Organization 101: Simplifying the File Pile

Having been a stay-at-home-mom for exactly 5 months now, and feeling like only weeks ago I finally "got my groove back" - feeling like myself and (mostly) energetic enough to do something with my day in addition to playing mommy...I am starting with a little home organization, since it has sorta' fallen by the way-side during the initial "getting used to mommyhood" stage of my life.

Organization has always been a passion of mine, even though I am usually not especially neat about it.  I like things to have a place, I love lists, I want plans, I need order and structure.  I'm a "Messy Perfectionist".  And I`m taking small steps to get my life, my house, my brain into a more organized mess.  I`m still learning all of this stuff, but I figure we can all use a little help sometimes, so as I share tips and tricks that are working for me, I hope you`ll share tips that are working for you.

 I`ve decided to start with a spot that caused me a great amount of grief - the `File Pile.`

We used to do the filing by putting everything in its own file in the filing cabinet.  And by put everything away, I really mean stack it on top of the cabinet and try to ignore it.  That stack was not-so-affectionately known as the File Pile...and the bigger it grew, the more I tried to ignore it.  Consistent ignoring of the File Pile leads to your small space looking like this:

photo credit

One day while visiting my parents (who have satellite TV), I was watching "The Mom Show" and there was a segment with Peter Walsh, author of "Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?".  He suggested this simple filing system, and my goodness, is it working wonders for the file-pile stress in my life.

Here's How:

You'll Need: 1 accordian file

*optional: 12-13 file folders and labels

I used 13 folders and just used a sharpie to label my folders - sometimes simpler is better, I find.

Here's my stuff - I wrote "Stewart Family Files" on the front of my accordian file, just for clarity.

Then I wrote the month/year on 12 folders, and labeled one folder "Important Family Documents".

Let's start with the monthly system:  Each month, place the bills for that month in your file.

That's it.  File under month/year.  So Insurance, Cell Phone, Internet, everything is in one folder for that month.

Simple, right? 

After 12 months, you'll be back to your first folder - take JUST THAT MONTH, and sort through it - are there things you need to keep?  Did you look at it in the last 12 months?  If not - RECYCLE!  It's a myth that you have to keep every statement and receipt from every year of your life.

And now: "Important Family Documents" - I added this to Mr. Walsh's suggestions as a way to keep things like our marriage certificate, birth certificates, social insurance numbers (read: Social Security Numbers: Canadian Edition), passports, etc.  It also currently holds my college diploma, since I have misplaced the official holder and have yet to buy a frame for it.

The File Pile is a thing of the past - We still have the cabinet, for holding on to things like appliance manuals, car repair receipts, and those files we need to hold on to - tax forms and such, but the Family Files are tucked neatly beside the printer for easy access and peace of mind.

Linked Up with Moms in Need of Mercy: Messy Monday