Finding Contentment

A good start to new goals

03:47 PM, Wednesday, January 2, 2008 .. Posted in Homemaking .. 2 comments .. Link

As you can see on my sidebar, one of my goals for 2008 is to make and put into use a Household Management Binder. Why? Because I am the manager of my home, and like any manager, there is paperwork involved! The Household Mangement Binder will help keep me organized and efficient.

I cheated a little on this goal for the new year as I have already been working on it for a few days - okay months - but I think I have finally finished it. It was one of those things I would work on for a few days and then put away for a few weeks. Now that it's done, the trick is going to be to use it! To make a habit of using it, I will leave it laying out on the kitchen table or my bed (depending on where I am in the house) for one month. By that time it should be indespensible to me.

I thought I would share how I put my binder together and how I will use it. It is extensive, so this will be more than one entry. I have 26 sections in my binder, and each section has a title page with a picture that I thought was lovely. I want to be able to enjoy looking at my binder. I choose old-fashioned pictures, but you may want cartoon characters or pictures of horses.

Like the pictures, each section or category should be personalized to you, the homemaker. You may not need certain categories that I included, or you may need ones I did not include. Also, you may not want as many categories as I have. I tend to like my paperwork ultra-organized, but you may want to put things like new recipes, your pantry inventory and your menu in one section instead of splitting them up. I also put all my sections in alphabetical order, but you may choose to put them in a different order.

Here is the front cover of my binder:

I used self-adhesive tabs because I needed so many of them. Dividers just didn't come with many tabs! I also purchased a pack of 50 clear covers with three holes in them. This helps protect everything in my notebook from spills and dirt. For the binder itself, I use one with the clear cover and back that you can insert a page into.

Upon opening my binder, this is what I see:

In the left pocket are some coupons I can give to kids who do good deeds. These coupons are for things like "a free movie rental of your choice" or "to stay up an hour past bedtime." On the right is an at-a-glance calendar (I need to change that to a 2008 one). I get most of my forms free from Donna Young's web site.

The first section is entitled "Budget." Although I can't stick to it exactly, nearly every penny of our income is budgeted. This was something I had to do in order to quit work and become a stay-at-home-mom. I have this in an excel format on my computer so that I can tweak it whenever our income or expenditures change. This is also a good place to put bills that only come in once, or once a year (like our warehouse club membership). That way I can remember they need to be paid whenever I look at the budget for the month.

The next section is labeled "Business." It is intended for paperwork regarding my small home business. Unfortunately, I don't have a home business yet! But I am determined to help out with my family's income in some way. I am currently researching various methods of earning a tiny bit of extra income for my family. This will be a good place to put ideas, contact info, etc. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Feel free to e-mail or comment if you have any questions. We'll look at some more sections tomorrow. In the meantime, if you would like to take a peak into the Home Management Binders of some other homemakers, look in the left sidebar at Keeping the Home. Candy has listed tons of links where you can take a peak at other people's binders for inspiration.