Make a "Life Folder"

Making a Life Folder on your Computer

Something I think is really important for any household is what I call a Life Binder. It includes all of your important information, like schedules, important phone numbers, and budgets but it also can include your recipes or anything that pertains to your daily life. I decided to go paperless with mine and simply make a folder on my desktop instead of an actual binder. This is what mine looks like:

Here is where you break down everything you want to organize with its own folder. I have folders for super important things like budgets and recipes, but I also have a folder for movies that contains a list of movies that are soon to be released that I want to see as well as another list of movies I have yet to watch that I don't want to forget about. The folders I use the most are Recipes, Budget and Projects, which I will show you now.

My Recipes folder is divided into various categories, such as Appetizers, Entrees and Desserts. This makes  finding recipe ideas a lot easier than wading through all of my bookmarks on my computer and my poorly written index cards. Everything is neat and legible as well as alphabetized and it's very handy for keeping those recipes you have yet to ry around without forgetting about them.

This is my favorite and most hated folder. So many hours of work went into it, BUT it was totally worth it. It contains multiple spreadsheets for what I call 'Extreme Budget Tracking'. Since we are buying our first house soon, we decided we want to start saving more money and this really helps. I will do a post later on how to budget for your lifestyle and where to get handy spreadsheets.

Another folder I have been working on extensively is my Projects. Obviously I am keeping track of moving expenses and checklists in one of my sub-folders. My Gardening one is filled with ideas, prices, season guides and of course another budget sheet. The travel folder is the most fun since it essentially my dream vacation. I decided that I would start a savings account just for this vacation and have the money portions all planned out so as soon as I reached that number I would drop everything and go. This is where all of my destinations are listed, where I want to stay, addresses of my international friends, calendars of events in various countries, etc. It also contains a list of future vacations I want to take. This folder was inspired after I heard a very depressing statistic:  The average person spends as much time in the bathroom as on vacation. I have no idea if this is true but if it is I do NOT want to be the average person.

Hopefully this will inspire you to make your own life folder and fill it with ideas, inspirations and helpful things. 

Kitchen Drawer Organizing Tips

How many spoons does it take to stir one pot?

Do you ever go to garage sales and look through all of the kitchen utensils in case there is something you don’t have? I most certainly do this, since I cringe at the thought of paying more than a couple of dollars for a spatula or some tongs. But then I get all my goodies home and low and behold my kitchen drawers are overflowing! Well apart from coming up with some temporary storage ideas (like sticking all of my random baking utensils in an over-sized cup in the cabinet) I have decided that I would part with some of my unused utensils…

Things to Ask Yourself:

1. Do I actually use this?
2. Do I really need more than one of this?
3. Would this be useful somewhere else in the house?

Above, is how far I got, simply putting them into piles and staring at them trying to make a decision. Sad, isn’t it? Not as easy as I thought it would be, getting rid of things I don’t even use. I guess my biggest hurdle is having weird empty spaces, I mean if you have a drawer put something in it, right?? Logically, there are four burners on the stove, so a max of four utensils of one kind should be the norm. I mean the odds of me making four different pots of pasta are slim, but making 3 or 4 sides isn’t out of the question, or even frying more than one thing.

Finally I managed to rid my drawer of a few of my multiples. So how did I trick my mind into getting rid of some stuff from my utensil drawer?? RE-purposing!! Since I have begun converting buying from name-brand cleaners to mixing and making all of our cleaning supplies, I simply transitioned some old spoons and such from the utensil drawer to my supply area for the cleaners. And I found once I had more room in one drawer, I wanted room in all of my most used drawers, and it was so much easier to get rid of things.


Good Luck with your Organizing!