My Household Notebook

 

Hi everyone!  I bought a very cute Mary Englebreit planner over the weekend on clearance at Barnes & Noble. I probably won’t really use it – I bought it mostly for her illustrations (which I just adore) and I love the quotes that she uses with her art work.  I miss her magazine! It’s the only one that I’ve kept every issue intact from the first one to the last!

I LOVE that - “Your Home is Your Canvas Make Something Of It”.  Anyway, I realized that I hadn’t talked about my Household Planner in a while. Actually it’s my Home Notebook and it  holds info that I need/want at my fingertips. It also gives everyone in my home one place to look for certain things. 

It’s just a plain 3 ring binder that I had to put my spin on! My daughter likes to say I “cute things up” LOL!   You can just slip a piece of scrapbook paper under the plastic or go crazy! Of course, you don’t have to do anything to your binder.  I always try to make ordinary things just a bit pretty if I can, cause that’s just me!

I had to scrapbook paper my dividers (a fun activity to do while watching a movie). I do a lot of things while watching movies! Your Notebook will be different from my Notebook. Use categories that make sense for you and your family.

Emergency/Frequently used phone numbers is a good category to begin with. I also think a good thing to have at the beginning of your planner is some sort of Mission Statement for your family. Check out How To Write A Family Mission Statement. I LOVE Meredith’s Homekeeping Mission Statement (how I miss her posts).


Maybe you have young children that are involved in afterschool activities and you need a place to keep their schedules and info. My daughter is finished with high school but I used to keep contact info for her teachers, counselors, principle, class list, lunch menu, field trip info etc plus anything important that I needed to keep like permission slips. Maybe you want to keep a calendar with appointments on it. I use a separate calendar on my desk for that. Whatever works for you!


I keep my menu plans in my binder.  I try to plan out my weekly dinner menus. When I’m really on top of things I do a monthly one.

I keep my freezer inventory here also. I used to do a pantry inventory but I can pretty much just look and see what I’m low on whereas the freezer, who knows what’s in the bottom? I sure wouldn’t without some sort of inventory.

Some people (very organized ones- not me) have a cleaning schedule and all the tasks they want to get done. I’m more of a “I’ll clean it when I see it’s dirty " kind of person. But I do keep a list of Spring Cleaning chores. Mostly because I actually start my spring cleaning in the fall. This way I know what I’ve done and still need to do. I don’t know how people do spring cleaning all at one time? I just can’t do it! Plus in the spring I’m out in the garden so I have to spread those tasks over the year. Also this list is so detailed that there are things on there that I probably wouldn’t do if I didn’t see it written down! If  you google “Spring Cleaning Lists” you’ll get all kinds from the very simple to the “you’ve got to be crazy I’m not doing that” kind!

Maybe your Home Notebook is also where you’d like to keep your budget and finance info (I have a separate binder for that). How about medical info that you need to access quickly in case of emergency. We used to keep a list of my MIL’s medications as we would need that info whenever she was taken to the ER.

This is  where we keep our take-out menus. We also keep a list of video rentals. We walk through Blockbuster and see what movies we want to rent and then I add them to my list. Once a month or so I update my Netflix que.

So a Household Planner can be as much or as little as you want it or need it to be. Here’s a link to some free  Printable Planner Pages to help you get started.