Efficiency = Found Time

I usually start each day with a list of things I want to get done that day. I don't always accomplish the goal of crossing everything off that list, but I like to try. I can be really bad about not using every last minute to my advantage. Now, I don't mean that I have to be working all the time, but if I want to read a book, why not read a page here, a few there instead of not even trying?

It was 40 minutes until I needed to pick my daughter up from preschool today. My youngest needed a nap, but there was no way to squeeze one in before we needed to leave. I started to get into "hang out" mode to wait until it was time to leave. That's when it hit me. Yes, it's obvious, but why not get one task done before picking "Princess" up instead of waiting until afterwards? Um, hello?

I packed "Little Guy" into the minivan, and cruised on down to the library to return the books that were due today. I managed to get to "Princess's" school with time to spare. This extra time usually goes wasted, but not today. Today I thought ahead and brought along a sweatshirt that needed some sewing done to fix it. Voila! Lost time, found!

I was so impressed with my thinking ahead that I think I'm going to try to make a habit of it. I think I'll keep something I need to do in the minivan so I can be more efficient. Efficiency = found time!

This must be receipt week!

I don't know why I am doing so many receipt posts this week. I must have receipts on the brain! I'd mentioned before how important it can be to hang onto receipts. Well, it's equally important to check your receipt after each purchase, and here's why:

I've purchased chicken at the grocery store before and was overcharged for all three. I stopped at the customer service desk on my way out. That particular grocery store will give you an item for free if it rings up wrong. They only do that on the first of any particular item, but not only did I get back the extra I'd paid, but I received one of them for free. Wahoo! That saved me (with the freebie and overcharges refunded) about $5.00!

After eating at one of my favorite fast food restaurants, my husband handed me our receipt and pointed out the survey request. I'm guilty about not looking closely at fast food restaurant receipts, but I'll be more observant from here on out. I filled out an online survey in less than 5 minutes and will get a free chicken sandwich for my time. The best part was that my hubby and I ordered our food at different times, so we get two free chicken sandwiches!

Do you check your receipts? What's been the best deal you've received because of checking your receipt?

Funny Thing for Today...

I used to be the type of person who wouldn't buy anything unless I knew for sure that it was exactly what I wanted. I have fortunately been broken of that habit. With kids in tow, sometimes it's more important for me to just grab and go and hope whatever I bought works. This method of shopping has led me to become quite acquainted with the return process.

Recently I was back at Target to make yet another return. I hauled my bag and receipt up to the return counter, went through the return process, then continued on to do the shopping I needed to do that day. I didn't think anything of that day's return until yesterday.

Yesterday I was going through our receipts and breaking them down into the categories in which we made our purchases. (We like to track our spending in each category.) I entered the Target receipt into Quicken and started to file away the receipt until I noticed what it was that I had returned - a toilet seat and a utensil tray. Although the seat was unused and still in its packaging, I had still placed both items in the same bag. Yes, call me strange for even thinking anything of it, but ewww! At least I wasn't going to be needing that utensil tray!

Toys, Toys, and More Toys!

Oh my gosh do my kids have tons of toys! Granted, it does look a bit worse because most of our kids' toys are in one room in the basement, but holy cow! It's actually rather embarrassing. When you have three children of different ages and both boys and a girl, it's hard to get rid of toys.

I hit my, "We need to get rid of some of these toys!" point the other day. I tend to develop attachments to things until I start to get stressed out because of the clutter. At that point, everything is fair game! When I told the kids we needed to start cleaning up and they were complaining that there was too much, I knew some of these much-loved toys needed to go. I have a really hard time throwing away perfectly good items. I hate to feel wasteful, so I'll always garage sale, donate to Goodwill, or Freecycle something that I think still has a lot of life in it.

I did throw away all of those little kids' meal toys that just clutter up the place. Then, I pulled out some of the lesser used toys. We have so many kids' items, that I think we'll actually have a garage sale this year. To make preparing for a garage sale easier, I wrote prices for each toy on a sheet of paper that I tucked in the bag with the toys. Now, when garage sale time rolls around, we just have to write the price on some tape and stick it to the toy. (Okay, so in reality, my husband will be doing that because if I do it, I'll start to second-guess myself.)

You know, I just had a realization. Part of the reason I feel bad about getting rid of the kids' toys is that someone spent time and hard earned money to purchase each toy for the kids. Here's my "aha!" idea... I think I'll have my dear hubby keep track of how much money is earned from selling the toys. Once it's all done, we can split that amount of money into three, and deposit it into each of our kids' savings accounts. It's the best of both worlds. We don't have toys laying around that aren't being used, and the kids have extra savings because of those toys.

Now there are still a ton of toys in the kids' play area, but there's plenty of time until our garage sale to weed out a few more toys. Just don't tell my kids!

Organize the Recycling?

Thursday was recycling day for us. I started recycling when we lived in Ohio where there were drop-off places you could easily drop off your recyclables. Where we live now, there are drop-off trucks at particular sites on particular days. Recycling is fantastic for us because it means we only have one garbage can worth of garbage a week, it's good for the environment, and it's free!

We used to just drop our recyclables in an old clothes hamper we had laying around. Now, though, unlike in Ohio, we have to sort our recyclables. This wasn't a big deal for me to do when dropping everything off until it started to get cold. I'd rather just dump and go! I started sorting our recyclables in plastic grocery bags and leaving those lying on the floor of the garage. Well, dear hubby wasn't too hot on that idea. I can't say I blame him. =) That was when he came up with a free and very basic idea. Check it out:

My dear hubby labeled clothes pins so we'd know which type recyclable goes in which bag. The hamper on the floor is for our cardboard, paper, and glass items. We bag the paper and glass and leave them in the hamper because they can be so heavy. Our system isn't pretty, but it's working quite well for us. We plan at some point to pick up bins to hang in our garage, but that's way down on our priority list.

Hmmm, this gives me an idea.... Maybe instead of my coming up with ideas of how to organize everything around here, I should have the kids and my hubby come up with their own ideas. Maybe if I let them get in on the action, they'll be more likely to help me keep everything organized.

I'll have to test that theory...

Reusable Grocery Lists

Once a week I have to deal with the dreaded job of grocery shopping. I guess in some ways I don't dislike grocery shopping, just sometimes the preparation can seemingly take forever. You know what I'm talking about if you're a couponer like me - find the deals, plan your meals, make the list, clip the coupons, etc., etc., etc. The time invested is worth it to save a ton of money, but I love anything that allows me to spend less time on the prep work.

To try to streamline my grocery shopping "experience", I made a list of the major items in each aisle at the grocery store. This way, I don't have to write everything down. I can just circle or highlight most of the items I need to buy.

This may sound silly to you, but it bugs me that I am wasting two sheets of paper each week just for my grocery list. The only problem is that if it's not written down, I won't remember it. I think I might have a solution. Here's hoping that it works!

I'm going to pick up some notecards - maybe I'll color-code them - in addition to a metal ring clip and something to help me sort of laminate them. I'm going to have one card per area / aisle, leaving space to write in extra items not on the list. Then I'll laminate them, or possibly just cover them with clear packaging tape. After that, I'm going to clip them all together using the metal ring. Before each shopping trip I'll mark my needed items on the note cards using a dry-erase marker.

The only potential problem I see is the items being wiped off by accident when the dry-erase marker rubs against something else. On the plus side, though as I buy each item, I can simply wipe it off the list. With the metal ring, I'll be able to attach my shopping list / cards to the cart so I won't lose it. I may see if I can attach a pouch of some type to keep the coupons that I'm using that shopping trip together so I won't lose them. (I'll still take my regular coupon pouch with me.)

Alright! I'm ready to get started! Unfortunately I need to wait until I go to the grocery store again to make sure I have all of the items listed in the correct order. Phooey! I'll let you know how it goes and will post a photo once I have it all made.

Do you have other ideas? Please share!

Organizing, Finances, Kids, & Changes, Oh My!

When I started this blog, I did it to encourage myself to get my house and life in order. I love to organize, so I thought this would be fun. Well, while I've been enjoying writing and feeling like I have a daily "job", I'm just not really happy with the direction in which I have started taking this blog. I'm no professional organizer, just a wanna-be, so I really want to back away from the path I was starting to go down - a bossy one! =)

In addition to enjoying organizing, I really enjoy saving money and seeing how far I can stretch a buck. My husband and I currently don't carry any debt other than our mortgage. (We've both been very lucky and very strategic with our money.) At a couple of points, though, we've leaned on our main credit cards. This may sound silly, but I really got a kick out of figuring out how we'd go about paying off the credit card and how quickly we could do it. Now, we were never in debt by much, but I enjoyed the challenge that debt offered.

One other topic I like to talk about and makes me happy is my family. I love to share stories about my kids in addition to hearing stories about others' kids. Our two very different dogs provide a bit of humor from time to time as well.

I guess what I'm saying is that I may take this blog in a whole other direction than I had initially planned. I think I might try to figure out how to mix these three interests of mine. I know, good luck, huh? Unfortunately, this blog itself likely won't be very "well organized" for a while. Hopefully it'll be more enjoyable to read with changing things up and me writing more in the same style that I talk.

What do you think? Anyone out there? =)