S/O Home management binder, what would you include?

Daisy77

In the search for those check registers (still no luck:( ) I have been cleaning out drawers and such.  In doing so, I have been coming up with things like paint sample cards from rooms we have painted, which I want to keep in case of needing more of the same color.

With that said, what would you all include in a binder?  I'm thinking of something we'd grab in the case of a fire, would be handy if something happened to either DH or I, and yet it would still include random household stuff (such as paint samples, lol) So far I have:

Family info (doctors, dentists, allergies, school, etc.)

Emergency contacts (mostly family, but close friends to notify if something happened to us)

Insurance (medical and auto)

Finances (accounts, monthly bills, credit cards, etc)

Legal info (copy of will, location of notarized will, guardian info, location of passwords, etc.)

Random household stuff (paint sample, major appliance notes, etc.)

What else would you include?  It's not something we'd use all the time, just the stuff that would be a real pain in an emergency (life or household).  I keep my cleaning schedule separate, I don't currently plan ahead for meals, and my planner is on my phone (and a wipe-off calendar in the kitchen).  I found one online that I kind of like but it doesn't show what the pages look like inside so I can see what info it includes.  Others include schedules, calendars, etc., stuff that I won't use.  So unless I find one that I like I'll just make something.   

 

 

spiritenergy

I use multiple binders because I am not a fan of a huge binder. I have one for finances. It has a tab for all our different bills. I have one medical insurance/auto/dental/vision/flex account stuff. I have one that contains our investments. I have one that contains the emergency contacts, the location of our wills, web sites that we are signed up for along with the usernames but NOT passwords, and pictures for insurance. The last notebook is my random household stuff. It has tabs for my garden (plans and when stuff needs to be planted or harvested), preserving and fermentation schedule (canning, wine making, curing, dehydrating), house plants (how to care for them; how to rebloom my poinsetta), and random lists. The lists include books I want to read,stuff that we need for the house or grocery items, gift ideas, calender of events and when library books are due, homeschooling ideas, craft ideas, books to read for the kids, to do lists for hte holidays or upcoming events and other stuff.

On my computer I keep an inventory of our food supply, list of recipes that I want to try and the location of the recipe by season (helps me in meal planning), and an excel sheet of the weekly meal plan and available snacks for the week. When I meal plan I also plan breakfast and lunch.

All of my stuff is contained in plastic sheet protectors. I have found that it is just more durable this way. Plus I can stick an empty seed packet in the protector so I know that I need to order more of that seed next year or other odd size stuff.

JCM

spiritenergy:

I use multiple binders because I am not a fan of a huge binder. I have one for finances. It has a tab for all our different bills. I have one medical insurance/auto/dental/vision/flex account stuff. I have one that contains our investments. I have one that contains the emergency contacts, the location of our wills, web sites that we are signed up for along with the usernames but NOT passwords, and pictures for insurance. The last notebook is my random household stuff. It has tabs for my garden (plans and when stuff needs to be planted or harvested), preserving and fermentation schedule (canning, wine making, curing, dehydrating), house plants (how to care for them; how to rebloom my poinsetta), and random lists. The lists include books I want to read,stuff that we need for the house or grocery items, gift ideas, calender of events and when library books are due, homeschooling ideas, craft ideas, books to read for the kids, to do lists for hte holidays or upcoming events and other stuff.

On my computer I keep an inventory of our food supply, list of recipes that I want to try and the location of the recipe by season (helps me in meal planning), and an excel sheet of the weekly meal plan and available snacks for the week. When I meal plan I also plan breakfast and lunch.

All of my stuff is contained in plastic sheet protectors. I have found that it is just more durable this way. Plus I can stick an empty seed packet in the protector so I know that I need to order more of that seed next year or other odd size stuff.

Wow! You are super organized & by the sound of it busy too :-).  It sounds like you could be a professional organizer...  

Have you always been this organized or is it something you've learned? 

spiritenergy

JCM:

spiritenergy:

I use multiple binders because I am not a fan of a huge binder. I have one for finances. It has a tab for all our different bills. I have one medical insurance/auto/dental/vision/flex account stuff. I have one that contains our investments. I have one that contains the emergency contacts, the location of our wills, web sites that we are signed up for along with the usernames but NOT passwords, and pictures for insurance. The last notebook is my random household stuff. It has tabs for my garden (plans and when stuff needs to be planted or harvested), preserving and fermentation schedule (canning, wine making, curing, dehydrating), house plants (how to care for them; how to rebloom my poinsetta), and random lists. The lists include books I want to read,stuff that we need for the house or grocery items, gift ideas, calender of events and when library books are due, homeschooling ideas, craft ideas, books to read for the kids, to do lists for hte holidays or upcoming events and other stuff.

On my computer I keep an inventory of our food supply, list of recipes that I want to try and the location of the recipe by season (helps me in meal planning), and an excel sheet of the weekly meal plan and available snacks for the week. When I meal plan I also plan breakfast and lunch.

All of my stuff is contained in plastic sheet protectors. I have found that it is just more durable this way. Plus I can stick an empty seed packet in the protector so I know that I need to order more of that seed next year or other odd size stuff.

Wow! You are super organized & by the sound of it busy too :-).  It sounds like you could be a professional organizer...  

Have you always been this organized or is it something you've learned? 

I definetely learned this skill. When I was in elementary school I was the kid with the messy desk. I always did my homework and assingments, but then I would just shove them in my desk so I could move on to the next task. I always thought to myself, "I will deal with it later." I think I always had too much going on in my head, so I had to learn to slow down and organize it. It started off as making lists. Then I had too many lists. I would start a million new lists but never finish one or I would lose the one I was working on. Lists got me through high school (we were required to make to do lists in high school which at the time I found to be torture but now I am grateful for this skill) and undergrad.

When I went to grad school is when I had my first binder. It was just one that I kept all my bills in. In the front I had a list of all of my due dates for my bills so I wouldn't forget to pay a bill. I also kept my budget which had no wiggle room because grad students are not paid well.

Then, I started meal planning because I was broke. Every Sunday I told my graduate advisor that I would not work Sunday afternoon. That was MY time. I would get in at 7 am every morning and I didn't leave until 7 pm at the earliest. Some nights I worked all night then I had to go home and study for classes. I would break for breakfast, lunch, dinner (if I was working real late), and to work out (again if I worked real late). So Sundays I would sit down with the weekly ads the newspaper. I would clip coupons and plan the meals for the week based on the sales ads and coupons. I also did most of the cooking for the week then. Meals back then were simpler than now because I just had to worry about myself.

I left grad school to start a business. That meant lots of paper work. It seemed like the patent lawywers would send something weekly. Then there were all the sales ads trying to sell me lab equipment, the protocols, and reciepts. I learned a good filing system for that stuff.

Now I finally arrived at my current system. With kids to juggle on top of everything else I make sure at least our paper work to keep our house going is organized. I have found the key to being organized is to be minimalistic about stuff. My mom was a pack rat. She would claim she was organized but in reality she just had random piles of stuff. I think I started out like her. I had good intentions, but I have found that clutter is not good. If I keep everything in one place, then I find I am better. I am also not a shopper; in fact, I hate shopping so I think this helps me keep clutter at bay. If I can't deal with something immediately, then I put it in the notebook or write it on a list and I come back and I get to it when I have time. The only problem with my system according DH is that he says I can obsess when I get something on my mind. I like to pay the bills as soon as they come in the mail or as soon as they are posted on-line. I think I just like the instant gratification of being able to mark something off my list. Hahaha.

Daisy77

spiritenergy:

JCM:

spiritenergy:

I use multiple binders because I am not a fan of a huge binder. I have one for finances. It has a tab for all our different bills. I have one medical insurance/auto/dental/vision/flex account stuff. I have one that contains our investments. I have one that contains the emergency contacts, the location of our wills, web sites that we are signed up for along with the usernames but NOT passwords, and pictures for insurance. The last notebook is my random household stuff. It has tabs for my garden (plans and when stuff needs to be planted or harvested), preserving and fermentation schedule (canning, wine making, curing, dehydrating), house plants (how to care for them; how to rebloom my poinsetta), and random lists. The lists include books I want to read,stuff that we need for the house or grocery items, gift ideas, calender of events and when library books are due, homeschooling ideas, craft ideas, books to read for the kids, to do lists for hte holidays or upcoming events and other stuff.

On my computer I keep an inventory of our food supply, list of recipes that I want to try and the location of the recipe by season (helps me in meal planning), and an excel sheet of the weekly meal plan and available snacks for the week. When I meal plan I also plan breakfast and lunch.

All of my stuff is contained in plastic sheet protectors. I have found that it is just more durable this way. Plus I can stick an empty seed packet in the protector so I know that I need to order more of that seed next year or other odd size stuff.

Wow! You are super organized & by the sound of it busy too :-).  It sounds like you could be a professional organizer...  

Have you always been this organized or is it something you've learned? 

I definetely learned this skill. When I was in elementary school I was the kid with the messy desk. I always did my homework and assingments, but then I would just shove them in my desk so I could move on to the next task. I always thought to myself, "I will deal with it later." I think I always had too much going on in my head, so I had to learn to slow down and organize it. It started off as making lists. Then I had too many lists. I would start a million new lists but never finish one or I would lose the one I was working on. Lists got me through high school (we were required to make to do lists in high school which at the time I found to be torture but now I am grateful for this skill) and undergrad.

When I went to grad school is when I had my first binder. It was just one that I kept all my bills in. In the front I had a list of all of my due dates for my bills so I wouldn't forget to pay a bill. I also kept my budget which had no wiggle room because grad students are not paid well.

Then, I started meal planning because I was broke. Every Sunday I told my graduate advisor that I would not work Sunday afternoon. That was MY time. I would get in at 7 am every morning and I didn't leave until 7 pm at the earliest. Some nights I worked all night then I had to go home and study for classes. I would break for breakfast, lunch, dinner (if I was working real late), and to work out (again if I worked real late). So Sundays I would sit down with the weekly ads the newspaper. I would clip coupons and plan the meals for the week based on the sales ads and coupons. I also did most of the cooking for the week then. Meals back then were simpler than now because I just had to worry about myself.

I left grad school to start a business. That meant lots of paper work. It seemed like the patent lawywers would send something weekly. Then there were all the sales ads trying to sell me lab equipment, the protocols, and reciepts. I learned a good filing system for that stuff.

Now I finally arrived at my current system. With kids to juggle on top of everything else I make sure at least our paper work to keep our house going is organized. I have found the key to being organized is to be minimalistic about stuff. My mom was a pack rat. She would claim she was organized but in reality she just had random piles of stuff. I think I started out like her. I had good intentions, but I have found that clutter is not good. If I keep everything in one place, then I find I am better. I am also not a shopper; in fact, I hate shopping so I think this helps me keep clutter at bay. If I can't deal with something immediately, then I put it in the notebook or write it on a list and I come back and I get to it when I have time. The only problem with my system according DH is that he says I can obsess when I get something on my mind. I like to pay the bills as soon as they come in the mail or as soon as they are posted on-line. I think I just like the instant gratification of being able to mark something off my list. Hahaha.

The stuff in bold is me, to a T.  At my last annual it was determined that I have anxiety.  Not enough to need meds, but enough where I get anxious/stressed out over odd things...things that should be fun (like going to a party or an amusement park).  It bothered me because I don't get excited about that stuff anymore (which made me discuss depression with my doctor as it runs in my family, but we ruled that out.) 

By accident I discovered that organizing to the max has really helped.  I'm getting ducks in a row that I didn't realize were scattered.  And one of my favorite things?  Binders:)  School stuff has one big binder for all 3 kids (color coded sections for each one).  Recipes, another binder.  This new "Home" binder will also have a section for things like a sheet with family and friend's birthdays and random stuff I should remember, but don't (like dad's favorite candy bars, I can never remember if it's Almond Joy or Mounds! ETA: I like to remember because he is hard to shop for and has a huge sweet tooth...and is skinny as rail too yet!). 

And as for DH, he says I have gotten obsessed with organizing.  But he hasn't complained too much...clutter is down, things are cleaner, and I spend less time look for stuff that should be right in front of me.  But once I get an idea, I have to hop on it that second or it will nag me until it's done:)

And thanks for the extra ideas!  While I was on my run earlier I realized I should list valuables as well but totally blanked on including pics (great idea!).  

Sweets2005

There are a bunch of great printables on The Nest. Actually, I have a big family binder that I got for free from the Nest when I siged up and it is really awesome, I love it! It has everything you would need.