Since Princess started school yesterday, I had a whole stack of paperwork that came home-student handbooks, introdution to kindergarten, school lunch menu, a pad of transportation change forms, a calendar from the PTO and a school lunch envelope! (phew!). I decided that it really was time to update my Household Notebook.
What? You don’t know what a household notebook is? Well, I first read about them over at the Organized Home site. According to the site (click for a complete description of how to):
“Unlike a personal planner, which is designed for use by one person, a household notebook or family organizer serves as “command central” for an entire family. While each family’s organizer will be unique, most are simple three-ring notebooks with several divider sections.
Most household notebooks include a telephone and message section, a divider for church, clubs or volunteer activities, travel, home management and finance sections, medical information, and personal records like gift list and clothing size charts.”
They have a ton of FREE printable forms-I printed out most of them and made up my own household notebook about 5 years ago. I haven’t really updated it too much, but a few years ago when I had a ton of stuff coming home from the daycare center I split the children’s stuff out into a separate kids notebook. So it was the kids notebook I had to update last night.
I spent a happy hour (no, not drinks) weeding through what was already in there (a LOT of old stuff) then punching holes and organizing all the new info.
I reprinted the Emergency Contact Sheet that I always leave out for the babysitter (the old one was pretty grungy looking). Actually what I usually do is pull out the entire notebook and just open it up to the Emergency Contact page (which is in a page protector) and pull out my copy of our bedtime prayer for the babysitter to say with the kids.
All I need now is to make or buy some 3 ring binder tabs. The next project really needs to be updating the general household notebook. 🙂
How does this all tie into frugality? Well, first of all, the printable sheets are free (and there is nothing cheaper than free). The second thing is that by being organized and being able to lay your hands on things saves you time, and when you save time in one area you have the ability to spend more time on frugal pursuits (because it is often a question of saving time or saving money) such as cooking for scratch or repairing something rather than buying a new one.
I have a household notebook and I love it. Everyone knows, if they need to look up the number for the pizza parlor, the menu is in there! As are about a dozen other things we might need on a regular basis. I’ve used the printouts from that site–its’ a great place.