Operation Get Our Life In Order

For the last month I have been trying to get our life back together. Don't get me wrong, it's not totally falling apart. But since having a baby last fall, there were a few things that have been neglected. Things like, our budget, meal plans, intentional grocery shopping, cooking nourishing food. These are important things, things that if left unattended would really affect our family. So slowly this month we've been trying to get back on track. I needed to make a plan and come up with some systems to help me stay organized and simplify some of the tasks I have to do every week.

Step One: Look at the Big Picture

My first step was to sit down with Adam and talk about what we want for our family. I'm talking big picture things, what we want to be true of our family, how we want to take care of our marriage, what our financial goals are. I realized that vision and goals are important if you want to stay the course in maintaining little things you do every day liking cooking and keeping track of our spending. I was inspired by the book Organized Simplicity. She talks about coming up with a family mission statement. If you are interested in highly recommend her book. We are still working on this but it's been helpful to talk about.

 

Step Two: Make a Home Management Book

Tsh the author of Organized Simplicity and the blog Simplemom.net suggests every home manager have a notebook to keep your life in order. I have found it helpful already and am looking forward to having a place to keep track of everything. In it I have my meal plans, blog ideas, family things, budget stuff, reimbursements for ministry, grocery lists etc. If you want to read more about how to make one for yourself, check out these links.

How to Create A Home Management Book

The Rest of My Home Management

Step Three: Find a Better Budgeting Tool

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maurice_flower/82314327/

Adam and I have a system to budget and keep track of our spending but it was breaking down and wasn't really working. We were using Mint to keep track of our spending and while it is good at tracking expenses it isn't the best budgeting tool, at least not for the things we needed it to do like cash transactions and tracking reimbursements from work. We wanted to do a better job of knowing where every dollar went and do a better job of tracking our savings. I knew it would help me to make day to day decisions if I knew that holding off on something I wanted now would mean we could buy something we really wanted later. After a lot of research and asking around we decided to go with YNAB (You Need A Budget). After several hours of figuring it all out, we are happy with our decision and I'm finding it is already helping me stick to our budget better.

 

Step Four: Have a Strategy for Meal Planning

Since having Lyla my meal planning has basically been non existent and looking at our budget it definately shows. After seeing how much more money I was spending on groceries I knew I needed to get back on track. Plus, we eat a lot healthier when I do this too. I've been trying out different systems, but so far I'm finding planning two weeks at a time is helping me and limiting the number of trips to the grocery store as well. This really deserves a post of its own, but for now here are a few links if you are interested in coming up with a plan of your own.

Back to Basics: Meal Planning

A Monthly Menu Plan

A Week's Menu Plan and Grocery List in One

Simplifying Grocery Shopping and the Benefits of Monthly Menu Planning

Organization in the Real Food Kitchen: Favorite Recipe Lists

 

Step Five: Create a Flexible Schedule for Weekly Tasks

Finally after four months with a baby I feel like I'm getting a feel for the rhythm of our days and weeks. One thing that has helped is coming up with a flexible schedule of things I do each day of the week. For example, Mondays I go get groceries, Wednesdays Lyla and I go to yoga together. Thursday I do Laundry, Friday I clean up the house before the weekend, etc. I'm learning I can usually only plan on doing one big thing like running errands, laundry, visiting a friend, ministry, and that I need to start working on dinner way earlier than I used to. It's been a matter of trial and error but we are figuring it out. I found this cute weekly calendar download from Jones Design company (scroll down to the bottom or this link to the download button to dowload it for yourself).

So there you have it. Some things we've been working on over at the Go household. There are a few more things I have planned to work on in the coming weeks to get our life more in order. I'll share them as they get done.