Organization

[blessedmama]

So I wanted to put this out there since I am in the organization part of my summer. I LOVE organizing things and I am always looking for more efficient ways to do things. I thought I might share a couple of my tips and then you could share some of yours

HOD Materials: I have a canvas tote for each of my dc. In that tote I put only the books and other materials we are currently using and store the rest in a seperate room on the shelf (the said shelf is organized by TG and their respective books). The tote is so easy to grab off the shelf when we are ready to do school and easy to put back on the shelf when we would like to see the table to eat dinner.

Menus I plan a two week menu (starting from the day my husband gets paid) with all meals including breakfast and snacks. When I go shopping I only buy what is needed for the menu items. This saves me money by not buying whatever I "think" we need and also by not having to run to the store several times to get that one thing I need for a recipe. I also do not have to ho, hum about what to make for meals and know what to pull out of the freezer for the next day. If I want to change things from what I have planned for that day I just switch with another day. I plan that we will eat the fresh produce that doesn't last long to be at the beginning of the two weeks and then use frozen or canned fruit/veggies when they run out.

I would love to hear some of your organization tips to help the school day run more smoothly!

[netpea]

Oh, I need to do the menu planning, that is a weak link for me. I am not very organized.

[There's A Haven]

Sara, that is great that you plan your meals with snacks included for 2 weeks. Do you use cookbooks or an online tool to plan this way? Do you post your meals or snacks somewhere for your family to view? If so, would you please share how you do it? It would be oh so helpful! Thank you! Theresa

[MelInKansas]

I too read about your menu planning and am very curious to hear more about that. I know being organized with meals would really help me, especially I've seen that as the past 2 weeks I haven't been organized at all and have ended up either with a very late dinner and a very messy kitchen, or not getting things done right. The other reason I need to make a menu plan and at least try to stick to it (besides shopping) is that when I don't, I don't remember what I need to do earlier in the day to make sure that dinner gets on the table at a good time.

We are a little lax on a lot of things because we're still on summer break (for just a few more days). I really need to get back into a good routine! Meal planning is definitely one of the areas I need to get back on track!

[MelInKansas]

As for sharing tips, my schedule is my lifesaver to make the day run smoothly. I really need to sit down and tweak it for the coming school year. It helps me so much to be able to think about each of my children (and myself), what needs to get done in a day, and how it can all get done with us working together. I tend to include my children in the daily activities and plans when I schedule our time.

I keep my school books organized in drawers, along with my craft supplies, which has really helped make everything easy to find. I now am repurposing a bookshelf I have upstairs to be my school book shelf because I'm starting to get so many of them!

[blessedmama]

So about my menu planning...

1) Frst thing I did was make a list of all the things (recipes) that we eat

2) Then I took that list and divided it into categories such as hotdishes, soups, Italian, Mexican, chicken, or however one would like to do it, it just made it easier to sort through

3) Then I take a blank calendar (with Sunday-Saturday on the left-vertical column and breakfast, lunch, supper, snacks on the top-horizontal column) and I fill in the boxes with what I have planned for the day. I always have certain things on certain days (like cereal Sunday mornings b/c we are out the door by 8 a.m. for church) so I fill those in first. I always have a fruit and veggie with lunch and a veggie with supper, so that part is easy. Then I fill in the blanks as far as the main meal goes. I have to admit that even with a list of things that we eat, this is not my favorite part. I get sick of the same old recipes but don't have a lot of time to try out new ones. However, I am thankful that the Lord has blessed us with an abundance of food for our needs. You can find these blank menu calendars all over on the web.

4) After the menu is made I make a grocery list that only has the items that we need from the menu. Of course if we always use, say cream of mushroom soup and it is on sale for a good price I will stock up, otherwise I do not deviate from the menu.

5) The menu is put on the fridge so I remember to get out a pound of hamburger the night before, etc. and it is easily available for those who would like to know what is for supper (at least those who can read )

There it is in a nut shell. I hope that helps a little.

[There's A Haven]

Sara, you have inspired me in menu planning for the summer and working on it during the school year so that I won't dread meal time because I will have a plan instead of trying to figure out the day of what we're going to do for dinner that evening. Thank you so much!! I'm sure my family will thank you too!

[blessedmama]

Enjoy!!

[mother4christ]

The summer time is my planning time too, I love organizing and coming up with schedules/plans! For me it is "implementing them"ha ha LOL

I have spent the last 6 weeks with planning, praying, studying what curriculum we are gonna use etc and have fell in love with HOD! I can't wait to order.

Sara, I just love your menu idea.......that is fabulous! I just jotted down how you have your calender(menu) set up. Do you know of a good place to print off one like that? I guess any blank calender will do but I like how you have the days of the week and then the meals! I really MUST do this to stay on budget....I am not a good menu planner or budget person but I am working on it and right now I dont' have a choice b/c work has been slow for our business so I have to plan better. I think that it is good that work is slow right now in some ways b/c God is teaching me to rely more on Him and trust in Him for our daily bread! He has always provided and still does:)

Anyways, Thanks so much for the tips again. I just love this forum already!

Wahoo!
Shannon

[annaz]

Menu planning. ARGH.... I did it once and it actually worked well. Think of it on a smaller schedule. I got the idea from somewhere (can't remember now).

This person took a week's worth of food and repeated it. So every Sunday was this, Monday was that. I started with this. (I told my DH about this and he cared none! I thought gross!) So Sunday was roast, Monday was pork chops, Tues Grilled Cheese, Wed fish....etc. simple.

But then I added another week's worth and just kept rotating it. So if you can make 10 great meals, take those and plug them into the next 10 days then start the same cycle over again.

I was able to get up to a month's worth and I can't even cook!

Baby steps.

And now...I need to go back to that because it worked really, really well.

[birchbark]

Here's a two-week menu calendar. I should really do this too. It helps so much.

Another great idea, if you can set aside the day to do it, is freezer meals!

I mentioned another helpful organizing tip in a post here.

[tbarr12]

I need to echo the above post on freezer meals. In the past, I have regularly done what I call "thirty-day cooking" where I cook and freeze a month's worth of dinner entrees. Amazingly, all those can fit in the freezer of a standard-sized fridge. It's unbelievable how much easier this makes my life. So I don't have to plan out individual meals - I just buy whatever fruits and vegetables are on sale that week, then I pick out meals for the week depending on what sides I have, and what we have going on. Then I take them out of the freezer the night before, and they are thawed by the next night.

The big challenge for me lately has been finding the time to plan out the 30-day cooking, and actually set aside a Saturday to do it. It was almost easier when my kids were little and dh could just watch them - now they have more activities on weekends. So I haven't been able to do this in awhile, but really want to get back into the habit.

The cookbook I use is Freezer Cooking Manual from 30-day Gourmet. If anyone wants more info about how to buy it, they can pm me.

[pjdobro]

I'm really enjoying this thread. I love all the ideas about organization. I haven't gotten to a place yet this summer where I am able to start to plan for the fall, but I'm going to hold on to these ideas to try to organize myself better.

I second doing some freezer meals. I'm not good at doing a whole 30 days worth of freezer meals, but I have managed to double up when making things and occasionally just do an hour or two of prep here and there to put extra meals in the freezer. It helps me out tremendously especially during the school year. Though I don't like menu planning, our days run so much more smoothly when I do it. One thing that I try to do is wait to do my menu plan for the following week on Wednesday when the current store sale ads come out here. That way I can look at the specials at the grocery store for the week and plan my menus around what is on sale. It's helped cut our expenses to focus especially on only buying meat when it is on sale. I've gotten away from it recently, but I used to thrive on trying to put a whole meal on the table (for 4) for as close to $5 as possible. You ladies here are the ones that got me on the right path as far as menu planning and freezer meals. This thread from a long time past helped me out tremendously: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4998&p=36797#p36797 I thought I would share it here for some of the newer HODies. There are a lot of great tips in that thread.

[christina101902]

I make a calendar ( 1 set of dinner menus, the other breakfast/lunch) for two months at a time. I post them on my freezer. I have about 20 menu items that I rotate out over the two month period. It has helped our overstock and over buying to be cut down considerably. I use blank calendars from Crayola.com , I list at the bottom any dishes that did not get used. Ex: If I didn't make Lasagna in June or July , that is a meal we will definitly have in August. I account for birthdays and any dinner dates that we know in advance. We are 30 minutes away from a Walmart so we do the majority of grocery shopping once a month, so this calendar system works for us. So I can see exactly how much ground beef we need to buy in bulk or bags of frozen broccoli, etc. We only use our local grocery for the basics milk, bread, etc. We have been using the calendars since January. No more last minute guess work, no longer is the chicken still frozen because we decided to have it at the last minute, no more "chili... again" complaints. I hope this encourages anyone still wondering if the planning is worth it


Christina

[MelInKansas]

Wow, this is good, definitely good to get me encouraged to go ahead and make a meal plan, even though I never stick to it!

I do freezer cooking. I don't do it once a month. I do it as meat goes on sale. I do think ahead each day to what we are going to eat, to pull it out of the freezer to thaw, but I still hate how last minute (and sometimes late) my dinners are. I get so busy in that last hour before dinner time.

Any other kind of organising tips?