Thursday, February 16, 2012

{Guest Series} The Best of Me-Romance On A Dime

Welcome to my next Best of Me guest!
I'm in desperate need of today's post! So it's perfect timing!

Hello! My name is Betsy from Romance on a Dime. I'm SO excited to be guest posting for Vintage Gwen! The "Best of Me" series has definitely been so inspiring to read and I'm really glad to be a part of it. Thanks for having me Jennifer!!
I blog about all sorts of stuff, such as thrifty living, menu planning, budget/DIY decorating, and organizing and simplifying life. I still consider myself a newlywed (1 1/2 years into marriage). A couple of my most popular series are 31 Days of New Uses for Old Things, Take it on Tuesday blog hop, and Cutting your Grocery Bill 101.
Awhile ago, I shared my best projects of 2011, but what I'm going to share today is a more recent post that quickly climbed the ladder of most page views. It's currently the fourth most viewed post on Romance on Dime!
Ready for free printables and a tutorial on How-to put together your own Home Management Binder?

DIY Home Management Binder/Planner

I spent a lot of time looking through all the ideas for printable planners, home binders, lists, and daily to do sheets I could find. I did go back and forth about whether I wanted a planner that fit into my purse or not (last year my planner did). I finally decided to make my own planner using a 3-ring binder and several printables I found. Here are some of my favorite printables:
Week at a Glance from Mommy Tracked (I LOVE the color and the scalloped edges!!):
Daily Planner Printables from Desiring Virtue - I LOVE these daily pages! Each day of the week has a different main task: Mon. - Laundry, Tues. - Kitchen, Wed. - Office, Thurs. - Town, Fri. - Cleaning, Sat. - Outdoors, Sun. - Lord's Day/day of rest. What is great is now they have blank daily sheets!!
Daily Docket from Simple Mom - this one I actually scanned in and spent HOURS editing and changing sections to be able to print it on a smaller sheet. Then, I decided to save it for another year and use the above daily planner.
Perpetual Birthday Calendar from The Project Girl
Money Saving Mom also has lots more printables to choose from! The one I'm definitely adding to my home management binder is her 2-hour House Cleaning Checklist.
I'm also a big fan of FlyLady and her beginner baby steps towards keeping an orderly, clean home. In the process of going through her fly lessons, I put together my own control journal resource sheet, which lists my morning routine, bedtime routine, and the cleaning zones I've mapped out in my home:
At first I had the idea to laminate the daily planner sheets and write on them with dry erase markers (so I wouldn't have to print a million pages). Since I don't have a laminator, I checked into the cost of a local copy place - $2/page - NO WAY!! I decided to instead put my daily planner sheets inside a sleeve and write on it with dry erase markers. It works really well!!
I put my Home Management Binder together, with these sheets:
Year at a Glance
Yearly Goals (still working through this)
Monthly Goals (still working through this)
Blogging Goals/resources
Monthly page
Contacts
Have you put a Home Management Binder together this year? What pages do you think are important to have?

I would love to invite you to stop by Romance on a Dime each Tuesday for the Take it on Tuesday Blog Hop!!

Thanks for reading.


Awesome!! I've been thinking about making a cleaning schedule and now I have the tools! Thanks Betsy!!  Be sure and check out all of Betsy's fun on her blog!

Happy Thursday!


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4 comments:

Betsy Pool said...

Thanks so much Jennifer, for having me over today!! I hope your moving process is going well.

Lindsay said...

Those are some great tips! I love the idea of having that binder, very helpful! Great guest post!

Unknown said...

Love it! :) I like "ask husband is there anything I can do for you today?". I think I need to start doing that.

Betsy Pool said...

Lindsay, Stevie - thanks for your comments and encouragement!

Lindsay - I love having a homemade binder. I'm always tweaking it. The dry erase format works really well for me.

Stevie - I'll admit. I haven't been so good about it asking the question lately. But when I have, he has asked it back! It's a great way to give in a relationship. I'm going to go check out your blog now...