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Organizing Round-Up: My Recipe Binder

February 27, 2009 8 Comments

Organizing Blog

This month’s Organizing Round-Up Project was recipes. Last year I started printing out recipes from the internet, and placing them in a simple binder, complete with page protectors, as seen below:

(For tips on organizing your own recipe binder you can read my post from earlier this week.)

Back in January, in an effort to rid by computer of dozens of bookmarked recipes, I copied all the best recipes I had saved and placed them in a word document to be printed. I then sorted through all my recipes and divided them into categories.

I used colored tab sheets to divide the binder into sections. My categories are: Appetizers, Soups, Main Dishes/Casseroles, Breads/Sides, Cakes/Pies, Cookies/Candies, and Misc.

In addition to my recipe binder, I have two recipe boxes. And I decided to place my recipe cards into the binder so that all my recipes would be in one place. The Hershey’s box shown below is now empty. (I haven’t yet decided what to use it for.) And now I’m storing blank recipe cards in the green box.
Below are some recipe cards from one of the boxes. I sorted all the cards into piles so that they could be placed in the appropriate section of the binder.

And I used 4X6 photo pages to insert the recipe cards in. If you want you can place 2 cards in the same pocket back to back. But for cards that had a photo on one side and a recipe on the other, I placed a single card in a pocket, so that I can see the recipe and the photo, just by flipping the page and without removing the card from the page.

Head over to Org Junkie to see how others organized their recipes.

-Jerri


Filed Under: organizing, recipes, Simple Solutions

Organizing Your Recipe Binder

February 25, 2009 9 Comments

This month I’ve been gearing up for the recipe organizing round-up, and I’ve put together a lot of tips on organizing recipes. But since my round-up post will be centered on my recipe binder alone, (and for the sake of keeping the posts below novel length), I decided to just focus this week’s tips post on recipe binders.

-Rather than printing recipes immediately or keeping them on your desktop forever, pick a day each month or every couple of months to have a recipe printing session.

-Only print the recipes that you’ll definitely make. This saves paper and prevents you from cluttering your recipe binder with unnecessary stuff.

– To avoid cluttering your computer, delete the bookmarks after you’ve printed the recipe.

-Copy and paste all the recipes you have bookmarked to a word document. This saves you from printing unneccessary stuff from each webpage. And you can edit the whole document so that everything is in the same format and font/style. (plus you only have to click print once.)

-Use tabs/subject dividers to divide your binder into sections. Or if you have a lot of recipes, divide them into separate binders.

-File the recipes that you print behind appropriate sections in the binder so that they stay organized.

-If you make a recipe and don’t like it, remove it from your binder.

-Go through your binder periodically and remove recipes that you never make.

-When you try a new recipe, make notes of any changes you make to the recipe and/or any changes you want to make next time. (different ingredients, change of cooking time, change of recipe size)

By being extremely selective about the recipes you choose to print & getting rid of bad or unused recipes, you can ensure that you have a clutter-free binder filled with ONLY the most delicious recipes!

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This post is featured on Rocks in My Dryer and Tammy’s Recipes.

-Jerri

Filed Under: organizing, recipes

Organizing Round-Up: Filing Cabinets

January 30, 2009 12 Comments

Organizing Blog

I file pretty frequently so I didn’t really have much to do in the area of filing for the Organizing Round-Up, but I did manage to do a few things. As I worked, I took notes so that I could share with you exactly what I did, as the pictures don’t really show much of a transformation.

-First, I went through my temporary file box and processed and filed everything that was in it. I also managed to throw a few pieces of junk mail away.
-At this time I also made a new folder for tax stuff and placed it in the temporary box, so I’d have it ready for all the tax documents that get mailed to us.
-Within my file cabinet drawer, I went through all the files and threw out any old or unnecessary papers.
-I also rearranged a few folders; since I have one large file drawer instead of a few small ones, I try to keep similar/related files together, and I decided to move a few folders around to make it a little more orderly.
-And for those who may be curious, the order of the files is (from front to back): Household Bills, Bank/credit card statements, Insurances Papers & Bills, My Husband’s Student Loans, My Student Loans, Legal Documents, Tax Documents, and Misc.
-I also made a few new labels for my green hanging folders; my labelmaker broke, and I haven’t bought a new one yet, so I had to make some temporary handwritten labels, but at least now all the sections in the file cabinet have labels. And I made labels for each of the banks that we have accounts and/or credit cards with. Previously I would have 2 or 3 banks inside one hanging folder, but I decided to separate those out into separate hanging folders.

Here’s the before picture:

And Here’s The After: See? Other than a few new handwritten labels, there isn’t much of a transformation to look at. But I guess it’s the thought and action behind the pictures that really counts!


And here’s a picture from another angle. I tried to separate the folders and make spaces so that you could see all the different “sections” of files that I described above, but didn’t work out to well. (Again, it’s the thought that counts!)
Also, check out my other posts that are related to filing:

The Secret To My Success (With Filing) – The Temporary File Box

Organizing Tax Information – Part 1

Organizing Tax Information – Part 2

Join us over at Org Junkie for the Round-up!

-Jerri

Filed Under: organizing

The Secret To My Success (With Filing)

January 27, 2009 15 Comments

As many of you know, Laura at Org Junkie hosts a monthly Organizing Round Up. The project for January is filing cabinets. Before each round-up (assuming I participate in all of them) I thought it would be informative to do a post, telling some strategy that I use or something that I learned while doing the current project. So this month I decided to share with you the secret to my success (at least in the area of filing and ridding your desk of clutter).

My secret is the Temporary File Box. When I worked as a receiving clerk, I had several file trays and racks that held folders (all labeled nicely of course), and each folder or tray had a specific purpose and was a temporary home for a particular kind of paper work until it could be processed. I also had a box with green hanging folders (just like the one above) to hold all the recieved purchase orders until I had time to file them away.

After getting married we were plagued with paper! Mail would sit on my desk, my husband’s desk, the kitchen counter, and of course the kitchen table! So I decided to buy a simple file box and put some folders in it; the folders would help me, not only to organize the paperwork, but hide it away!

And unlike other solutions I tried in the past, I like this one because the box stays out in our office, and the folders are labeled, so the box itself is a constant reminder to stay on task and process and file paperwork!

The labels for the folders obviously depend on your own individual needs. But to get you started, here are some of my folders and their purposes:

  • Bills – Where I place new bills until they are paid
  • To Be Filed – Where I placed any paper work that needs to be filed (of course), and where bills and all the other paperwork goes after it’s processed (if I don’t have time to file immediately)
  • Personal Reciepts – Where I place grocery store, resturant, and other receipts, until I can enter the amounts into my expense spreadsheet.
  • Business Receipts – Where I put receipts from my husband’s business and other tax deductible receipts until I have time to enter & file them.
  • Requires Action/To Do – For paperwork that needs to be signed or filled out and mailed off or something we have to call about.
  • I also have a folders labeled “Misc,” “Scrap Paper” (for doodles), and “To Shred.” My husband and I also have our own individual folders, and I have a folder that’s labeled “Blogging” for ideas that I get or find, and I have a folder labeled “Etsy.”

By sorting all incoming mail and paperwork into folders as I have described, it is very easy to stay organized, and when it comes time to pay bills, file, and do other office tasks, you don’t have to waste time trying to figure out what everything is and what needs to be done with each piece.


-Jerri

This post is featured on Rocks in My Dryer.

Filed Under: organizing, Simple Solutions

Help With Those Dreaded Taxes

January 8, 2009 3 Comments

With every year that rings in, comes the dreaded tax season. Last year in March I wrote some posts on tax information. I decided to post the links to those posts for those of you who need the information this year. I realize that last year, by the time I wrote the posts, a lot of people had already filed their taxes, but maybe if I post them up in January, they can be useful for someone.

I recommend that you read the over the deductions posts; there are a lot of things that I’d never know were deductions, if I hadn’t read about them.

I also highly recommend that you take a look at the organizing posts. The accountant we went to last year said that I had a really good system. My systems are very easy and straightforward, and it’s really helped me to stay organized. Anytime my husband has a question about a particular business expense, it’s very easy for me to locate things on the computer or in our files, (Plus, because of this system, all our deductions are already added up this year…actually they were added up a couple of months ago….all I have to do is print out the spreadsheets and wait for the other forms to come in the mail. Yes!)

I didn’t update any of these for this year, but I did add a link at the bottom to some information on environmental deductions (which I don’t believe were in my posts at all last year).

Taxes: Basic Info – Information about how to file online/offline and information about deadlines, etc.

Tax Deductions for the Self-Emplployed and Other Job Related Deductions – A list of business deductions such as office & shipping supplies and uniforms. It also includes a list of deductions related to job searches.

More Tax Deductions – Misc. deductions such as medical & education expenses, moving, and others.

Organizing Tax Information, All Those Forms – This post teaches you my system for organizing the tax forms which are mailed to at the begining of the year. To tell you the truth, since I only do this once a year, I decided to re-read the post just to make sure that I do the same things this year that I did last, and it was actually helpful to me.

Organizing Tax Information, Personal & Business Receipts for Deductions – This post teaches you my system for organizing receipts throughout the year, including how I file the reciepts & how I keep the saved on the computer. The system is for businesses but it can also be used for business deductions. Or you could use it for non-tax related expenses & budgets if you wanted. This system works very well for me, and since it’s early in the year, if you like the system if would be the perfect time to adopt it, so that you can use it throughout 2009 for an easy tax filing in 2010.

Environmental Deductions – Not a post of mine, but rather a list from Energy star of things that you can get tax credits such as energy efficient home improvements, appliances, and cars.

I hope you find these helpful!


-Jerri

Filed Under: organizing, personal finances

Adventures in Shopping: Menu Planning Stuff!

January 7, 2009 6 Comments

Welcome to my newest feature. Well, actually it’s really an old idea reimagined. In the past I’ve written some posts pertaining to shopping, such as product reviews, money saving tips, etc. And over the Christmas holidays I got this idea to combine these posts under the umbrella of “Adventures in Shopping.” In addition to the things listed above, these posts will also include deals that I find. Sometimes I may share something that I got a good deal on (at the thrift store perhaps). Other times it may be a deal at a chain retail store or online that you guys may be able to take advantage of as well. Or it could just be anything that I think might be interesting or helpful to you guys.

I’m going to try to do this once a month. I’ve got so many different ideas it’s hard to schedule everything. For instance, I’d like to do my Sweet Thursday feature once a month too, and then there are just so many other topics to cover in relation to the home plus seasonal topics. I like to get in as many “special features” as I can, but at the same time, I don’t like to have a rigid schedule….so I’m conflicted a bit on this. We’ll just see what develops.

Anway, for the first Adventures in Shopping post I wanted to share these cute menu planning items that I found a week or two ago. I was at Wal-mart taking advantage of the after Christmas sale when I found them. Perhaps you guys can find them at your local store.

The first item is a notepad, and the second is a flat marker board. Both of these items were $1 each. Great Deal! I guess if you have one, you don’t really need the other, but for a dollar, I couldn’t pass them up. I had to have both.

The notepad is very cute and colorful. And it has 3 lines for each day of the week. There’s also a magnet on the bag so that you can place it on the back of the refrigerator. In addition to using this notepad to write your menu down, I thought it would be good to have one for shopping list purposes. While planning your menu, you could use the notepad to write down extra ingredients that you need at the store. Just a thought.

Or here’s another idea. You could use the notepad to write down several menus at a time. Just have one big meal planning sesssion, and then each week, just go to the next page. Your menu will be there, and all you’ll have to do is check your inventory and go to the store.

And then there’s the board. I love—LOVE this! I thought this was just the cutest! It also has a magnet on the back so you can post your menu on the fridge. And it comes with a dry erase marker, with a little eraser on the end of it and a magnet on the back so that you can place it on the fridge next to your menu board.

All in all, I thought these were excellent deals! Maybe you guys can find them too. I did look online at walmart.com, amazon, and a couple of other places, but I didn’t see any notepad or marker boards for meal planning. I guess if all else fails you could make your own!

**Update: I forget to mention that I found these in the lawn & garden (seasonal) section. They were on a four-sided cardboard display, like you might in between two aisles, or out in the middle by itself. It’s like the kind where you might see greeting cards, shipping supplies, or calendars. Or you may find them with stationary/school supplies.**

While looking on Amazon I did manage to find this Betty Crocker Cooking Calendar. It’s got menu ideas, recipes, and stuff. It’s a reprint of an old book I believe, and it looks pretty neat and very retro. I looked at the “preview” of it, and it looks just like an old Betty Crocker cookbook that my mom gave me. I may actually buy this one myself, so itt may be worth your time.

Please tell me what you think of this feature idea. I hope you like it!

(A link to this post, along with tons of other great ideas can be found at WFMW sponsored by Rocks in my Dryer.)


-Jerri

Filed Under: menu plan Monday, organizing, shopping

Works for Me Wednesday: Making Your List & Checking It Twice

November 26, 2008 6 Comments

Christmas can very stressful to a lot of people, especially the Christmas shopping part. One thing you can do to alleviate the stress and save time is to make yourself a detailed list for your shopping, budgeting, and planning purposes. Here are some suggestions & tips that work for me.

Making a List – Before begining your Christmas shopping, make a list of all your gift recipients. I like to organize them in to groups: Parents, nieces/nephews, brothers/sisters, coworkers, gift exchange, etc. This will ensure that you don’t leave anyone out and it can save you from going out at the last second to buy another gift. (The strategy is also helpful when making Christmas card lists.)

Beside each name, I write in a dollar amount that I plan to spend on each person. This helps me to maintain a budget and make sure that I don’t spend significantly more on one parent/sibling/kid than I do the others. (If I didn’t do this I’d be forced to either leave one person shortchanged, or else go out and buy another gift for someone, both of which I’d rather not do.) Also, beside each name, I write down gift ideas for that person, so that when I go out shopping I’ll know right where to go, which saves a lot of time. Once I’ve purchased a gift for someone, I mark them off the list.

Saving Your List – If you worry about accidentally giving the same gift year after year to the same person or if you like to base your Christmas budget on the one from the year before, you may want to save your list for next year. File it away or enter it on the computer.

I recommend putting your list on a spreadsheet. And after you’ve bought your gifts, you can easily enter in everything that you bought. Perhaps you bought Sue a pair of earrings rather than the sweater you had planned on. You can save this information on the sheet. Then next year at this time, all you have to do is pull up the spreadsheet. You’ll already have all your names and dollar amounts listed, which can easily be altered without making an entire new list and you’ll have a list of everything you bought the year before, which will keep you from duplicating gifts. This is a great time saver too!


-Jerri

Filed Under: Christmas, organizing, shopping, Simple Solutions

Planning & Organizing for Black Friday and other Shopping Trips

November 25, 2008 1 Comment

For the first of week of our little festival, I’ll be focused on planning & preparation. We begin with Christmas shopping. As you all know, Black Friday is this week. There’s a big debate over the merits of Black Friday. It is really worth the trip? Can you really save that much? I’d say the answer is yes and no.

I think there was definitely a time when Black Friday was a little more worth your while. Somehow I think the further commercialization of Christmas, the availability of more & more items to choose from, and the fact that the Christmas shopping season has been expanding to where it no longer starts on Black Friday, but instead starts in October, has deminished the appeal and the excitement of Black Friday.

But you can find good deals on Black Friday. If you do your research, get there early, and are willing to stand in line for that door buster deal, you can definitely save money. Unfortunately some of the great deals you see in the paper are for items of which they only have a limited quantity. Other items you find in the sales aren’t actually on sale at all; someone just paid to have that item advertised. And some items that are “on sale” you will find, aren’t really much cheaper than they would be on any given day.

However, you can find deals. People find them every year. For example, we picked up a vacuum last year, and few years ago I got a great deal on a printer. There are definitely some great deals to be had, you just have to know where to look, and you have to have a plan.

I wrote an article last year on making the most of your Black Friday trip. I published this article on Helium, and it has been ranked number one in the category for the past year. It was even featured on the front page of their website a year ago. The article focuses on strategies that you can use to plan and organize your shopping trip. It lays out a step-by-step process and explains how to look at and sort through the mountain of Black Friday advertisements, how to organize your shopping list and trip, and it also gives you some tips on prioritizing your trip and maneuvering through the chaos at your local stores.

And even if you don’t plan on going shopping for Black Friday, the article is worth checking out because the process and strategies can be applied for any shopping day. And since they’ll be having Christmas sales throughout the month of December, it should come in handy. Here’s the link to the article:

Next up, I’ll have an article on tips to avoid overspending this holiday season, tips for making your shopping list, and other ideas for Christmas planning.

-Jerri


Filed Under: Christmas, organizing, saving money, shopping

Planning the Move, Phase One is Complete!

August 24, 2008 1 Comment

The other day I got out my handy dandy notebook and made out a “to do” list of things we need to do before & during the move (see the list below). Well, phase one of the moving process is over. Thank goodness! Packing is the worst! I keep thinking of that DirecTV commercial that says, “packing, unpacking, your mind in a haze.”

We had a pretty good system though. We went through and numbered each box and gave it a “room label” and of course wrote what was on the box. And as we went, we made an inventory sheet of all the items. The list included each box number, the room the box should go in, and a breif description of what’s in the box. Hopefully this will make it easier when it comes time to unpack, so we’ll know exactly what box holds what before we open them. And on the list we also wrote down all of our furniture, “loose items,” plastic drawer sets, and plastic tubs, just so we’d be able to remember exactly what we have.

We stayed up late last night to make sure that we had everything packed up so that the movers could come in and do their thing without us getting in their way. (my husband used to move furniture, and he said people were always doing last minute packing..and arguing…when they’d get their to move…we definitely wanted to avoid that.) Now our apartment is essentially empy, with exception of the bare neccessities and a few special items that we wanted to carry ourselves. It’ll probably still be a tight fit to get everything we have left in our car and truck, but we’re gonna get it done.

Moving Check List:

Phase 1 -Boxing Up Our Lives – Stuff We’ve Already Done
-Get boxes & other supplies
-Make a list of essential items that we must have while we’re in limbo & set aside
-Pack, pack, pack
-Get Truck
-Line up people to load & unload truck

Phase 2 – Leaving it All Behind – Stuff to Do Tomorrow
-Pay electric bill and cancel service.
-Cancel internet service and pay final bill.
-Drop off book donations at library.
-Load up car and truck.
-Check mail, turn in apartment keys, and sign papers to get out of lease.
-Fill out change of address forms at post office.
-Stop by husband family to say goodbye.
-Drive up to my parents’ house, where we’ll be staying until the new floor covering is put down in the house.

Phase 3 – Living in Limbo – Stuff to do this Week & Beyond
-Get a change of location/number for our cell phones.
-Return unused Uhaul boxes.
-Get voter registration information changed.
-Make appointment for installation of satellite & internet services at the new place.
-Get address changed for magazine subscriptions & other important mail: bank accounts, student loan accounts, cell phone account, various online accounts.
-Do a pre-move in survey of the house to decide where we’ll put furniture and stuff.
-Work on anything that needs to be worked on in the new house/yard.
-Get prepared to start new jobs.
-Move in & unpack.

Filed Under: moving, organizing

Tips & Must Haves for the Perfect Summer Party, Part 2

June 13, 2008 1 Comment

As promised, here is a list of food and drink tips for your barbecues and backyard summer parties.

  • Never underestimate the amount of time it will take to grill. If you are having a lot of people over, do the majority of the grilling early so that it will be ready as the guests arrive.
  • If you’re having a lot of guests, you may want to ask a friend to bring over an extra grill for you to use. (and if someone asks you if you need help grilling or cooking, don’t be too proud to accept their assistance)
  • Do your cooking the night before in order to avoid having a hot kitchen on the day of the event, and this way, on the day of the party you can focus on some last minute tidying and placing your food out to serve.
  • Avoid making too many casseroles and heavy foods. Instead try salads, fresh fruit, and chips & veggies with dip.
  • Also, try some simple side items like mac & cheese, baked beans, cole slaw, corn on the cob, and potato salad.
  • For dessert, keep it light. Trifles are easy to make, and they look and taste great. Banana pudding is another great choice, or try a little key lime or lemon icebox pie. Homemade ice cream would also be a big hit.
  • Be sure that you have plenty of ice on hand.
  • You can never have enough drinks either. Be sure you have plenty of ice tea and bottled water. Also, have a good selection of regular and diet drinks. Lemonade or punch is also great for a hot summer day. And consider serving Kool Aid, Powerade, or juice boxes to the kids.
  • Be sure that you have plenty of coolers so that you can keep the drinks on ice, so that they won’t fill up your refrigerator, and so that everyone can grab a drink at his/her convenience.
  • To save money, make it a potluck dinner.
  • Decide ahead of time if you would like to serve alcohol at the party so that you can put it in your budget. I was reading a tip in a magazine that suggested to make one specialty drink for your guests like pina coladas or some other cocktail. Other than that, if you’re having a backyard barbecue, most people will bring their alcohol if they desire.
  • While you may be tempted to leave the food out so that people can come back for seconds, it would be better to put the food away in the fridge or in a cooler, in order to prevent spoiling. Just let your guests know what you’re doing so that they can get seconds if they like. Also, consider having your buffet inside the house, to further prevent spoiling and to keep bugs out of the food.
  • If you’re going to serve outside. Salads, fruits, and dessert items should remain inside until time to serve so that they can maintain the proper temperature.
    If you’re not much of a cook, try going to local resturant to have your party catered. You can get a large pan of pork barbecue, ribs, or wings & chicken fingers for everyone at a fairly good price. And you can sometimes get a good deal on side items too.
  • Even if you’re not doing a potluck, someone will most likely call and ask if they can bring something. While a simple “No thank you” is an okay response, most of the time these people will bring something anyway, so you may as well suggest something simple for them to bring, (ie – a dessert of their choice, chips, or a package of rolls) And if you’re grilling out, don’t be surprised if someone brings over some extra meat to put on the grill.


Filed Under: organizing, party ideas, planning, summer
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