Getting organized: Organize your finances

Today, I'm going to talk about something that isn't that fun to talk about- organizing finances.

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This is admittedly one of my biggest struggles- we've gotten slightly better at organizing our finances, but we've far from arrived. Two of our best resources for organizing our finances are our home binder, the mail bins in our command center, and our "bills to pay" list in the command center. 

First, let me tell you how we use our home binder to track finances. We have an entire page dedicated to tracking finances. It is right behind our monthly  calendar, and even though we don't always use it the right way, it does give us a pretty good picture of monthly expenses. 

We also use our "week at a glance" sheets in the binder to write down what bills are due for the week, or what we need to spend that week if there is something extra coming due. 

We have three mail bins in our command center. The one on the left is for bills that are due. The center one is for bills that have been paid, but haven't cleared yet. The bin on the right is for things that need to be filed. Everything else goes to the shredder. 

We also use the second pic frame from the left to record what bills are due and the dates they are due. 

We have also tried to keep a grocery list to record what we run out of, and make a meal plan before shopping. This has cut down on impulse purchases dramatically. 

As I said before, we are still working to become better at organizing our finances, but we certainly have improved a lot. Do you have any ideas you'd like to share? 

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

Getting Organized: Command Centers

I've briefly talked about our command center before, but now I'm about to talk about it in depth.

The command center is completely DIY'd and we really do use it a lot. The bulletin board, which holds inspiration for me (pictures, Bible verses and quotes), is made from a large picture frame that the glass broke out of. We no longer used the frame, so I cut a piece of foam board to fit the frame and covered it in fabric. The calendar board was bought from Hobby Lobby, but the calendar is DIY'd with some line tape. Here is how our calendar looked a few months ago! 

Each week, we use the calendar to look at what bills are coming due, what other expenditures we'll have, and what important dates are coming up. The smaller red weekly calendar is where all of this information gets recorded. 

These frames hold our cleaning checklist, bill pay list (where we list what bills are due and when), the red weekly calendar, and a weekly menu board. The frames were $3 Dollar General specials and the items within the frames were made by me on the printer. 

The mail bins are just Chlorox Fresh Brush boxes covered with black canvas and adorned with mail plates.  You can read about how I made them here. We use these to organize bills that need to be paid, bills that need to clear, and bills that need to be filed. Everything else promptly goes to the shredder. 

Having this command center makes it so much easier to know what's going on in each family member's lives during the week, as well as helping us organize finances and eliminate piles of paper around the house. It's honestly one of the best things I ever did. 

Hope you'll join us next week for some financial organizing tips! Thanks for reading!

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

Command Centers

One key household management device I use is a command center.