Chore Charts and Cleaning Checklists

One of the best things about summer is being able to have my kids at home and teach them about running a home and family.  With five kids, things are a bit more complicated, but we are figuring things out.  I created the following chore chart for my three oldest children (ages 12, 10, and 7) and so far things are working well.  This chart is hung on our Home Management System (more on that later!) in a sheet protector and the kids can mark off their chores with a wet erase marker.

I print the charts out in 2 sections (the first half of the week and the second half of the week).  Each child is assigned a number of items to do over the course of the week.  I really try hard to make it fair and age appropriate. Because we are a blended family and children spend parts of their week with their other parents, some hours/days are grayed out for those children.

You can see and download my blank chore chart here.  Feel free to customize and change it to fit your needs and family.

My kids also get really lazy confused about what actually needs to be done when doing a specific chore.  So, I made up cards with all the requirements for each chore, printed them on cardstock (2 to a page) and laminated them.  They can be found easily in our Home Management Binder (again...more on that later!).

You can see and download our Cleaning Checklists here.  Feel free to customize and change it to fit your needs and family.

What kinds of chore charts have worked for your family?

Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping

Each week (usually on Sunday so I can shop on Monday) I like to plan our basic menu.  This gives me the opportunity to look at my schedule and see which days I have more time to cook and which days I might need something quick.  This really helps me not do the “What am I going to make for dinner tonight?” quandary, and helps me not repeat meals as frequently as I would if I didn’t have plans.

For a long time I searched for a software or website that would not only help me with my meal planning, but also help with my grocery shopping. I had started to meal plan using Google Calendar, but inevitably I would forget to buy an all important ingredient for at least one of my meals. And despite having a grocery list, I always seemed to buy a lot more than I actually needed, spending a lot of extra money that I didn’t have.

Then I found Plan to Eat! This website is AMAZING!!!! It has just about everything you could ever want in a software to help you plan meals, eat healthy, and shop quicker and wiser!


MEAL PLANNING AND MORE

• Add recipes from 100+ websites & blogs
  Search multiple recipe sites from your dashboard, import recipes with one click, and we’ll do the rest.
• Share recipes with friends — not the world
  You see their recipes, and they see yours. You can also share your individual recipes with anyone, on your blog, Facebook and email.
• Meal Planning for the rest of us
  Easily drag recipes from your personalized recipe book to your monthly meal planner and then import your meal plan to your personal calendar program. Save your favorite meal plans to use again and again.
• Automated grocery list maker
  Your shopping list is automatically created from your meal plan, and items are combined and organized into grocery store categories. Add your own items or create separate lists for each store you shop. Print or email your shopping list to simplify your grocery shopping.
• Mobile Ready. Shopping on the go.
  Access your shopping list and recipes on your mobile device. Check off items on your list at the store and they'll automatically move to your inventory list on the main site.

First stop is the Recipes page.  This shows all the recipe’s I have in my recipe box and lets me know how often I have used them. You can also use the Filter Recipes to find things quick.



When you click on Add Recipe, you are given the option to import recipes from more than 100 websites or you can input a new recipe yourself.  The bulk input is great for copying and pasting recipes from blogs and websites not available in the “import a recipe from a the web.” Plan To Eat also has a bookmark that will save recipe’s to your box when you browse.  Very handy!



Next I go to the planner.  This is great because I can see what recipes I have been using lately and try to get some variety in our meals.  It’s all drag and drop.  You can add additional ingredients that you may need or make notes as well.  The main dish recipe is in dark blue.  Extra ingredients are in light blue. I also mark on the planner what is going on that day so I know why I have to cook that crock pot meal or I don’t have to cook at all!



Once you’ve planned your menu for the week you can go to your Shopping list.  Choose the time frame you want to shop for (the upcoming week, etc.) and it will pull all the ingredients you need for the recipes you’ve selected.  If you already have some of the items you can check the box and click “To Pantry” on your pantry inventory and it moves those items from your grocery list to your pantry.  You can drag and drop any of the items to which store you would like to purchase them from.  I mostly plan for dinners, so I usually need to add additional items (either by moving them from my pantry by checking on them and hitting “To List” or adding a new item at the top) for breakfast, lunches, and snacks. I also keep a “Staples” recipe in my Recipe list which has the items I buy pretty much every week. 



One of my favorite features is the “Edit Grocery Categories.” Here you can add new categories and rearrange their order so that they line up with your grocery store.  So when I shop and look at my list, everything is aisle by aisle.  No more hunting all over for the next thing you need to purchase.




















This is truly a great website! It has cut my shopping time way down and I stay on budget a lot better!  You can print out your shopping list from the website, or you can even access it from your Smartphone and check things off as you go.  Love it!!!!

Plan to Eat offers a 30-day free trial.  You can then pay month by month or for an entire year.  $39 is totally worth it.  I save a lot more money by using their service and I know you will too!

I love Pinterest!

Pinterest has become a new obsession favorite of mine.  I love being able to pin great things I find all over the internet into one place.  I also love seeing things that friends and people I admire have pinned. But all those pins can get out of control! And out of control does not work in my world.  Some may call me a control freak....I just say that I am organized!  And even my Pinterest boards need to be organized.  For me, organization is about being able to find things (anything) when I need it.

So when I first started on Pinterest, I started with the same boards any new pinner does.  But with the amount of stuff I was pinning and the types of items I sometimes pinned, the pins weren't fitting in the categories given to every new pinner. So, I started creating my own.  But then I found that a lot of my categories were getting very, very large.  I was having a hard time finding things I needed easily.  So, I started breaking down some of the categories into sub-categories.  This has made things so much easier! Currently I have 127 of them...and counting!

Do you pin? What things do you find yourself pinning the most? How many boards do you have? How are they organized? Any Pinterest tips?

Welcome!

Welcome to An Organized Family! I am so excited to finally debut my new blog! Organizing has always been a passion of mine, and I am so excited to be sharing my ideas with you and hopefully hearing some of yours as well!

To introduce myself a bit, my name is Amanda and I am a divorced mother of three beautiful children. I recently moved back to Utah from Texas and am getting settled into my new life here. I have met a wonderful man, with two kids of his own, and we are going to be getting married very soon.  He has purchased a new house for our family and my kids and I will be moving in as soon as we get married.  But in the mean time, I will be getting it ready for us to move in.

Setting up a new home is a lot of work, and I absolutely LOVE finding a place for each item in the house and making things not only organized, but pretty!  I am excited to decorate and transform our new house into a home.  But not only am I getting organized in our home, but I am going to be organizing a new family.  With 5 (yes, FIVE!) kids, it is going to take a lot of work to get things running smoothly.

With Summer here, I can't wait to set up our Summer routines and plan our activities.  Organization isn't just about containers, it is about life.  And life is a lot more fun when you have a plan, and you know where to find everything you need for it!

So let's take this journey together and organize our home, our life, our family!

P.S. Don't forget to visit me on Facebook and Pinterest!