Organizing Your Gift List

I don’t know about you but we don’t have any trees with money growing on them. I keep looking out our back door but still no money trees. I know several of you will be attending the 918CouponQueens Black Friday Workshop tonight and will get great tips on how to save money this holiday season. I would like to back up a bit to make sure that you purchase things that you need and not just because it was a great deal.

So many people have a gift closet or gift tote of over bought presents. I will tell you I am probably the worst offender when it comes to my boys. We will make a list, I will check it off and then I keep seeing “extra things” that I think the NEED to have, I ended over buying every year.

I realize if we all had the financial opportunity we would buy gifts for everyone down to the school crossing guard. Sometimes we have to make choices and maybe this year we need to cut back a little so that we are not overwhelmed with the credit card bills in January. This is going to require some planning and budgeting so you are not scrambling the week before Christmas and just buying something to buy it.

Take some time to sit down to make a gift list of everyone you might possibly want to give a gift too. I would suggest if you don’t have a money tree in your backyard, you put a $ amount by the person’s name so you can have a budget for your gifts. If you have budget of $1000 for everyone and your $ amount by each person is adding up to $1300, you need to do some trimming and I don’t mean the Christmas tree.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your list and budget, go ahead and choose the people that are most important to buy a gift for. Maybe this year you could bake cookies for some people on your list instead of buying a gift. You could ask your siblings if they would like to draw a names in place of everyone buying something for everyone to help save money. We used to buy for our sisters and brothers and found out that all we were doing was exchanging gift cards, now we just buy for our nieces and nephews.

Once you have your list written out and your budget in place, now is the time to put the 918CouponQueen's suggestions into action. Look for deals, coupons and rebates to save money. Save all of you receipts in one envelope marked Christmas gifts. Nothing is worse searching high and low for a receipt to find you have lost it and can not return the gift.

Do you enjoy gift buying Christmas gifts, or do you find it stressful? How do you make sure you stay in your budget?

Get Your Refrigerator Ready for Thanksgiving

I mentioned last week that now would be a good time to get your menu started for Thanksgiving. I would like to take it one step further and let’s make sure your refrigerator/freezer is ready for Thanksgiving as well.

If you are going out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday or even if you are hosting Thanksgiving, now would be a great time to do some refrigerator organizing. Try not to buy to a lot of food that will not get used in the next couple of weeks or that will rot in your refrigerator while you are away.

Maybe the next two weeks you could have a “clean out” the refrigerator and pantry menu. Make meals out of what you already have at home to allow room for the turkey that will be in the refrigerator. Just buy perishable groceries that you need such as milk, fruit and vegetables and use of what have already have in your pantry and frig. Not only will you being using saving time at the grocery store you will be saving some money and I think we could all use a little extra money these days.

Before you head out of town, make sure to check your refrigerator. If you have any extra food that you know will not get eaten and it has not been open, take it to your local food pantry.

Tips for an Organized Thanksgiving

I realize Halloween just got over but why not get ahead of the game this Thanksgiving? If Thanksgiving dinner is one of your responsibilities for friends and family now is a great time to plan ahead. If you are one of the lucky ones that gets to go visit family and have Thanksgiving dinner severed to you than there is no need to read this blog, unless of course you just love my tips!

Here are a some tips to help with Thanksgiving Dinner:

Start off by making a menu of what you would like to serve for dinner and deserts. After you finish making the menu, make a grocery list that coincides with what you plan to make dinner. I am sure the 918CouponQueen would suggest that we keep our eyes open for sales and coupons from your grocery list to help save money! I would also suggest that you do not wait until the last minute to buy your turkey, nothing worse than going to the grocery store and finding out they are out of turkey! I know this from a past experience I had when we were first married…Cornish Hen anyone?!?!?

As the host of this great festivity decide who should bring a dish to help decrease some of your responsibilities. My boys always like to make homemade Pumpkin Pie but my mother will bring her famous Apple Pie from Minnesota. Since she is traveling and loves to help I ask that she brings dinner rolls, her pie and of course her homemade recipe for stuffing. If anyone else is coming add them to the “dish list”, you could have them bring salads or sweet potatoes. In the end, your menu should be filled with things you feel you could tackle without feeling overwhelmed and at the same time giving you time to enjoy the day!

A couple of days ahead of the Thanksgiving, go over your menu and see if there is some prep work you can do to help save time in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. Even just chopping onions, parsley or washing potatoes will help you get ahead of the game. One thing I do as I am preparing Thanksgiving Dinner is I run my dishwasher after I have finished making everything and everything is baking. This helps me get ahead of washing dishes after dinner. I like to get the big mixing bowls and pans out of the way so that all that is left to wash after dinner is the dishware. Hey, I want to watch football too!!!!

If you have a tip or even a great Thanksgiving recipe…we would love to know! Gobble, Gobble…

Let’s Put the Halloween Decorations Away…

I know, I know it’s only November 2nd, but I hate to be the bearer of bad news…Thanksgiving is right around the corner! Start by gathering all of your Halloween decorations, books, CD’s and DVD’s into one room of your home. If you don’t have a storage tote, grab a box or large trash bag to store your items.

Now would be a great time to double check all the decorations or books to see if any repairs need to be made before the next holiday season. My poor Jack-O’-Lantern needed a dentist this morning….nothing a little hot glue couldn’t fix. I can not begin to tell you how much I love my hot glue gun!

As you go through your Halloween things decide whether or not it is worth saving for next year. Is the item tired and has seen better days or are you so sick of picking up the sticky tongue off the wall? Now would be a great time for it to mysteriously drop in the trash can ever to be seen again….just a thought!

This may not interest you, but when the boys were younger I would preserve some of their holiday artwork. I wouldn’t save every piece but I would grab one from each of them and use laminating sheets to keep them safe. I display the artwork on our garage door entering our house from the garage. They laugh every time I get them out and display them prominently for the entire world to see.

Speaking of this, I just pulled out our Thanksgiving books and a couple of hand print turkeys made from the boys when they were in pre-school. One says, “I am thankful for paint” the other one said, “I am thankful for Power Rangers”. Boy do they grow up fast!

Organizing Children’s Books

A friend of mine was asking me today what I do to keep the boys books organized because she felt like the books were always falling off the shelves in her house. So I thought maybe you would be interested in what I suggested. If not, please hold your comments to yourself! LOL

First of all a little tidbit about my boys…the older one is very much like me! Love that and his wife will love that too someday! He likes things in order and he likes it to stay that way. My youngest likes things to be organized but does not like to do the work himself, so he will keep the organizing profession going. Bless his wife!!

Both of my kids love books and they have a ton of books between the two of them. My ten year old keeps his books in a bookcase. This does not always work for all kids. In most cases, for children that are younger, the books are stuffed onto a shelf or half are falling off the shelf. What I like to suggest is big rectangular baskets to hold books. I like to put the book baskets by the bed, it makes the room look cozy and is handy when they are picking out a book to read at night.

In each of their rooms we keep chapter books, sports books, world record books, and books for night time stories before bed. In our family room we keep a basket of books that I change out from their rooms and have other books that I don’t necessarily want them reading before bed. Such as; G.I. Joe, Power Rangers, Scooby Doo and so on. I don’t want them dreaming about zombies or bad guys before bed. Call me crazy but when they go to bed I want them to sleep through the night without bad dreams!

I keep all of my holiday books with my decorations. I also keep holiday movies with them as well. For instance, when I pulled out my Halloween decorations, I had about 15 Halloween books that I placed next to our book basket in our family room. At our school the kids are encouraged to read for ten minutes everyday and these are the books they will grab to read. I try to keep the books in the basket rotated so the books are fresh and when I add the holiday books they really enjoy seeing them again from last year.

Another tip would be to put your child’s library books from school next to the book basket as well. This way they are out of the basket and not confused with the books you have at home.

One thing to remember is if your child is a toddler, keep the books they will read when they are older up on a closet shelf in their room. You will find just trying to get all of the picture books in their basket will be tough enough without adding books they might accidently tear.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to email me at cleartheclutter@cox.net

I know I have mentioned short cuts in the kitchen before but I read this statistic and thought this is a good time to mention them again.

According to the National Restaurant Association, “Americans currently spend 43 percent of their food dollar on food prepared away from home, compared to 36 percent in 1981. And that percentage is considered likely to increase in the future. National Restaurant Association statistics show that, even in the depths of the recession, customers have maintained their frequency of eating and ordering out. True, they are probably spending fewer dollars on each occasion (one reason why restaurateurs may feel things are worse than they are) but their obvious reluctance to "brown bag it" or stay at home, even in the face of declining real disposable income. On top of that the National Restaurant Association has projected foodservice industry sales to reach $262 billion this year, an increase of 5.6 percent over 1991, or 1.8 percent when adjusted for inflation.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of money to spend on eating out everyday. I know the 918CouponQueen would agree with me that you will save more money by shopping smarter and if you are really itching to go out to eat she has several great deals to save you money at restaurants. To learn more ways to save money on groceries and eating out read her blog at http://www.918couponqueen.com/

In the mean time let’s find some short cuts in the kitchen. Taking a few steps can save you a lot of time to make dinners at home if you know a few secret tips. We are all busy, busy and don’t have enough time in the day to make dinner from scratch or spend an hour trying to make dinner after you get home from soccer games.

I know Sunday is suppose to be a day of rest, but Sunday afternoon is the day I like to get ahead of the game. I brown all of my ground beef and put it into a few freezer bags. I don’t measure anything out…scary I know, but I scoop the browned hamburger into a freezer bag for what I think is enough for several dishes. In our house we make taco’s, hotdishes (Minnesota talk) or casseroles for you Oklahoman’s. I make a small freezer bag for spaghetti, BBQ’s, and so on. The point I am trying to make is if your hamburger already done it takes no time at all to make a casserole, spaghetti, or tacos. Not only are you saving money by not going out but you are able to be at home and this will give your kids some extra time to do their homework! It’s a win/win!!

The next time you are grilling out chicken make a little extra to freeze for chicken quesadillas or put chicken in your pasta sauce for something new.

Another extra thing I like to do on Sunday afternoon is wash all of my lettuce and put it into a Ziploc bag. Nothing drives me more crazy then wanting a salad for dinner and having to clean all of the lettuce. I just want to be able to throw it in a bowl and start adding lots of toppings. I also cut up my fruit and put it into storage containers so that it is ready to go as well.

None of this is rocket science and some Sunday’s you may not have time to do any of this. All I am trying to do is give you some ideas/tips on some very useful shortcuts to make your busy day less busy. I wonder what you could do with the money you will saving from eating out less for dinner?

Organizing Your Photos

You are going to have to be strong here, no going down memory lane...I mean business…let’s organize those photos.
First gather all of your “loosy goosy” photos and spread them out wherever you may have room. A dining room table, card table or even a spare bedroom bed will work to help organize your photos. I like to sort my photos by dates, but I have four categories: Child 1, Child 2, Vacations, and Christmas. I have a photo album for each child, one for family vacations and I make a Christmas album every year. The boys love to look at them at Christmas and stroll down memory lane.

I would suggest you set a time limit for sorting and purging. You really, really need to stay focused (again, we don’t want any oo’s and ah’s) just down to business: organizing photos. Try setting your microwave time for 30 minutes or live on the edge and set it for 60 minutes! Think how many photos you could go through!

As you sort your photos into your categories, toss any that are blurry, off center, or that you can’t remember where or who in the world those people are on the photo! I tend to take 25 shots of the same thing hoping to get one good picture if you are like me please discard the other 24 shots of your child sitting by the dog sort of smiling and keep the one good one of him smiling.
If you are not a photo album person or scrapbook person place your categorized photos into a photo box and label it’s contents. Try displaying a few pictures meaningful to you or that will put a smile on your kids faces when they see them. We pulled out old videos this past weekend and my boys laughed and laughed at how silly they thought they were when they were young. Kids love to see old pictures of themselves as long as it is not too embarrassing!

I try to update my photos in frames with new ones as much as possible. The one thing my husband likes that I do, is that I leave the old photo in the frame from previous displays. Every time we get a new school picture I put the new one in and look at years past. Boy do they grow up quickly! It is a quick “snap shot” of their lives and every time I can’t believe how big they are getting.

If you are technically inclined, and you have digital pictures try creating new galleries or have your screen saver change out your picture files to keep things new and fresh. My parents love their Kodak Easy Share digital frame and they download new pictures I email to them all the time. Don’t forget to back-up your pictures or save them on an external hard drive or through a service. Nothing would be worse than loosing all of your memories. I put the boys birthday pictures on a CD and put the CD in our safety deposit box so I know they have each year of their life in a safe place.

After you are done organizing your photos, you can go back and “oo and ah” . As always if you need anything please don’t hesitate to email me at cleartheclutter@cox.net