Household Binder: Week 2

Week 2 of the big household binder feature! Let’s crack on, shall we...

I shared what sections I use in my household binder in the introductory post last week, so if you read that then you will know that today’s post is all about the home. It is by far the largest section in the folder! I start all of my sections with my organisational printables for that category. In the case of the Home tab, that includes our house to do list and our gardening plan.

When I overhauled our home binder to make it work harder for our family I brainstormed all of the printables I would need to create and, given our love of decorating, the house to do list was an obvious one. It helps keep in mind some of my long term goals for each room and gives me an easier and prettier way to create DIY checklists. Without this, the kitchen memo board would constantly be littered with scraps of paper with to do lists scrawled on.

The second thing I included in this section was my gardening plan. I like the idea of growing our own fruit and vege but really do not know a lot about gardening, so this helps keep me organised. Before the spring I decide what we want to try and grow in the limited space we have and write it on my gardening plan. I then go through my Grow Your Own Vegetables book and look up how to go about planting each thing, making a note of when it needs to be planted and any vital information like whether the seedling needs to be started off indoors. Then all I have to do is have a quick glance at my gardening plan now and then to keep track of what I should be planting. It has been a very useful printable.

If you read my post on keeping my house clean you may be aware that I used to have a cleaning schedule. This was also kept in my household binder, but that particular printable was not working out for me. My routine went through a series of adaptations until it was working perfectly for me, and by then my cleaning routine was so second nature that creating an updated printable seemed a little pointless. But if you are trying to get more organised it is certainly worth including one in your family binder.

The rest of the Home section in my household binder is full of plastic sleeves containing all of those boring things you have to deal with once you’re a proper adult. Our folder has:

·         Our mortgage agreement

·         Building/contents insurance policies

·         Council Tax documentation

·         Most recent utility bills

·         Land registry documentation

To make it easier to spot what I need quickly, I use my label maker to mark each sleeve with what they contain. I try to go through each sleeve at least once a year to make sure that I remove any outdated papers that we no longer need, otherwise the folder can get a little messy and overstuffed.

What would you include in the home section in your binder?