Holiday Storage...

With Halloween looming around the corner, we are getting down our decorations this weekend! Living in southern Texas, we never really get that fall feeling! Our leaves go from green to brown and our weather goes from blazing hot to cold and rainy. Realizing that October is just a few days away, I am really trying to get our house in the Autumn spirit!

Candles are a great way to get the mood going. I went last week and bought several new "fallish" smelling candles and have them lit around my house. There's just something about the smell of mulled cider that makes you want to cozy up with a warm sweater even if it's 90+ degrees outside still!

I'm also getting Hubby to bring down the Halloween/Fall decorations this morning. I've made it simple for him to know what to get down off the shelves in our garage by color coding the boxes! All of our fall/Halloween items are stored in orange and black tubs! This way we are not standing in the garage arguing over which box has what in it!




This makes for a happy Hubby on the ladder and a happy mama not to hear him grumbling!

We also have our Christmas decorations stored in these great Sterilite containers too! Christmas is red and green of course and they are all stored on high shelves in our garage. After I empty the containers (and throw away broken items or donate stuff we don't want any more), we put them back up on the shelves to keep the tubs out of the way. I've also limited our decorations for the seasons to what will fit in those tubs and limited the number of tubs to what will fit on those particular shelves. This way we use the "one in/one out" rule and our decor doesn't get totally out of control!


Now is the perfect time to get your seasonal stuff organized and under control! Check out my newest ebook "12 Weeks to an Organized Home"! You can purchase the instant download over on the right using the buy now button! Today is the perfect day to start!!!

i came across this great article today on tiphero.com!

5 Ways I Save Money on Groceries

Submitted by: Ray @ Tip Hero 09/16/2009 2:01 AM

Like many Americans, I decided to make saving more money a priority this year. One of the areas with which I've had some success is food. Here are five tactics I instituted this year to cut my grocery expenses: Coupons - Although I've always considered myself a frugal person and I've tried to use coupons whenever I could, I never really got into the whole couponing thing. This year, I decided to jump in with both feet to see how much I could save. I discovered that the real savings from couponing doesn't come from coupons alone, but rather from combining manufacturers' coupons with store coupons or sales -- or both. It's amazing how much you can save when two or three of these stars align. One recent example: My parents eat Fiber One cereal every morning, which runs up to $4.79 a box. Well, this past week, Target put it on sale for $2.50 a box, and if you bought five boxes they gave you a $5 Target gift card. They also had a $1 off store coupon on their website, and I had a $0.75 manufacturer's coupon. All told, I got them for $1.15 per box or over 75% off the regular price. Another key tenant of successful couponing is to stockpile when that once-in-a-year deal comes along. We bought 35 boxes, which should last through much of the year. We checked the boxes use-by date to make sure they would still be good several months later. One of the pitfalls of couponing is that the deals sometimes cause you to buy stuff you otherwise wouldn't, and thus what appears to be a savings strategy quickly becomes an overspending strategy. I only use couponing for items I would normally buy, and I'm careful not to let it dictate my shopping list. All told, couponing has saved me hundreds of dollars so far this year; I saved over $100 on my recent Fiber One purchase alone. i can say from LOTS of menu planning and grocery shopping experience, coupons are not always the way to go. right now, i can feed all FIVE of us for TWO weeks on $150! it just takes planning, a few coupons, shopping at the least expensive grocery store in town and NOT TAKING THE KIDS with me!!! i do this by planning what we are going to eat for breakfast, lunch, a snack, and dinner for two weeks at a time. then i inventory my kitchen for what i already have and make my list. i stick to my list at the store (thus not taking the kids) and decide whether the store brand or the coupon will be the best deal. the next section is a biggie with me! don't be brand loyal and you can get great deal!!! Going Generic - One of my vices is diet soda. I've always been a huge diet coke drinker, consuming roughly one liter per day. This year, I decided to switch from Diet Coke to my local store's brand of diet soda. We develop a taste preference after repeated consumption of a particular brand, and I've found it takes several weeks after the switch before I start to enjoy the new brand's taste. Comparing regular price to regular price, I save roughly 75 cents per 2 liters, which ads up to just over $136 in savings per year at my rate of consumption. My next step is to reduce my overall soda consumption and eventually eliminate it entirely. I've also switched to generics when it comes to ice cream, ketchup, cereal, you name it. my biggest one with this story is ....we stopped drinking soft drinks all together. my kids don't even like them, because we didn't let them have them when they were little! they are a SUPER expensive habit to have!!! plus you'll be healthier and thinner if you don't drink them! even diet! Buying from the Bulk Bins - Fortunately, I discovered a supermarket nearby with a great bulk foods section. I've found that, for many items, the bulk foods price beats the pants off of both national and generic brand prices. I buy old fashioned oatmeal for around 40 cents per pound, which is more than 50 percent cheaper than Quaker Oats brand at my local supermarket. For some items, there isn't much savings to be had, but for others, especially spices, you can save up to 90%. I'm going to try this one next time i go! Bakery Outlets - If you haven't visited a nearby bakery outlet, you should try it at least once. My family goes through about two loaves of bread a week. Unfortunately, we've developed a real fondness for Oat Nut bread, which can run $4.00 at my local supermarket. I decided to visit our local bakery outlet near my home. The price for my beloved Oat Nut bread was just $1.69. What's more, the outlet offers a senior citizens discount of 10%, and they give you a stamp card (you get a stamp for each loaf of bread you buy, and after ten stamps, you get one loaf free). I learned another tidbit from the clerk at the outlet: Thursday is double stamp day, where you can get a free loaf after buying just five loaves. So, if you're a senior citizen and you shop on Thursdays, you can pick up Oat Nut bread for just under $1.20 per loaf. We buy several loaves of bread at a time and freeze the extras. I've heard some people say that bread out of the freezer doesn't taste right, but I've tasted bread from hundreds of loaves that come out of our freezer and they taste perfect. On average, I figure we're saving $2 per loaf and, at our rate of consumption, that's a savings of $208 per year. we did try this one a couple of weeks ago! i found all kinds of bakery items i didn't even know they had that are now some of my fav's! great prices and if you freeze them, they will last a while! Food Substitution - Another tactic I employed this year to save money on food is substituting expensive processed foods for cheaper healthier foods. When I looked back at the previous year, I noticed I was spending a lot of money on convenience foods like Stouffer's pizzas, Eggo waffles, or pretty much anything that came out of a box that I could easily throw into a microwave or toaster. I reasoned that if I could get more of my daily calories from healthier home-cooked options like oatmeal at 15 cents per serving, rice at 10 cents per serving, or popcorn also at 10 cents per serving, I could save a decent chunk of change. So far this year I've saved well over $200 by not buying packaged convenience foods and replacing them with healthier options. we don't do prepackaged snacks. they usually come 6-8 in a box, so with three kids, that's only 2 servings for my kids. if i buy the big package (like animal crackers) and divide it out into snack size baggies, we can get 20-30 packs for LESS than the prepackaged 6-8!!! AND, we can use portion control for me and the hubby!!! we can also package our own "healthy" foods! According to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average economic unit (I believe that's their jargon for a family) spends roughly $3,500 on food at home each year. By just making small changes and shaving 10% off the grocery bill, the average family could save $350 a year. i don't believe this figure!!! if you divide that out....it's $135 for two weeks. now i know that i have gotten my $150 down to the bare minimum we need. no extra stuff! how they thing the "average" family can eat on that, i don't know! we have me, my hubby, and three kids, so we are an average family! photo credit: ralphbijker

#1 Rule for Organizing...

The #1 rule for organizing is:
ONLY TOUCH IT ONCE!!!

That's right!! Only touch items once!!! If you bring mail into the house, put it where it goes right away! Junk mail in the trashcan, bills in your "bill spot", coupons in the organizer and so on. Don't pile it up and wait to sort it out! The pile will just become bigger and bigger!!!

Dirty clothes are another one that just piles up! When you take off clothing, either put it in the dirty clothes or hang it back up! Don't sit it on the bathroom counter or on a shelf in your closet to be put away later. Chances are, it won't get put away and more stuff with be piled up on top of it!

Cut clutter right away! Try using Rule #1 for a week and see how easy it is to not get cluttered!!!

Organizing for BUSY People!

If you're like most people today, there's more than enough on your plate and keeping your life at home in order has gotten more difficult with all the technology and tools we use that's supposed to make life easier.

Well I recently discovered another simple system for getting organized. Now you can spend just 15 minutes a day following five easy steps to get rid of clutter and create order throughout your home.

You can CLICK HERE to find out more about this system right now!

It's called The Definitive Guide to Home Organization for Busy People. The thing is, because it is written for "Busy" people, it's not made up of hundreds of crazy ideas you'll never be able to use or filled with a bunch of fluff, which is what I really like about it.

It's got solid strategies for regular people. and walks you through each and every problem area of your home, giving you the confidence and energy to tackle and remove the clutter creating the stress we'd all love to live without. The thing is, the organization strategies you'll read about have been around for generations and were used to perfection in a time when life wasn't so hectic. When life wasn't so busy.

But life is different today and these same strategies still work. The Definitive Guide to Home Organization for Busy People gives you the tools and strategies in a friendly, easy-to-understand process that completely removes the overwhelming of being short on time and high on stress. And finally makes life simple again.

To find out how to get organized and put these strategies to use right away, CLICK HERE!

P.S. If you'd like to get a taste of how easy it really is to get rid of "stuff" you don't need and get organized once again, you can sign up for the Free Home Organization e-Course by visiting HERE.

Woolite Rug Stick PRODUCT REVIEW

for those who think they want to try the woolite rug stick...
DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

the thing is terrible! it does not just shoot out foam like on the commercial. it trickles out. the sample can that came with mine didn't even work, so good ...thing i bought the full size refill too. the cleaner has a STRONG smell and it didn't even get the spot out of the carpet. this thing is going back to wally world in the morning!!

Back To School

Well, it's that time of year again! Back to school! For some it's a "new beginning" time and for some it's the end of the summer. I love to get all in the organizing mood when school starts! I clean my house from top to bottom (instead of spring cleaning) and make new schedules. I love getting into our new routines and sticking to them!

Here's a few back to school tips we are doing this year...

All three of my kids are now in elementary school. That means THREE schedules, THREE sets of folders and papers to keep up with, THREE sets of supplies and THREE of everything! I had to come up with some sort of system to keep it all straight!!! So here's what I did....I took the kids to the store and let each of them pick out their own folder. In these folders, I keep class schedules, fundraiser info, permission slips, notes from the teacher, weekly newsletters and so on. I keep the folders in a basket on top of a bookshelf I put in my kitchen. The bookshelf is our homework center(more on that later) and this way I will always know where these folders and papers are. They are easy to access in the mornings while we are packing lunches! So far, so good and we haven't forgotten anything yet!!!

The bookshelf has become our "homework center". My kids do their homework at the kitchen table, so that's why it's in the kitchen, but you could put one anywhere your family does homework. On this shelf we keep a basket of notebook paper, our empty lunchboxes, a 3 drawer organizer with markers, crayons, and scissors/glue in each drawer. I also have a small bucket of pencils and pens. Everything they need to complete their homework is right there! I also got three binders (in "their colors") to keep art work in. I put page protectors in them and when they bring home something I want to keep, we put it in there! No more boxes upon boxes of crumpled up construction paper! This center helps them stay focused on their homework. We don't have to search around for a pencil or paper, it's all right there!

We also implemented a new chore system. I made each one of them a magnetic board with a "to do" side and a "done" side. I printed a picture of the chores and laminated them and added a sticky magnet to the back. I pay $.25 per job that gets done each day. They have the opportunity to make $1 a day. I also printed out "mommy money" (fake dollars) to pay them, so that I don't run out of cash! Each kiddo had their own jar to put their money in. I have created the "mommy market" with prizes for them to buy. They have the choice to save up their "mommy money" and trade it in for real money to buy something at the store or they can spend it in the "mommy market". I shopped for items at the dollar store to put in there. They all have different prices from $.50-$5. They can go to the "mommy market" every two weeks or go to the real store once a month. This helps teach them about money and saving. So far they have loved getting their jobs done and earning money! I hope that lasts!!

I have also made a couple of things for me too! I decorated these two mini clipboards to use. One is for "to do's" and the other one I put magnets on the back of to hang on the fridge for "out of" items. We added a pen on a string to it so anyone that wants to add stuff to the out of list will always have a pen ready to go!
Back to school time is a wonderful time to start getting organized! It's just a fresh start time of year. With kids going back to school and following their teacher's new schedules, it's a great time to start new habits at home too!

If you're ready to get organized, check out my new book! "12 Weeks to an Organized Home"
You can purchase the instant download over on the right! You will receive the link to download the ebook within minutes of payment! It's a great time to get organized!

12 Weeks to Getting Organinzed!

Well, my latest ebook is finally done! I've been working on this book for months now and I'm so excited to debut it this week!

September is a great time to start getting organized! With all the back to school hub-bub, it really feels like a "fresh start" time! My newest ebook,
12 Weeks to an Organized Home, is a 12 week program to help you get your home AND yourself organized so that you have more me time, more peace and maybe even more money! Follow along with me as I go through organizing my home, sharing tips and ideas for each room or zone of your house. This is a step by step guide, broken down into "baby steps" so it's not too overwhelming!

For the first month, 12 Weeks to an Organized Home, will be ONLY $15! Shipping is free! Once your Paypal payment goes through, you will recieve an email (the email address on your Paypal account) with a link to download the Ebook. Please check your spam/bulk folders as well, because they love my emails!

The buy it now button is over on the right!
or

Click the button below...

It's a great time to start being organized!!!

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Please respect the time and work that has gone into creating these ebooks.