FOCUS Goals for week of Feb 11, 2013

Last week I was clobbered by my house pretty much every day! We have a lot going on outside the house with soccer getting ready to start, the book study beginning Monday, Valentine Day, parent teacher conferences, and the kids will be out of school for several days. Since I had soooo many “get by” last week I will rollover some of the goals to this week and try to catch up!

Yesterday we had dentist and ortho appointments along with meetings for my husband and I, and baseball practice, I drove over 100miles in one day so I am a little behind to start the week already. But I’ll catch up.

As for my monthly goal of sharing simple solutions that work for us here is a couple:

Problem: Rushing around in the morning to get ready and in the chaos finding out someone needs a cold lunch.

Our Solution: When the new lunch menu comes out each month the kids mark their initials on each day they want hot lunch. I can glance at the menu and know how many lunches need to be made. Anything to calm the mornings.

Problem: Everyone in my house likes apples as long as they are not brown and don’t have skin. When you send skinless apples in a lunch well, they are brown at lunch time and weren’t being eaten.

Our Solution: Pack cinnamon sugar apples, it’s already brown to start so they don’t notice. It’s a hit with even my pickiest eater! We always have it mixed up for toast so I just cut or slice apples and sprinkle with approx. half a teaspoon of cinnamon sugar. Don’t put too much or it’ll make liquid.

New Goals, comments, and excuses are in purple below.

Goals for a Better Home

1. Personal Focus to better my relationship with God.

Daily: Start and end each day with prayer. Read two chapters in the Bible. Pray the Serenity prayer every day this week.

Weekly/Weekly: Read Foreword through Chapter 2 in “The Lamps Supper” and answer questions. Run 5 days.  Get ready for first session of book study on Feb 18.

2. Remove distractions at key times.

Daily: No computer 6:30-8:00am and 3:00-5:00pm (after everyone is home)

Weekly: Control volunteering but still get things done! Finding the right balance is hard!

Monthly: CUT BACK ON ELECTRONIC TIME! 

3. Add something to give more of me to my family.

Daily: Give my family a proper send off and welcome home each day. Focused one on one time with each kid and my husband every day. This can be just a simple conversation. Read lent family study each evening starting Weds. (Ash Weds)

Weekly: Send a handwritten letter to someone that I do not see often.

Monthly: Take my husband on a date. Attend one Weds. Night Lent service with the family.

Goals for a Better House

1. Daily Check Points:  Weekly Plan Sheet

2. Weekly & Monthly Tasks, Chores and To Do Lists: Weekly Plan Sheet  & Monthly Cleaning Schedule Download  With the help of my kids on Sat. we got more done than the week before. Sometime I’ll share what we did, because most of the kids actually enjoyed it!  Reintroduce the chore schedule we used in the past for my kids, I am still working on this.

Weekly To Do List: School Valentine Party preparation. Email to parents on soccer practices.  Help with soccer league: scheduling, building and business plan. Prepare for Book Study. Have fun with kids on their days off.

3. Monthly Projects:

2013 Household Purge: Yes the rooms are the same as last week; I think you know what that means!

Mon: No room Kids appointments and meetings

Tues: No room Valentine Parties and catch up

Weds: Girls’ Room/Boys’ Room

Thurs: Kitchen

Friday: Filing Cabinet

Household Budget Step 2, 3 to Finish

This took me much longer than I expected. I wanted to use the spreadsheet on my own first and then of course the challenges of sharing it on the Internet. Which I actually worked well before I figured out it worked. You can click here Budget Spreadsheets  and download the excel files to your computer you should be able to input your numbers and budget away. You can find detailed instructions at Budget Spreadsheet Instructionsthat you can download or print.

Remember I am just sharing what I use that works in our house, no professional knowledge just real life use and Excel spreadsheets. This budget worksheet has developed over time, it wasn’t always color coordinated, and I actually just did that to be more “user” friendly. No claim to perfection so if you use them and find something doesn’t work PLEASE let me know! I use it to set my budget once a year because I found that once a month did not get done at our house. If you are disciplined on budgeting monthly you could use it that way too.

There are a couple things I will point out, that I think are key to being successful in budgeting.

ELIMINATE DEBT: It is important to have as little debt as you can. If you have a lot of debt I would encourage you to read “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey or go to his website. His book is what really got me budgeting.


USE CASH: I tried using my debit card but there is something about knowing you only have $150 in your wallet to pay for groceries that keeps me from throwing that extra item in the cart.

I also like to keep a little stash of cash for things come up, because they do, or sometimes one week groceries are a tad more but the next they are less. As you borrow from it replace it as quickly as you can (maybe $25/week out of the grocery budget).

I like to have about half a month to 1 month of what my cash budget is stored up. It is important to build this stash to start out, even if it means really skimping for a month otherwise you will resorting to the credit card. I built it up by cutting my grocery budget a lot for one month using up things in the back of the cupboard, cooking from scratch and just enduring the complaints about having nothing good to eat in the house which normally means there are no pop tarts. It is easier for me to suffer short term on things like this than have it hanging over my head for months.


SKIP THE CREDIT CARDS: If possible do not use them. I cheat a little bit. I get cash back on my cards so I use them for auto pay on a couple bills and items that will be paid out of escrow. I use it for items I budget so I know the money is there to pay it off every month. IF you cannot be sure to pay it off each month don’t even give yourself this flexibility.

EMERGENCY ACCOUNT: If you do not have an emergency account saved you should include building one in your budget. The recommendation is 3-6months income, 6 if you are a one income family. Even though it took a bit to build it up, it is nice to know if we need it the money is there. Keep this money separate from other savings, but accessible if you need it. We keep ours in a money market account. When you have money set aside you are not thrown off budget when your wash machine breaks down and you need a new one.

ESCROW ACCOUNT: This is not a special kind of account just a regular savings account at your bank. I just use the term “escrow” because it is a familiar term to most people who have a mortgage. This is an account that you set aside money out of every paycheck to pay for spending that occurs less frequently. This is actually my “Thing that works well” I am sharing this week. Having an escrow account has helped me a lot in our budget. I always worried about if I would have the right amount of money at the right time for larger bills I didn’t pay monthly. If you are going to budget using these spreadsheets and monthly averages, an Escrow Account can really help. You CANNOT use this money for other items only for what they are designated.

There are two reasons I use a different account to store this money. When it is in your checking account it’s too easy to spend. You think you have extra money because your balance is high, but then car insurance is due. The extra money was spent last month on new clothes, so now you have to figure out where it is coming from. If you keep the money separate and designate what it is for through budgeting when that bill comes along, you transfer the money and pay it! Second why keep all that money in your checking if you could earn more interest with it in savings (Not a huge difference right now, but hopefully there will come a time again that you earn more than 0.3% interest on your money)

In the Budget Spreadsheet Instructions  page 6, there is more information on starting and using the account.  

The following are the items are categories I use our escrow account for: Some donations, Propane, Trash, Meat (we get our beef in bulk), Car Repairs and Maintenance, Car Insurance, License Plates, Property Taxes, Doctor, Dentist, School Fees, Travel, Gifts (Birthday/Christmas) and Kids activities.

It may seem silly because some may be a minimal amount when divided out of your weekly paycheck, but when they are added all together you’ll be amazed how much money it adds up to be.


Well that is enough on budgeting for now. If you haven’t already, take a look and don’t hesitate to email or comment with any questions or problems you have using the spreadsheets. It looks more complex than it is.

Good Luck and happy Budgeting.
Budget Spreadsheets
Budget Spreadsheet Instructions

FOCUS for Feb 4-8, 2013

 

Wow what a weekend. It took a little longer than normal to catch up today. We had a 7 year old Birthday party on Friday night, make your own pizza’s was probably not the best idea for 10 kids 7 and younger, but they enjoyed it. Saturday night a Poker Tournament Fundraiser until 1:00 am, well past my, my husband’s and my son’s bedtime. Thank goodness Grandma kept the other kids so they weren’t up that late. We of course like many finished our weekend with our annual Superbowl Party on Sunday, just us nothing big. My son had to wake me at the end and tell me who won.

Last week ended well but got off track right away on Monday. I basically began the week a day behind. So at the end of Monday I gave myself the choice to let Monday’s chores go or just continue on and see if I could catch up. I really wanted my room clean, I hadn’t seen the top of my dresser for awhile so I opted for continue on. I am glad I did. I can see the top of my dresser now with all the junk and dust removed and I would feel comfortable letting someone besides my kids use my bathroom.  I didn’t get all the weekly chores done but I was less than a day behind at the end of Friday, even doing a few things not scheduled for the week. Having the party Friday night was little extra incentive to get the cleaning done. It’s always amazing how much more focused and how much faster I clean when we are having guests. Maybe I should have a party every Friday night.  

Since February is the month of Love. Along with working on my goals for a better home and house, I am also going to remind myself and my family of things we do well for the home and house. I seem to easily share my struggles and flaws maybe because there are many. But believe it or not, I do a few things right. Maybe if I look again at some of the things that work, I will see some ways I can apply them in other areas of my life.  So keep your eye out this month I plan to share some simple things that I (or we) actually do right that give us a better house and home.  

New Goals, comments, and excuses are in purple below.

Goals for a Better Home

1. Personal Focus to better my relationship with God.

Daily: Start and end each day with prayer. Read two chapters in the Bible. Pray the Serenity prayer every day this week. I have a few things I am struggling with. I pray about them but I still want to control them myself. Maybe this prayer will help me let go a little. It used to hang by my kitchen sink before we moved. It never made it back up since my sink is on an island now so I dug it out and will hang it by my phone for a reminder.

Weekly: Read one article from the Leaven Newspaper and one chapter in Reasons to Believe. Run 5 days, I am going for it again, even though I didn’t make it last week.

Monthly: We (some friends and I) will begin the “The Lambs Supper” book study on Feb 18.

2. Remove distractions at key times.

Daily: No computer 6:30-8:00am and 3:00-5:00pm (after everyone is home)

Weekly: Limit volunteering for the soccer league this week. I am going to leave this item for the next few weeks. This time of year (getting ready for the spring season) I can get sucked into spending entire days working on it and not making much progress.

Monthly: CUT BACK ON ELECTRONIC TIME! My no electronics night was a flop, lack of planning and cooperation. I am going to continue to try to cut back on our “electronic time” by simply suggesting other options. They may not even know I am doing it. J

 3. Add something to give more of me to my family.

Daily: Give my family a proper send off and welcome home each day. Focused one on one time with each kid and my husband every day! Bible before bedtime prayers until Lent begins and then the Family Study will take its place.

Weekly: Send a handwritten letter to someone that I do not see often.

Monthly: Family study during Lent. Take my husband on a date; it doesn’t have to be on Valentine Day just sometime this month. Attend one Weds. Night Lent service with the family.

Goals for a Better House

1. Daily Check Points: Weekly Plan Sheet (download the excel file), Weekly Planning Sheet (Printable PDF)

2. Weekly & Monthly Tasks, Chores and To Do Lists: Monthly Cleaning Schedule Schedule. The schedule is back on the fridge this week. I will continue to use these and try to accomplish more each week. I will also reintroduce the chore schedule we used in the past for my kids.

Weekly To Do List: Plan a 3 year old Birthday Party. Call and coordinate for school Valentine parties. Coordinate schedule for soccer practices. Appointment for Foundation check. Continue preparing Soccer League Info for the scheduler. Edit Budget spreadsheet instructions and POST IT. The spreadsheets are there if you want to try them out Budget Spreadsheets. (You’ll notice some things rolled over from last week.)

3. Monthly Projects:

2013 Household Purge: I hope to finish this up in the next couple weeks.

Mon: Kitchen (never got there last week)

Tues: Boys Room (Clothes) we already went through toys over Christmas Break.

Weds: Girls Room

Thurs: Filing Cabinet

Friday: No room scheduled, catch up if needed.