A Household Notebook and Our Journey Forward

Now that our curriculum is on track and we are adjusting to it, I sat down at the computer today to try to get some other stuff simplified in our home.  I'm doing everything I can to make our home run more efficiently.  Financially, I have to.  After months of cut hours and unemployment, and now a new job taken at a pay cut, frugality and efficiency is my new middle name. 

I found a site, organizedhome.com, that had a bunch of free printables.  Menu planners (both weekly and monthly), inventory lists for food, shopping lists, calendars, to-do lists, planners, and all sorts of others are on the website.  Together, they can make up a household notebook.   I printed off some of the papers I thought would be useful.

I am combining that with an envelope system for finances.  I don't think we waste money often, but I need to keep everything totally under control.  It's going to take awhile to even catch up on things that we got behind on, let alone get our finances on track. 

I guess the one area I feel I have wasted money is in homeschooling.  In order to try a little of this and a little of that I've had to buy a little of this and a little of that.  I may sell some of the books I have purchased, or I may save them for later use with Megan.  I'm not sure yet what my course of action there will be.  I am just glad I have things settled in my head and heart now about what I am using for my older homeschooled girls for the next year or two.  This saves me a lot of frustration and, I'm hoping, money.

Having your finances out of control is one of the worst things to have to deal with.  I want to cast blame.  The economy going kerplunk is not my fault.  I couldn't have known that my husband's job would take such a negative turn.  I had no clue there would be no jobs to find when needed.  I couldn't have predicted that what I thought would be a brief slow period would turn into nine months of cut hours and unemployment. 

All of that may be true, but dwelling on it and casting blame doesn't fix the problem.  I am grateful my husband has been able to return to his job from a few years ago, even if it does mean a pay cut and a schedule that has not been easy to adjust to.  We have a steady income.  Now, I just have to figure how to cut expenses, catch up on things we've gotten behind on, and pay down some debt.  Luckily my wonderfully, brilliant husband has never believed in credit cards.  So, that is one nightmare that we don't have to deal with.  We have a loan for our vehicle and another we ironically got to build credit a few years ago (because without credit cards we have had trouble getting decent interest rates).   We also have a mortgage.

I know this is a homeschool blog.  Yet, homeschooling is just part of our journey.  I've often included many aspects of our day to day lives.  I share pictures of my children and our day to day experiences as a homeschooling family in the Midwest.   Our journey just now includes some directions I hadn't anticipated last year when we began homeschooling. 

If a Household notebook can help organize things for our home, possibly saving us money and making things work easier, than I'm gonna give it a try.  If using envelopes and strict budgets are what we have to do, then that is what we'll do.  I realize things won't be easy, but what worthwhile things come easy?

I've wrote a few times about character training.  This time I think the lessons are not just for the children.