The Homemaker's Best Friend

 Felicitations!

    I am starting a new system of housekeeping and meal planning. My hope is that this new system will help me keep more on track with my daily tasks, and eliminate decision fatigue in my day to day. It is not a new system, but one that I was recently reminded of that my own mother used when I was younger.

    As you may have already guessed, my "new" method is to use a household binder. Essentially what that entails is a setup of daily tasks, weekly tasks, monthly tasks, etc. all laid out. I will also have sheets of meals for each day of the week that I can go through and circle, and include written out versions of all of the recipes to make shopping lists easier. Another important feature that the food section will specifically have is a list of which store carries which item for the best value. 

    Due to living in NC, grocery store options abound, and it is sometimes easier to just shop one place for ease. While there may be times where I need to shop in only one place due to time, it is much more cost effective to shop multiple places in a nearby vicinity. Now, will it be more cost effective if I have to cross town 5 times for one deal at each store? Usually, no. But making one to three more stops in the same 5 minute area for four to five deals is a much better ratio. 

    The biggest key to this binder being effective is that it actually does save me time and decisions. So while in the short term, it may be an in-depth process and time consuming task to set up, once I have grown accustomed to it, it will greatly help my day to day. And currently, I am unemployed. As frustrating as it can be, my ever-wise mama reminded me recently that this can be a time to save money by taking a little more time to do things by hand, and save time by setting up good habits.

    I will include another post soon with pictures of how I set up the binder, and what I find to be the easiest method for it, but in the meantime, consider: is this a tool that could help your home management?

May you always be growing in the Lord,

~ Felicity Brooks

Micah 7:7-8