Good morning and happy Wednesday! Today, I’m linking up with my some of my favorite bloggers, Mix and Match Mama and A Little Bit of Everything, to talk about how we organize for the new year!

This post is perfect to talk about right now! I just posted my 22 for ‘22 and many of them had to do with organization.

I like to break things down into specific buckets, so here’s how we organize our lives!

How I Organize for the New Year

My main organization buckets:

• Calendar / to do lists
• Budgeting
• Kids school organization
• Home projects/to do’s/repairs
• Closet Purge

Here’s a detailed look at each bucket and how I feel more organized

Calendars & To-Do Lists

Hi, I’m the crazy calendar lady. What if I told you I have four calendars that I follow and update regularly?! Would you think that’s redundant?! Unfortunately, I feel like I NEED to write things down 3 times and have calendars in different spots around the house to stay organized. Wish this wasn’t true, but here’s how I function. #dontcometomeforadvice

I’ve got my day to day planner that breaks down my week in depth!

Next are my monthly view calendars – one has the full year, the other a dry erase board that is hung right next to our garage door. It’s for a quick glance at the day and I also mark if a lunch is needed to be packed or not.

My monthly view calendar (12 month calendar) gets filled in immediately with important events, dates, and schedules (for sports, school, activities, etc) when that info is available to me.

Generally I will color code things by person & event type, but not much happening here in January.

My final calendar is a blog calendar, which is a ginormous desk top calendar. I sit down and write everything blog/idea related on that sheet and also fill in my post idea for that particular day.

Budgeting

I love and hate budgeting. Love it because it’s a necessity for organization in the house, but sometimes can be painful to put together.

Once it is complete though, it is so worth it and makes a huge difference. I plan to share an in depth view on how we budget tomorrow, so come back and check that out if you’re interested – linked here now!

High level overview, we have a master excel file where I plug in expense estimates for the year. Once that is complete, I update an account we have that will help automatically categorize transactions in our bank account.

One other thing we like to do in the budget department around the new year is a savings challenge you can read about that here. We are doing NO SPEND JANUARY as a reset. It makes us more conscious of our spending habits and always allows us to get a jump of savings goals early because it’s post Christmas and generally a slow time for spending.

The challenge has been incredible thus far! I’ve cooked every meal and lunch at home, ignored cute clothes (so hard haha) and made my coffee at home!

Kids School Organization

This was one of my goals for 2022, to stay on top of kids school stuff. Those papers can get crazy though, so I designated an area in our dining room buffet to keep all the important papers, weekly assignment sheets, lunch forms, notepads, etc. It’s my go to place for everything that comes home with the kiddos and I make sure to complete and/or go through the papers weekly.

Home Projects/ to-do’s/repairs

At the beginning of the year my husband and I will make a list of household items that need to be taken care or things that we’ll need to save up for to replace or repair. Things can be broken down by year, but overall, it’s good to get down on paper. We then add it to a master list that I keep in an excel file. We’ll put dates next to the item on when it should be done and a cost estimate associated.

I also add any repairs or updates that have been done to the house and the costs associated, who completed the job and any notes that we need on our end. It’s so helpful to have all this information in one place.

I call this excel file our master home checklist and have been happy to keep it organized and up to date!

Closet purge

Last but not least, I like to go through each of the kiddos closet and sort what fits, put away any special items into a storage bin and then donate/sell the remaining items. So much stuff accumulates and with the kids being at the age where they grow significantly in a year, it’s important to stay on top of this so their rooms and closets are more manageable.

Same goes for my husband and I. It feels so great to declutter our room and remove things from our closets that we no longer wear!

That’s an overview of how we get organized for the new year. Hope you have a great Wednesday!!

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