Little Wife On the Prairie





When you are everything to everyone, well, you had better act like you have it all together.



Monday, May 12, 2014

A Helpful Hint.

I have gotten so blog-lazy lately.  Just pictures and short comments.  We have so much going on that I would love to share.  Today I decided to post a helpful hint.  Hope it is helpful!
 
This time of year we get lots of papers from the school requesting money or signatures for various last days of school activities.  In addition, the summer camps start sending letters with sign-up sheets and deposit requests.  
 
It can be totally overwhelming.  I can never remember it all. With 4 kiddos in school, I found myself under this pile of papers and needing a better system.  The old one of writing things on the calendar just wasn't working anymore.  
 
So I came up with one.  I organized the information/request sheets by due date. Then I stapled them together like this.
 

I put the lists of information on top and then filed the papers under those by due date.

Like this.

Then I used envelopes (These happen to be business envelopes we have collected out of bills we get in the mail.  Use up what you can instead of throwing them away!!) then I label the outside with the kid's name, what it is for and how much money is inside.  I sit down with a pile of 1's and 5's and begin to fill them up.  As you can see in the lower left corner, Levi M. needed 3$ for pizza.  This goes into his folder and to school.  The same goes for the rest! 
 
Now back to that stapled pile of papers.  I go back to the request sheet and label what has been paid and when it was paid.  This way I don't do it twice if they send a reminder sheet. 

I do write things on the calendar to keep up with everyone.  But it is nice to keep these sheets in a handy spot in case I forget information such as; do they need a sack lunch, will they need sunscreen or extra money for snacks at the event they attend.  That is hard to fit on a calendar.  :) 

When an event passes, I can clean up my stack of sheets by removing the old ones or adding new ones as they come in. 

I probably seems like a lot of work but it really saves stress in the end.  I hate pulling up to the school and having Jolie say, "Oh, I need 2 dollars today for..."  Then I end up digging trough my purse and trying to count change if I don't have cash.  This keeps me from giving my kids the stink eye.

I love finding a system that works for us!  Any help I can get in raising this brood is help I will take.


1 comment:

jeana said...

Great tip!! Love y'all and miss y'all :)