Organizing my life on a budget

Whether you work in the home, outside the home, are on the road, are retired, have 4 kids at home or are empty-nesters, you have a life to live and probably enough going on in that life to need some organization. I know I do.

I work at home, mostly. I pick up paid-work whenever I can. I volunteer about 4 days per month. I have personal appointments, regularly. I have home maintenance appointments, sporadically. I have 5 adults that I cook, shop and clean for. I maintain all of the financial obligations for the household. And I blog 5 days per week. It's all very doable -- if I keep myself organized.

I've experimented with a variety of purchased and print at home planners and calendars. What seems to be working for me is a combination of a month-at-a-glance calendar plus daily planner. I usually get a calendar for free. But in years that I don't, I print out my own month-at-a-glance pages from free online resources. I use the calendar to note appointments more than a day or two in the future.

I also use this calendar for week-at-a-glance information. I make general remarks about an upcoming week, in the margin. For example, I need to schedule some work on my car in early September. I just write that in the margin for that first week in Sept, and will fill in an actual appointment when I have it.

For the daily planning pages, lately, I've liked these pages from this site: http://scatteredsquirrel.com/printable/personal-planner/

I like the half-size format, as I can get 2 days on each side of the paper. I print in black and white, and I print about half a month at a time. There's about enough room for me to get all of my info entered for each day.

I take about 1 hour each morning planning the day. One hour sounds like a lot of time, but I get more into each day, by spending this time planning. I walk about the house and see what needs doing. I check the garden to see what work should be done there, as well as what produce needs harvesting. I check the laundry to see how many loads I need to do. I check progress on my various projects and crafts. I get out the dinner prep items to thaw. I check the pantry to see if we need breads or snacks prepared or baked. I even look for my lunch for that day. By the end of my planning session, I know exactly what I need to do for the day, right down to what I will quickly make for my own lunch.

I keep my planning sheets on a clipboard. I can work on them while propped in bed, while walking about the house, sitting in a comfortable chair, or at the table.

After I enter the day's info, I use a highlighter to emphasize actual appointments. All appointments where I need to be someplace else, I enter 30 minutes (or earlier if I have to drive further) prior to the actual appointment time. This keeps me from double-booking my time. (I don't enter housekeeping duties in the same time I need to be driving someplace, for instance.)

I only plan down to the detail, one day at a time. If I fall behind on one day's work, I can push the items to the next day. Or if I don't feel well, one day, I can plan a very light day for myself.

It's not a priority that my calendars or planning sheets be pretty. Their primary purpose is function. Pretty would be nice, but not essential. I could purchase a planner. Dollar Tree sells student planners which could work for many people. I need more space for each day than the Dollar Tree planners, however. The larger planners that would work for my needs run around $13 to $16 at Office Depot. By printing out my own planning pages, a year's worth costs me about $4 to $5 (ink and paper).

I still use my calendar function on my computer. It's easy to transfer appointment info from emails to that calendar, or to type in to-do lists, while I'm on my laptop working on something else. In the mornings, when I day-plan, I also grab my computer and check for any details for that day and upcoming week.

So, I stay organized, and I save money on the tools needed to do that job. Works for me!

A haphazard gardener and her shallots

Being a haphazard gardener means that I don't always know why a particular vegetable has a great year, or why that same vegetable has a poor year.

The shallots did splendidly, this year. All of the bulbs are large. Not a single scrawny one in the batch. And I can't say that I know, for certain, why.  It could be due to fertilizing the soil before planting the bulbs. Or it could be the warm spring we had. But then again, it could also be the wet summer. Maybe they were in a particularly sunny spot. I don't know for sure. But I will be sure to fertilize the soil before planting the garlic next year. I didn't do so for the garlic this year, as I planted those bulbs in autumn, before I had a supply of good fertilizer. If that proves to increase the size of my garlic, then I may be onto something.

In any case, I'm quite thrilled for the shallots.

I plant a lot of ordinary vegetables, like carrots, lettuce, cabbage and potatoes, each year. Even if I didn't grow those vegetables, I'd still buy them at the market. I grow them because they do so well, and can be counted on each season.

But I also plant a few items that I'd likely not buy, but I enjoy cooking, like the shallots. I love the flavor shallots give to cooking. They're not as pungent as garlic and not as sharp as onions. Shallots are in the just-right zone for flavoring salad dressings, making soups, or sauteeing with mushrooms to spoon over meat. They can be tolerated, raw, without ill effect. Or cooked to caramelized perfection, and melt on the tongue. But shallots can be pricey in the market. So, I'd likely not buy them. Growing these vegetables that I enjoy but wouldn't buy, allows me some luxury in my cooking.

And as for growing my own, shallots are quite frugal. I bought the ancestors to these bulbs about 15 or 16 years ago. I just save the very biggest each year, for planting in the next. And there's enough leftover for cooking throughout the winter.