Some of us parents were born with serious Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder that we have to put on hold when it comes to raising kids.
I have no idea how or exactly when I became so “anal” about having an organized home, but I am a firm believer that everything HAS to be in its given place. And I don’t mean that it just has to be in its given place. Everything that comes into the house HAS to have a designated “home.” If for some reason it doesn’t, it becomes an eyesore for me and it will bug me until it does find a proper place.
My Organization Begins when Anything Is Brought into the Home
I read a book about 4 to 5 years ago that gave me a great motto for living as someone who craves organization: “Like with like. One home for everything.” (You’re going to have to forgive me, but right now the title of the book totally escapes me, but I have never forgotten the concept.) Over the years, I’ve tried to implement this philosophy in pieces, but now I noted that I’m more “intense” about it (for lack of a better term).
Basically, instead of just leaving stuff randomly placed anywhere and everywhere, identify a home for it. It can be a corner of the house, a drawer, a closet, a cabinet or even an entire room. Just designate that as the “official area” for whatever you’re adding to your household.
Everything Has A Home Within the Home
When you do this, the most important thing for you to remember is that everyone in the house must know where the homes are and what goes there. This way, you don’t have to have those monotonous conversations about putting things back where they belong. You need total buy-in on this for it to work.
When my kids or my husband bring something home with them, I’m always on their case about where that item will live. They need to know exactly where to go to when they need that item and they need to know where to put it back when they’re finished.
My Office Supplies Provides a Great Example
So, let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. We now have dedicated office cabinets where nothing but office type supplies live.
When I say “like with like,” I mean that all the writing tools, paper, binders, rulers, and note pads go here. Items of similar categories that make sense go together. And there’s only one home for it. So now there are no more questions of “Where’s a pen” or “Where’s this” or Where’s that”. Instead, my family knows if they need an office supply item, look in the “office cabinet/drawer” and be sure to put it back when they’re done.
Another great grouping that I know would help lots of people is my home for all things electronic. This is where we put everything like wires, cables, batteries, spare chargers, or anything else that is gadget related. (Wires are one of my pet peeves. If they are everywhere, it drives me nuts!)
This system has helped me to get my house organized and stay that way. Studies now prove what I thought about organization! Keeping your home organized relieves stress. Who can’t use a little less stress in their life?
Part of being a good parent is teaching your kids to be self-sufficient and responsible. And part of that means doing your own laundry. Getting my kids to do their own laundry has been a huge time saver for us! The earlier you can get this routine implemented with your own kids, the easier it will be for you and your family.
Don’t Push Your Kids – But Don’t Wait Too Long Either!
Please remember, every child is different and develops at a different pace. But that being said, overall, kids are more capable of doing things on their own than we give them credit for. (Let’s face it—if they can operate a smart phone or video game system, they can do their own laundry!)
The problem is that we either subconsciously don’t want them to be independent or we think that it will just be quicker and easier if we do it ourselves instead of taking the time to teach them how to do it.
The Best Way to Teach Laundry Responsibility To Your Kids
The best way to do all of this is to introduce laundry to them in phases. When they’re younger, get them involved in the laundry process with you. Let them see you sorting, washing, drying, folding, and putting the clothes away. Be sure to explain what you’re doing as you go so they can understand it.
Teach Kids in Phases All the Parts of Laundering
As your kids get older, you can let them join you in doing different parts of the laundry. This can include simple tasks like sorting their own clothes out into a pile to fold or have them fold something simple with you like shorts or small towels.
The idea is that eventually, over time, they will become used to all the different processes and (with a little supervision in the beginning) you can let them do each part of the laundry process on their own.
The phases my kids went through when they were learning to do laundry:
Phase 1 — Put their folded clothes away
Phase 2 — Fold their own clothes + Phase 1
Phase 3 — Take their clothes out of the dryer + Phase 2 + Phase 1
Phase 4 — Take their clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer + Phase 3 + Phase 2 + Phase 1
Phase 5 — Put their dirty clothes into the washer + Phased 4 + Phase 3 + Phase 2 + Phase 1
Phase 6 — Put detergent and fabric softener in and start the washing machine + Phase 5 + Phase 4 + Phase 3 + Phase 2 + Phase 1
A Little Investment of Time, Pays Off Eventually
I think I started my kids on this process when they were 5 and 7, although I definitely could have involved them in it a lot earlier. Now they are 8 and 10 and they’re doing their entire laundry on their own. (Up until last week, my oldest was taking care of measuring out the detergent. But now, the 8-year-old wants to learn how to pour out the detergent, so he’s getting there!)
It is SOOOOO worth it to take that extra time and effort to train the kids on these processes. I know sometimes it’s much quicker to just do it yourself. But in the long run, your kids will learn how to be more self-sufficient and you won’t regret the decision to teach them when they are young.
See if this sounds familiar: You spend an entire week working and getting the kids off to school and extracurriculars. But then you get to the weekend and your bonding time with your family gets spent with—wait for it—housecleaning!
At one time, I was of the mindset that I would spend my time cleaning our house because I felt really bad about having someone else do it. After all, I’m very well capable of doing my own housework, so why should I pay someone else to handle it for me?
But then, I realized that I was starting to feel resentful. My family and I would spend almost a full day on the weekend cleaning the house. Then, we barely had time to go out and do things before the weekend was over. It felt like I was trapped in a cycle of work, clean, crash, and then realize the weekend was done and it was time to start all over.
So, I figured if I can take back a whole day and spend it with family, it would be totally worth it to let someone else take care of the cleaning.
So, how was I able to find someone to clean my house and not break my budget?
By reallocating some funds. According to Thumbtack, a 3-bedroom house that’s about 2000 square feet costs (on average) between $150 and $250 to clean. If we just take the flat average of $200 as my goal, that means I’ve got to reapportion that much money for the housecleaning.
What did I cut in my budget for a housecleaner?
Starbucks — The average venti latte at Starbucks is going to run you around $5 a pop with tax. If you’re used to getting one each day on the way to work, you’re spending $25 a week or about $100 a month on (admittedly great, but overpriced) coffee. Cut out your Starbucks fix and you’re half-way there.
Eating Out — If you’ve got a family of four with outside activities, you know it’s just too easy and convenient to stop off and grab takeout rather than cook a meal. According to one survey, the average family of 4 eats out 18 meals a month and spends about $230 on those meals. Put that with the Starbucks and you’ve got $330 saved so far for your housekeeping goals.
Shopping for “stuff” — This one can be tough, but you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re at the store for some home essentials, you have a set list of items to buy, and then you get sidetracked looking at the cutest sandals you’ve ever seen or the most aromatic scented candle you’ve ever smelt. So, you buy on impulse. Even if you were to cut back to the tune of $70 a month, when you put it with the dining out and Starbucks cut-backs, you’ve now saved about $400 for the month. That translates to two cleaning sessions with a professional housekeeper doing a deep cleaning of your home.
Your Cutbacks May Look Very Different Than Mine
While I shared with you what we did to get the money to afford housecleaning services, this is by no means the ONLY ways to find the money. The idea I want to share with you is that you look at what you’re currently spending. Be mindful and creative with where you cut back on your budget because we do spend way more than we think we do!
Determine What’s Important and Reflect That In Your Budget
At the end of the day, this was a win-win situation for me. I’m helping support the local cleaning business owners while they help me get back my valuable time with my family. Plus, it helps me keep my sanity since I absolutely hate cleaning. And my husband is 100% on board with this too—after all, happy wife, happy life!
It may not be the most hated chore in the household (that’s reserved for that pile of dirty dishes in the sink), but laundry can be a pain in the neck.
It’s not the actual washing and drying that’s difficult—it’s the folding and putting away that can drive you crazy, especially if you’re a parent with lots of little ones causing the amount of laundry to multiply exponentially.
If you’re searching for a way to make this a little easier on you, give these laundry hacks a try:
(Please note: we do not make any money off the links below. We’re simply wanting to make your life easier by providing links if you’re interested.)
1. Get a Flip Fold
If you watch The Big Bang Theory, you’ve probably seen Sheldon folding his clothes with one of these. It’s a clothes folder that you place a shirt on and with three quick flips it is folded perfectly and ready to go out on display at a clothes store.
While it’s not ideal for all clothes, this can save time and make your clothes stack up nicer. Plus, kids love it because it looks like fun and they will be more likely to join in and help.
2. Keep All Your Socks Together
If you’ve done laundry for an entire family, then you know about the mystery sock. That’s the one lone sock that turns up at the end of a laundry session that doesn’t have a mate, no matter how hard you look.
Instead of losing a single sock every washing, invest in a mesh laundry bag. This way, you put all of the socks in the bag, wash them in the bag, and they’re all still together when you take them out at the end.
As an added bonus, the bag can double as a travel case for organizing your clothes on vacation!
3. Separate Your Clothes by Person
I’m sure you’re used to sorting your laundry by color. But if possible, also sort it according to who they belong to. That way, when you get your clothes out of the dryer, you don’t have to do a massive sorting session to see who they belong to.
If that’s not practical in your household, at least consider washing the kids’ clothes separately from the adult’s. That way, when the clothes are finished, you can have your kids help you put up their clothes, saving you sorting time.
4. Pre-Sorted Hampers
If you have the room, invest in a few different clothes hampers and label them: Colors, Lights, Delicates, etc. Whatever system may work for you and your family’s needs is best. But make sure you put the clothes in the right bin and then just toss them in without having to sort them.
5. Combine Laundry with Something You Like Doing
Laundry isn’t just washing, drying, folding, and putting up. It also involves a tedious task—ironing. But if you find yourself dreading this, then try to liven it up.
It may sound goofy but try turning laundry day into a party. Put on some music that everyone will enjoy and dance around a bit as you all put away your own clothes. If you have young kids, you may need to help them a little, but it can still go quicker, or at least it will feel that way.
Laundry hacks can help you gain time
Laundry doesn’t have to be the bane of your existence. As with any chore, it’s all about finding the right mindset and a way to get organized and shave off some time here and there.
Even before our kids are born, we start imagining just how much they can accomplish and how we want to help them get there. One of the biggest “legs up” you can give your children is with daily reading.
Don’t believe me? A recent educational survey showed that if your child reads 20 minutes a day, they will be exposed to almost 2 million words by sixth grade and will score better than 90% of his or her classmates on standardized tests.
Reading should be organic and fluid, so it’s important to work in every opportunity to get a little reading time in. Here’s how you can do just that:
Reading doesn’t have to be from a book
Many people think 20 minutes of daily reading as plopping your child down with a copy of the Cat in the Hat. But that isn’t the only way to get in reading time.
When you’re riding around town, have your child sound out the words on street signs, banners, and advertisements. This will go slowly at first, so be sure to help them out. But as your child builds fluency, you can go faster expecting them to read more and more as you drive.
Also, don’t underestimate the power of comic books to attract hesitant readers. Educators have recently discovered that graphic novels can be a great way of promoting reading, even in the upper grades.
On a final note, television can be a good way to sneak in reading time. Just turn off the volume and turn on the close captioning and they can read along with the TV show (and some of those cartoon shows are a lot less annoying with the sound off).
Get audiobooks and apps
As an early reader, it’s important for your child to hear stories read aloud as they read along with the book. The most obvious form of this is when you sit down with your child at night to read a bedtime story.
But there are other ways for you to get this time in. Some adults may have fond memories of reading along with storybooks and audio tapes as a child.
Now, you can access many of these from sources like Audible. The energetic narrators will engage your child. For younger children, you can help them with word acquisition and phonics. Apps are available, such as Homer and Reading Magic, which can do just that. Finally, check out your local library and look for audio reading kits and books on CD.
Library play date
Speaking of the library, it’s important that you introduce your child to this wonderful place so it can become a fixture in their lives. Take your child to the library for a play date and let them explore the books. Pick one out they would like to take home for the week.
A good rule of thumb is to let your child pick one for themselves while you pick one for him or her based on your preferences. Be sure to get a book for yourself. Seeing that you value reading in your own life is a great way to encourage reading.
While you’re at the library, check out the schedule of activities and be sure to stop by regularly for story time—another great way to sneak in some reading.
Prepare to enjoy the benefits of your child reading
If reading becomes a chore, then your plan to help your child is going to backfire and they will see reading as work. Take time to subtly work in the reading without them realizing it and you have a chance to give them an advantage in today’s highly competitive world.
Let’s face it, life is no longer the same after you have children. Things that you were easily able to do before is no longer that easy. Now instead of doing just 1-2 loads of laundry a week, you now have 2-3x that amount. Instead of figuring out what to eat just for yourself and the hubby, you now have to accomodate the needs and wants of all your kids.
And if you’re lucky, you might just have kids who will eat just about anything…said no mother ever!
Yes, I would love to have a spotless, well organized home every single day, but that is really just wishful thinking. Unless of course you have the luxury of having a full time housekeeper, which I, and most moms, definitely do not. At the end of the day, I just want our home to be in a fairly presentable condition where I wouldn’t be totally embarrassed if we had a surprised visitor swing buy unannounced,
Over the years though, I have incorporated some helpful tactics to make getting things around the house done more easily and efficiently. And the best thing is, once you have kids old enough, you can get them involved.
Stay Organized
One of the best ways I have learned to keep the clutter from piling up everywhere is to designate a home for everything and then stay on top of making sure things go back to its home once it has been used.
For example, we have on one specific counter a pen/pencil holder. Everyone in the family knows that if you need a pen or pencil, you automatically go there…and when you’re done, you put it right back there.
Anything related to electronics go in a designated cabinet. So any time someone is looking for some batteries or a cable for something, I know exactly where to go look.
I have my daughter use this same technique to manage all her things in her room. So now she knows which bin to go to for anything arts/crafts related or which bin contains all her lego toys etc.
It sounds like a huge ordeal to set something up like this but it doesn’t have to be. Start with reorganizing one “new home” a week for each type of item in the house. For example, all office related supplies live in this one cabinet or drawer.
If you’re feeling a little bit more ambitious, you could tackle each living space at a time and decide which items makes sense to have its designated home be there.
The tricky part is to have just one location for things AND keeping everyone on board, otherwise, you will end up right where you started from with things laying around everywhere again.
It really does save some time when you’re looking for something in particular or even when you’re putting things back because you know exactly where it should be or go. Nothing more frustrating than running in and out of each room trying to find where you think something should be and it’s not there.
Image by Markus Spiske via Pixabay
Kids and Their Toys
Are you constantly battling with your kids to get them to pick up their toys? Well do I have a treat for you. I got this idea initially from a co-worker of mine and it works wonders…if you follow through. Here’s how you do it:
The idea is called “The Never-Never Bag”. First things first, find a bag that you want to designate to collect the toys. Then sit down with everyone to discuss this “new process” and explain to the kids that from this point on, you will give them a 15 minute warning to give them a chance to go pick up all their toys on the ground. After the 15 minutes is over, any toys left laying out will go into the Never-Never Bag.
The first time I did this, my kids did not take me seriously. So after the 15 minutes was up, they said they were done. I still saw plenty of toys laying around and gave them a second chance and asked “are you sure?”. They said yes. So I walked to the yellow ball that my daughter had just bought that day with her own money and threw it into the bag.
Her eyes got wide and she yelled out in disbelief while the tears started falling down her cheeks, “No, not my ball! I don’t like this new rule!”.
Needless to say, the next day when I gave them the 15 minute Never Never Bag warning, they very quickly made sure all their toys were picked up. No more nagging, yelling or reminding them to pick up their toys every 5 minutes.
Now some may call this cruel but I say it just works. I will add in though that each day where no new toys are added to the bag, they are allowed to pick out one toy from the bag to take back. Any toys that stay in the bag for a long period of time, we donate them.
Use this idea and mold it to make it work for your kids but definitely give it a try.
Laundry Time
Flip and Fold
If you have not yet invested in the “Flip & Fold”, I highly recommend it. This is how I got my kids to start folding and putting away their own clothes. There are plenty of different ones now and any of them will work the same. I’ve seen them sold in home and organization retail stores like The Container Store.
My kids started this when they were 5 years old. I just showed them how to lay their clothes down and they just flipped and flopped the flaps and voila, they have a neatly folded shirt. They each had a designated drawer for each type of clothing so when they had their stack of folded clothes, they would know exactly where to put it.
Now I won’t say it’s perfect every time but I’ll take it being done over perfection any day. Plus, they are learning plenty of life skills all with this one activity. Things like responsibility, ownership of doing their own laundry, organization, and being able to focus.
Not only did it help with them getting their clothes folded, they actually had fun using it so it was a win win situation.
Dinner
If you’re like my family where we both work and kids have after school activities, there are some nights where it’s very difficult to even have time to eat, let alone cook a meal.
So before the week starts, we usually know what it will look like. So we plan out what to eat on which days and we make sure the meals we cook will have plenty of food to be used as leftovers for the next day.
I know some of you may not enjoy eating the same thing more than once but I’m telling you, it’s a time saver. Instead of cooking something new every single day, you only have to cook 2-3 days a week.
From time to time, we’ll also have what my friend calls, “DIY dinner nights”. You eat whatever is available in the fridge or pantry. It’s mom’s (or dad’s) night off from cooking. Yayy!
Many use the Crock Pot for dinner nights like this because you can just throw the ingredients into the pot and by dinner time, you have a nice hot meal ready to serve and eat. There are fancy ones out there now. Even ones where you can control the settings from your phone!
What are some ways you and your family keep your household in order and get things done more efficiently? Share each other’s tips and tricks so that we all can get through our day that much easier.
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Struggle with staying on top of your bills and budgeting?
Do you stress out and dread when the 1st of the month rolls around?
Tired of living paycheck to paycheck?
Have constant arguments with your spouse around the family finances?
Have no clue on how to even get in control of your financial life?
Download this FREE Monthly Budgeting Action Plan, which includes Worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly on what you need to do to set up your own family budgeting plan that works for you and your family.
Struggle with staying on top of your bills and budgeting?
Do you stress out and dread when the 1st of the month rolls around?
Tired of living paycheck to paycheck?
Have constant arguments with your spouse around the family finances?
Have no clue on how to even get in control of your financial life?
Download this FREE Monthly Budgeting Action Plan, which includes Worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly on what you need to do to set up your own family budgeting plan that works for you and your family.
Do you struggle with getting your kids to clean up their room?
Are you ready for your kids to be more responsible?
Would you like your kids to be able to manage their time better?
Ready for a simple way to teach your kids good money management habits?
Download this FREE Family Chore and Money System Action Guide. It includes worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly what you need to do to set up your own chore, schedule and money management plans.
