Home Management

In this post, I mentioned improvements to be made, that had to do with us moving house.

One of them is being more organized.
Heh. How many times have I tried to be more organized? Hint: a lot, but most of the time with failure.
Except a new house means, well, a new start?

We have to be more organized, as we lack storage in the new apartment. We had a fairly large walk-in closet in the old apartment. The new apartment has two closets, sure, but they are small. Pretty darned small, honestly. And yes, we each are taking one (yay!), but it's still not a lot of space. And we, somehow, have a ton of stuff, even after purging before we moved.
And we have an office, gosh darnit! A whole room for, well, office-y things - our computers, the Mister's spare computer things, my planner things and crafty things (most, anyway), and whatever else we put in there.

In reality, though, this apartment is larger, but it's all living space. Not places to put things.
And we don't want to have a mess of a house anymore. A new apartment lends itself to that. It's a clean slate, a new start, a new layout, a new frame of mind (when I remind myself of that - so far so good).

Thinking smaller, though, I need to be more organized in paper form. My planner is awesome right now, and it's being used a ton, but I do need a bit more.
Which lent itself to the idea of a home management binder.

I've already set it up, and I've already been using it. It's fantastic!

I used a regular sized ring binder I had already, dividers I already had, and lined paper that I've been (somehow) accruing for quite a while.
I have 8 main dividers:

• Meal Planning (Printable from A Delightful Mess)





• Finances (Printables from Scattered Squirrel)





• "Want" List - larger items we don't need right now, but do want for the new place, written on lined paper
• Vehicle Maintenance (Printable from I'd Rather Be Organizing)





• Cleaning lists & Homemade Cleaner Recipes (Printable from Creative Home Keeper)





• Bill & Utility Information (with monthly dividers within)





• Apartment Lease & Associated Information
• Health Information (doctor printouts, etc - this is for me only)

Sure, it's not pretty, and it's quite empty right now, aside from lined paper that I haven't taken out yet, but it's useful.
I was able to check on something to do with out rental insurance in five seconds. I was able to check on the tracking on a router we had to return in five seconds. We double checked that we changed all our addresses with the list of bills that we pay. And of course, checking each day for what is for dinner and what needs to be pulled out of the freezer for that night. 

I've debated adding more things (like contacts, a section for holiday planning, a grocery price list) but right now the need isn't present for these things - and most of it is already in my planner. 

The reason I took meal planning out of my planner and into this binder is so that the Mister can access it as well (if he chose to do so). And having all the bills in one section just makes more sense (they used to be scattered about on a shelf by his desk. 

It's a start. It gives me sense of mind. I'm hoping it will grow and continue (and I had quite a relaxing time while hole-punching all 50 or so pages of our lease). 

Having all of our "important" information in one place will make life so much easier. And will help to not have papers strewn everywhere - for the both of us. 

Am I missing anything important? Do you keep a home management binder? How do you use yours? 

~Havok

[edit 6/30/2015: shared at One Project at a Time on ABFOL]