Financial Organization

Keeping on top of your finances is a huge responsibility and the cause of much stress in a lot of households. I have found this website  by Gail Vaz-Oxlade extremely helpful for budgeting and keeping my personal finances in order.

I have found the below worksheet very helpful for tracking where all of our money is going and for organizing our families budget.  
http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/resources/interactive_budget_worksheet.html

On this website you will also find many other interactive worksheets to help track debt and come up with ways to get a hold on debt. She offers a lot of tips on keeping your finances in order. Here is the link to the general site;

 http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/resources.html

Getting finances organized and in order may feel like a huge daunting task, but once done takes a huge weight off your shoulders.

Organizing your Money!!

I have been major MIA in writing in my blog lately and for that i apologize!! Kids are finally settled in school I am trying to establish a routine around their routines!!


Anyways today I have been working on my personal budget- not my idea of a good time but I find that my spending can get out of control if i don't keep it in check! . And as that falls in line with organization( I do not proclaim to be a financial consultant), I will share some tips on what works for me and my family. I am a huge fan of Gail Vaz Oxlade and love this very easy spreadsheet that I have been using off of her website: http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/resources/interactive_budget_worksheet.html
I always hate being restricted by a budget but everyone, even really rich people need to budget! You know what they say, "fail to plan, plan to fail' and budgeting is really no different. It is not much fun to set up but what a relief once you get one in place that works for you and your family.
I wanted to also add that Apple has a great app for tracking your fiances with the 'Account Balances' App.

Getting Organized for Back to School...

And the ever dreaded chore of making school lunches! I started getting some ideas from pinterest together and here is what i have come up with so far....
http://pinterest.com/errandenise/kids-lunches/

summer!!!

As you can see I had a great time with my family last week vacationing at the cottage but as summer starts to wind up you must be prepared for the inevitable....

 Yes I went back to school shopping and am ready for the little darlings to go back to school! We had a great summer (still having) but nothing like being ready for it as it sneaks up on you fast!!

Gardening!

What a busy week helping a client get ready to sell their house. I didn't take a lot of before and afters, due to sheer exhaustion but here is a before/after of the front flower bed...

My clutter!

I will fully admit to being in a state of constant work in progress as far as organizing for myself is concerned.... Finding the time is what most of us struggle with. I was able to find some time this week to organize some spaces and boy does it feel great! And of course, as always I took some before and afters!

As the kids are off for the summer and I am busy doing fun things with them instead of helping people organize their homes I am taking the opportunity to organize my own house while I have the chance. Currently I am redesigning my home office, and as i haven't started yet here are some great ideas off of Pinterest that i am going to use as my inspiration!!  I will post when it is complete, with before and afters of course!!!

I saw this cute idea and i couldn't resist...I love it for a homework area space!

I love summer!

Had some great time off! We took the family up to a resort that I used to go to as a kid. There is nothing better than beautiful weather and lots of good food that I didn't have to cook! Wish I could stay there all summer! Best long weekend! Back to work now!

Whew! Busy day today..Started off with some gardening, picked up a shower chair for an elderly client on sale (regularly $50 and I got it for $25-love a good deal especially for a client!), organized a pantry and a playroom. Here is a picture below of the pantry I organized today and I'm showing it because of its ease of use and how easy it will be now for this family!!

Now to end this awesome day with some good friends on a patio with some good drinks!!!

This week has been an exhausting one! I have been working on a home office and cleaning out dead files that are 25 years old. So 15 bank boxes later of old files and I am one tired Organizer!!

I looked no further than pinterest for some organizing ideas for some jobs coming up as well and come across this amazing idea for an answer to my daughters unbelievable collection of stuffed animals... and voila a honey do project is invented for my husband this weekend:

Its rather large but our version will be a bit smaller.

I am forever looking for great ideas and ways to store kids crafts for myself as well as clients and found this great idea on pinterest as well:

Its a hanging clear shoe rack!! I love the portablity of this and its a very creative and inexpensive storage device!

A common problem for every parent is do I save every piece of artwork my child brings home and if so where do I put it? I came across the very answer to this question from an idea on the HGTV program and voila:

You simply take a picture of your childs art, have it resized and printed for framing! Now I know what to do with the bags of art work that they will be bring home on the last day of school!!!

After doing some office organizing for one of my clients this morning, I decided to put my feet up and visit my good friend Danielle give me a pedicure. (She runs a esthetics salon out of her house so not just a random friend who likes feet!) We had some laughs and now my feet are set for Summer! Well for a couple weeks or so!!!!

I went to an awesome friends of mine today to help her with some office organization. She is a busy mom of 2 kids and a Executive Regional Vice President of Arbonne. Needless to say she is super busy and needed some organizational ideas. After a lot of laughs, and some shopping we were able to get some organization applied to her office!!

I got a brand new label maker and suggested that all receipts are organized in an accordian folder sorted by month to make for easier to track at tax time and for ease of being able to go back and find.

 We found these cute little boxes for $2.50 at storage solutions (marked down from $9.99!!) labeled them and had great storage for the small things that seem to add clutter!!!

Here is me admiring the cute Arbonne perfumes!!!

Here is Christa, beautiful inside and out in her new office!! Had a great time with you today Christa!!

what do you do all day?

Ok not really sure what I am doing or how this whole blogging thing works yet. I'm going to keep typing even though it just looks like I am putting random words on a blank template. Hopefully it turns out a bit more interesting than how it looks right now. ha

I'm going to pretend that I know what i'm doing right now(on this site) and answer a question that i have been asked a lot since I quit my decent-ish paying job and decided to work in my spare time for myself.. What is it you do exactly?

Its hard to answer that question as it does really vary from day to day which is why I love it so much and it allows me to be my own boss and keep up with my crazy busy home life!!! Right now my organizational service is in high demand :).

First it started off that I was running here and there for the awesome seniors at my grandfathers retirement home and  For a while I was organizing bedrooms and right now home office organization is all the rage.

Here are some before and afters of the organization that I have been working on:

So this was an adorable little 7 year olds room and she just need a little help finding homes for all of her toys. Here is the after picture:

Everything has a home and she was thrilled with the results!! Here is the before of the closet of the same room:

and after a bit of organization and voila!

And am happy to report her mom tells me she was so happy with the results that she kept it up! Way to go A!!!!!

Here are some more before and afters of bedrooms and closets. A lot of work goes into finding a place for everything that makes sense to the owner of the room but the results are always worth it!

and after:

This kitchen needed a bit of de-cluttering and blending in of 2 families and all of the two of all appliances. It took some time and a lot of hard work but the end result was completely worth it!

The insides of the cupboards although not shown, were completely de-cluttered and thinned out as part of the complete kitchen organization.

Here is an office I did of a good friend of mine! I couldn't get completely in to take a good picture of the room as it was filled with boxes.....

A few hours of some hard work we made that cluttered room of hers into a home office!!!!

She was so much fun to work with and we got so much accomplished that it hardly felt like work at all!!!!

Ok so that is it for my first attempt at blogging and it was nearly as much work as I thought it would be!! Till next time!