Home Organization Binder Ideas
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As a modern homemaker and CEO of our home, it’s important to me to have a central location to keep up with all of our important documents and household management information. A home binder is super handy for anyone who is in charge of keeping up with the running of a household, and I use our own home management binder printables to stay on top of everything to keep our home running smoothly! Today, I’m going to show you some home organization binder ideas!
What should be in a home binder?
Deciding what to put in your home management binder is a personal decision. A couple of years ago, I showed you how to make a home management binder. Today, we are going to get down to the nuts and bolts of a home organization binder by talking about what you should keep in your home binder.
Calendars/Schedules
It’s always helpful to keep a monthly calendar at the front of your home management binder. I use the free printables I have available here on the blog including the Colorful Monthly Calendar to fill in important dates and events just so I can keep track of what’s going on each month.
If you enjoy daily planning, I also offer free Daily Planning pages if you need to keep track of your daily schedule.
Another page I keep toward the front of my home binder is my weekly family schedule printable. This printable is awesome kept in page protectors so you can fill it in each week and not have to print a lot of copies. This printable helps me keep track of each family member and what they have going on each week.
Finally, I like to keep a yearly goal sheet toward the front of my home management binder just to help me keep track of all of my goals.
Home Records
This is where I keep my cleaning schedule, inventories, home and vehicle repair records, organizational project plans, and important contacts for people related to the home such as the lawn care company, the pest control company, the plumber, the heat and a/c company, etc. It’s nice to have a list of trusted service providers if something suddenly happens.
I personally prefer to keep a physical copy of records in our binder. It’s possible to keep a page protector in this section and place any receipts you collect from work done that year if you do not have another place to store your receipts.
You’ll also find my laundry schedule, age appropriate chores list, home maintenance checklist, and monthly cleaning calendars in this section.
Meal Planning
The next section holds my meal planning printables. I keep a variety of meal planners here, but prefer to plan weekly meals these days. It’s easy to jot down my weekly meal plans in this spot.
I also have a grocery list divided by sections in the store to make grocery shopping easier, as well as my master shopping list that includes most everything we purchase on a monthly basis.
The meal planning section of your household binder is also a good place to keep a list of your family’s favorite recipes and recipes you would like to try in the future.
Monthly Budget and Financials
The next section in my home binder is my budget section. Now, to be fair, I do keep running spreadsheets on my computer of many of our accounts and my business, but this section is really great for mapping out our monthly budget, checking off that all the bills have been paid, and it’s nice to have all of our savings account balances there to take a quick glance at when needed.
So, this section includes my basic monthly budget, debt repayment plan, a payment checklist, donation tracker, savings log, and debt payment tracker.
Family Management
This is the section where I keep all of my family life stuff. Now, I do not keep important documents like birth certificates in my home binder. Those go into a fireproof safe in a home file system, but I do like to keep some basic information in my family management section so I can keep up with all of our family members.
In the family section you’ll find a list of important dates in relation to all of our family members, plus information pages for a babysitter, pet sitter, and a house sitter. I also keep a personal info page with a section for each family so I can quickly glance and remember important medical information like allergies.
Finally, there is a set of clothing cards for each of my children. I do have seven, so having an updated place with their current sizes and favorites helps me when I’m shopping.
Garden Planning
No household binder would be complete with a garden section! Whether you actually plan a garden to feed your family, or you just have some landscaping, you can use this section to keep track of all of your plants and any outdoor projects you have on the horizon. I find it especially handy to have a garden inventory that you can refer to before you purchase plants for your yard in the spring.
School Planning
If you have kids the school planning section is really helpful. Even though we homeschool, I have found that I can still use it to keep track of my kids’ extracurricular activities, co-ops classes, homeschool friends (or classmates), and even my kids’ reading log. This is a great place to keep up with your kids’ school schedules no matter how you school!
Vacation Planning
Who doesn’t love a vacation? Vacation planning is so fun to me, and this section of my household binder helps me pull together all of the fun details for a great family vacation. This section allows me to plan out the vacation, map out the vacation budget, and prepare a packing list.
Holiday Planning
I also keep both of my Thanksgiving planner and Christmas planner in the back of my home binder. These planners are great to use to plan menus, parties, gifts, and more!
How do I organize my home binder?
Let’s talk about ideas to help you organize your home binder.
I personally keep my home management printables in a big three ring binder. I chose a pink one because I like that color. Choose a binder that you really like.
Of course, if you’re using printable products you’ll want a good printer. We print a lot, so I use a laserjet printer. It’s been worth the money.
Most of the pages I put in the physical binder with a regular hole punch, but for pages I don’t want to have to print often, I will place them in page protectors so I can reuse them with a dry erase marker.
Each of my sections is divided with printable dividers from my Clean and Organized Home Management binder printables. You can print these dividers on card stock to make them sturdier. I placed binder tabs on the divider pages to make them tabbed dividers so they are easier to find.
I really like the sticky tabbed dividers, but you could make your own with a label maker.
There are many different options for dividing your home binder and no wrong way to do it. I have found that once you try a system you are free to tweak it if something is not working.
Home Management Binder Printables
As I’ve mentioned, I use my own Clean and Organized Home Management printables for my home binder. Occasionally I will stumble upon some sort of printable I think I need to add to my home binder, and I’ll just put it in the correct section.
I’ve never been a big fan of paper clutter, but having this one central place to keep all of my most important papers really helps to cut down on random paper clutter throughout the house.
You can find my Clean and Organized Home Management binder printables in the shop. Don’t forget to add the free corresponding pages, or sign up for the Homemaker’s Resource Library so you can access those freebies there.
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