My Kitchen Binder – 5 Days of Organizing & Cleaning
Welcome back to the 5th and final day of 5 Days of Organizing & Cleaning!
5 Days of Organizing & Cleaning in the Kitchen
brought to you by Fridge Coaster
Day 1: Cleaning Under Your Kitchen Sink.
Day 2: Keeping Your Refrigerator Clean & Organized.
Day 3: 10 Things to Use in Kitchen Organization
Day 4: Organizing Your Spices & Pills.
Today is Day 5 and I’m going to share about My Kitchen Binder
My Kitchen Binder
Wow, this week has just flown by. I had big plans of getting my kitchen completely organized throughout the week and it just didn’t get all the way done. I should have known that was too big of a project for little ole me. Especially if I’m going to take the time to blog about it AND have a Facebook party during that week, too! I’m thinking baby steps is more my style….. especially when I have 6 children needing me as well. My 15 year old son started football this month and it feels like I’m in the car taking him to or from football practice all. the. time. I love listening to his excitement over the game though. He loves football and I love that he has something to be excited about! I’m thrilled with the progress I’ve made in my kitchen so far and I will continue plugging along until it’s just how I want it.
This week, after reading through some of List PlanIt’s blog, I decided to make a Kitchen Binder.
Why Make a Kitchen Binder?
Your kitchen is the room that the success of your home flows from. You have to eat 3 meals a day plus snacks that are prepared in that room. You need a drink several times a day and usually get it from that room. You need to clean that room at least 3 times a day (even if you don’t!). Let’s face it moms, we’re in there A LOT!
So, why would I want a kitchen binder?
- To help me to streamline my kitchen duties
- To help me to plan my meals
- To help me pull together a quick grocery list
- To give me a place to write down a quick recipe and not lose it
- To give me lots of instant meal ideas
What do I put in my binder?
I have mine set up in order like this:
- Equivalent Measurements – How many times do you wonder how many Tablespoons are in 1/2 cup. I always end up making a computer run to look it up on the internet, but now that it’s in my binder, I shouldn’t have to!
- Freezer Inventory – When I cleaned out my refrigerator, I found some food to use up that I had forgotten about. I won’t forget about it now that it’s on my inventory sheet!
- Refrigerator Inventory
- Pantry Inventory
- Grocery Checklist (5 copies, so I can quickly remove one when I’m ready to make a quick list)
- Recipe Cards, (so that I can quickly write down a new recipe when I find one that I want to keep)
- Menu Inventory Grid – This is where I write down all the meals that our family rotates through, so I can pull from them at a quick glance.
- Spice Inventory - Sometimes, I wonder if I have a certain spice and I don’t want to go through all my spices, looking to double check before I head out to the grocery store. If I have a list available of all my spices, I can quickly check my list.
- My Freezer to Slow Cooker Recipe List - I prefer to cook in my slow cooker as much as possible, so that I don’t have to scurry about, trying to prepare dinner right before my husband comes home. If I have this list available, I can easily plan my menu quickly.
- Shopping Locally List – This is something that I won’t use as often, but when I go to a bigger city, I like to shop the sales fliers at the local grocery stores. This list helps me to plan what I’m buying from each store.
Most of these lists I printed from List PlanIt. It was such a time saver to have the lists prepared and ready for me to print. In the past, I’ve thought about making a Home Management Binder. I could easily do that in the future, but for now, I’m starting with a kitchen baby step! I may just expand it in a few months and make it into a whole house binder!
What other things could I put in my kitchen binder?
- Table Chores – We recently assigned these….so I’m sure I’ll be adding them to my binder soon!
- Etiquette & Manners
- Napkin Folding Instructions
- How to Set the Table
- Directions on how to clean out the microwave, clean out your dishwasher, or clean out your stove.
- A list of where other things that you don’t use as often are stored
- Cookbook Inventory
- Small Appliance Care
- A list of ingredients that can be substitutes for other ingredients.
- Homemade Cleaner Recipes
- Kitchen Deep Cleaning Schedule
- Kitchen Skills to Teach Your Children
- Appliance Brands & Model #’s as well as Manufacturer phone #’s in case you need to order parts to fix them
- Food Safety Rules
- Medicine/Vitamin Inventory
Any time you set up a notebook or binder to help you run your home, it will be unique to you and your family circumstances. You may not want as many details as I do…or you may want a whole lot less! If you want to get a great start, List PlanIt is the place to go! For $20, you can get a year’s membership to be able to print any of their forms! For $30, you get a download membership, where you can type in the forms before you print them out. There are so many forms & lists available besides the kitchen forms!!
Don’t forget that we’re giving away a download membership to List PlanIt this week. If you choose to buy a membership and then go on to win the membership, they’ll refund you your purchase price! The giveaway ends Saturday night.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Don’t forget to visit the other 21 bloggers who are also discussing Organizing & Cleaning this week. There are so many awesome subjects to pick from! There’s Organizing for Back to School, Organizing Your Grocery Budget & Organizing Your Linen Closet, just to name a few!
Click on the picture below and it will take you to the list. There’s still lots of giveaways live as well! You can win $50 cash or you could win an e-book from A Slob Comes Clean, a Bon Ami Gift Pack, an E-book called Finding Joy in Depression by Amanda Pelser and many more!
