Household Binders

I’m still working away getting re-organized since we moved. Moving is a great fresh-start isn’t it? It forces you to go through absolutely everything you own. Personally, it has motivated me to do a bunch of small projects I have been meaning to do for a while. This being one of them!

The previous owners were great and left us all of user manuals for all of the appliances. We also bought some new stuff so I literally had a box full of papers. So I decided that the best way to organize them would be a giant 3 ring binder, sorted by category, in plastic sheet protectors! Exciting isn’t it!? ;)

I also used the same inserts that I used for my recipe binder so they match, and matching is very important when it comes to organizing.

The sheet protector’s worked perfectly as most appliances had more than one book or sheet so it kept everything together.

I divided them into the following categories – Electronics, Large Appliances, Small Appliances, Home Appliances (things attached to the house like the furnace and fireplace), Furniture, and Fitness Equipment.

Even though we will rarely access them, it’s nice to have them all in one place and easy to find when the time comes.

I also created a “Household Binder”. This idea came to me at 3am when one of smoke detector’s started to chirp every minute or so informing us the battery was dead. Andrew wasn’t available so I climbed on a chair and removed the battery. There! All fixed! WRONG! That did nothing and unfortunately I didn’t keep 9Vs on hand as I’ve never had to? So I googled it and everyone advises to just switch off the breaker for that area. Again, no problem, I knew where that was. I went through every possible breaker and still no luck. So as a last resort I drove to 7-11 to buy a stupid battery. The moral of this story is to get familiar with your dwelling. Know what expendables are needed where, and keep them on hand. After all, these types of things always happen at the worst possible time.

This binder consists of our Household Budget, Emergency Contacts, Information on our Alarm System, Expendables, and a Reference List. The reference list is what I think will be used the most. I included our garage code, mailbox number, wireless name and password, contact info for the power company along with our account number. And the list goes on… basically anything that concerns the house is referenced there. That way if something crazy happens in the middle of the night we don’t have to dig through our filing cabinet or click through websites to find contact numbers. It’s all right there, at your fingertips!