Family Command Center and Budget Binder

Hey everyone! I hope y’all are well! I have been busy organizing and working on a few projects so I have been a bit slack on the blog front but I’m back!

As you know I have been desperately trying to organize our home (and our life really) to function better for us as a family. One of my biggest problems and I am sure is one of yours too is counter clutter. IT DRIVES ME CRAZY and I have never come up with a successful solution that lasts more than a week.

My kitchen is constantly covered in piles of paper that I just shift from place to place. I never do anything with them because I don’t know which pile to start with or how to find the papers I actually need.

We are drowning in stray bills, miscellaneous bank statements, expired coupons, etc. And it is never fun to you realize that you are late paying a bill because it accidentally got stuck in the one of many junk drawers or baskets instead of in your office or in my case my purse.

I have read a lot about people creating family command centers or organized catch-all areas in their homes which is a great idea but our home is just too small. We don’t have any cool nooks or crannies to turn into a super creative organizational area.

Also, I want to say up front that I am NO creative genius when it comes to organization but lucky for me there are many bloggers and creatives out there who are. And I will be the first one to say that I rely heavily on their infinite wisdom and I am not ashamed to admit it :)

I was perusing the internet of course and I came a across the idea of a Family Command Central Binder from the Simplify101 blog. Aby has some amazing organization ideas and projects and also offers online courses. I could definitely use a class or two but for now I am trying to work my way through this stuff solo.

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Once I read more about the binder and how it works I felt like this was something that was doable. I could tackle it in a relatively short amount of time and it would hopefully last me more than a week. The great thing about a single binder is that it doesn’t take up a lot of space and if you use dividers with pockets and plastic sleeves it can hold a ton.

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The only supplies you need are a 3-ring binder, dividers and plastic sleeves. I got all of mine supplies from Target including the cute polka dot binder! I decided to pretty my binder up with another gold name plate like the ones I used here on my storage boxes.

Another great thing about this binder is that you can customize your tabs to fit your needs. Here are the tabs that I created for our family and I have several tabs left over to add. Once I have been using it for a few weeks I am sure I will have to tweak the categories or I will realize that there are some that aren’t necessary.

I am definitely going to add a family meal plan section once I gather more ideas and new recipes.

IMG_6178Now I have emergency numbers in one place if we have a babysitter. My bills to be paid are in one contained area with a list of all our bills, the amounts and due dates. Our school and sports schedules are easily accessible and I don’t have to dig through the school website every time I need to put my hands on it.

IMG_6183Our coupons are now corralled into one place and I can just pull them out when we are going to the store. I have a place to jot down spur of the moment blog post ideas. Our home paint colors are now written down so if I need to touch up or replenish I don’t have to dig through the messy garage. Hold on garage I will get to you eventually…

I also have a section for our pet information so when we go out of town the sitter can have the instructions at her fingertips.

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You can also see that I have a budget section in my binder and this is how mine is going to be different than just a family command binder. I was going to create a separate binder for our new budget system but our finances luckily are pretty simple (and small) so I didn’t need a lot of room.

I decided to add a monthly budget, financial statement and tax category. I am hoping this will allow me to be more on top of our finances as soon as I get a solid system in place. I can also simply remove the finances section for privacy if need be.

Another great blog that I follow is Pretty Well Organized and I purchased Wendy’s Budget Binder download from her Etsy shop for $5 and had them printed at Staples so I didn’t have to create my own templates. I don’t have Microsoft Word or Excel on my Mac so I thought this would be easier than splurging on those programs!

I love Staples because I can upload my files directly to their site and order the prints online and they will be ready for me to pick up in the store in a day or two.

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I also used a few printables from one of my favorite blogs, I Heart Organizing, to use for our paint color tab and blog post ideas tab. Jen has lots of beautiful and functional printables on her blog so you should check it out!

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So that’s it! Do you think a family command binder would help you organize your family and counter clutter?

If you have any great organizing ideas I am all ears because I can use all the help I can get!

I hope you have a wonderful evening and don’t forget you can subscribe to get my posts delivered directly to your email! Just sign up in the subscribe box at the top left! Thanks for reading!

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9 Comments

  1. Hi, i like your cute binder and nameplate. However, do you REALLY want a petsitter having all your financial papers at their nosy fingertips along with the pet info? Seems a safer method would be to have a separate binder (maybe just a 1/2 inch binder) just for pet / house sitters.
    Mine has pet info / emergency info / quirks of each room (for instance the light over the stove will only stay on with a toothpick stuck in the switch). Anything else is none of their business.
    You have a lovely blog, i’m having fun exploring it.

  2. Hi, Summer,
    Thanks so much for mentioning simplify 101 in your post. I hope you enjoy your command central binder – it has been a life saver for me and my family!
    Happy organizing!
    Aby

  3. Wow! The organized mind…it always boggles me. Maybe if I continue to read your posts I will be able to stick to a system myself!

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