What consumed my time last week?

Listening to this CD:

While working with all of this stuff:

To make all of these things:

Our decorations weren't very fancy, but I think they helped everyone get into the Halloween spirit. Most everything I used to decorate for our Halloween party was purchased at Target's dollar spot. I love that place!!

I wanted to show my punch bowl and share a little trick. Can anyone guess what other purpose the punch bowl serves? It is acutally a glass cake stand with the bottom and the top flipped upside down. Pretty cool huh! Now go see if your cake stand can do this too, I bet it will come in handy someday.

The "Envelopes System"

This month I have decided to try a new budgeting system. The envelope system seems to be a great idea, but it is a little more work. I'll stick to it for at least a few months and let you know how it goes.

You can read more about it here.

Does anyone else do this? What are your secrets to saving money?

Are your cans driving you crazy?!

You can tell me that I am not a genius and it is just a piece of cardboard, but I won't believe you! For the longest time I have struggled with keeping our food storage organized, especially the cans. Some stack, some don't, some are short, some are tall etc. Well, the other day I thought, "Why don't I package my food the way the pros do?" You know how all cases of cans have a layer of cardboard in between? So here it is. I gave each canned product a column of its own and ordered them alphabetically. (I have a lot of shopping to do now to fill the holes.)

Before:
After:




After I put all of the food in I had the idea to cover the cardboard with contact paper to make it look nicer, but I don't care enough right now to do it.

I am extra excited because now I have room to recycle. (That's what the two boxes at the bottom of the pantry are for.)

Anyway, if you are having the same challenge with keeping your food storage organized, I hope this helps!

Now, of course I want you to share your ideas! Any suggestions on organizing food storage?

How I dispose (kill sounds too brutal) of spiders on the ceiling...

Step 1: (The tape is stuck to the end of my broomstick)

Step 2:

Step 3: Wait for Paul to get home to take care of the tape and spider.

What's your filing system?

So, if you hadn't already come to the conclusion on your own, I am telling you now, I am a total nerd! I am like a little kid walking into Toys R Us, when I walk into an office supplies store. Don't ask me why, but ever since I was a kid I have been fascinated with hole punchers, writing utensils, notebooks, calendars, organizing systems, staplers, even rulers and paperclips. I just have a "thing" for office supplies!

OK, on to what this post is really supposed to focus on. As I was packing and unpacking all of my file folders and boxes I got to thinking about my filing system. (I am also kind of obsessed with organizing things.) I thought this might interest some of you. Here's how it goes:

1. Sort through mail - throw away junk and place the rest in appropriate folders. I have two folders on my desk, "to do" and "to file."


2. Sort "to file" paperwork by month. I have an accordion file with a pocket for each month. Most paper from my "to file" folder ends up in this filer under it's corresponding month.


3. Place other information in desk file drawer. This is where I save school information, work information, Addresses, User's manuals, Warranties, catalogs, information that I will need when it is time for Paul (thank goodness!) to do the taxes etc.



4. At the end of the year, but not until after Paul has done the taxes, I take all of the documents from that year out of the month to month filer, and put them in one labeled folder, and add them to our "7 year" box. This is where they will stay for 7 years and then be destroyed.

That's the process for my day to day filing, but there's more. Are you excited?! I also have...

• A file box for all of our very important information that doesn't change often, such as health insurance, renter's information, car information, etc. It is not very often that I have to get into this box.



• It is even less often that I get into our fire safe, where we keep our most important documents that we would definitely not want to lose under any circumstance.

So, that's it. Obviously, it doesn't have to be pretty. (As you can see, I am not a perfectionist and some of my files and boxes are pretty dang old!) It took me a couple of years before I really got a good system in place. I don't know if it is the best, but it works for me.

Now it's your turn to share. How do you manage all of your paperwork?