Keep Your Organizing Simple and Save

Tawra and I went to the printer this morning. We had to go over some things about the book with the printer’s computer whiz . As we sat there, Tawra said, “Wow! That’s some dry erase board you have there. Maybe that is what I need to get organized!”

It was a pretty good sized board. It did have everyone’s schedules very organized and it was placed where everyone could see. The guy laughed and said, “Yeah, about a year ago the company paid for a computer program to help everyone get organized but it isn’t working at all so we are back to the dry erase board.”

Here is the best part: The company paid and is still paying $25,000 every year to use the computer program that no one can use!

You can imagine how that blew our frugal little minds. What frustrates me the most is that people complain so much about the high price of gas but don’t bat an eye about spending big money for crazy things like that computer program. I guess I just don’t understand it. I know it was a company but there are a lot of people who, in their own individual lives, do the same thing.

I’ve known many people who buy expensive programs for their computers to get themselves organized or, better yet (don’t start throwing tomatoes at me), expensive day planners but I have not been able to figure out any real difference between one of those and the very cheap little notebook and wall calender that I use.

It’s all just a bunch of paper and, to save $25-$50, I will happily take a ruler and draw a little calender for my little notebook or cut cardboards for tabs. You can even buy tabs for very little money if you need to separate pages and you’ll still save a lot.

Okay, now you can throw the tomatoes. Forgive me for airing one of my pet peeves because I know most people can’t live without their day planners and even my own daughter just recently broke down and bought one. (Oh, where did I go wrong?? 🙂 🙂

I do use a simple notebook, in which I keep a to do list, a who to call list, and a menus and shopping list. Then I have other little sections (Christmas list, honey do list, etc.) and I use a colored paper clip mark them, so I have a day planner, too. Mine just cost me $.25 and not $25.00.

-Jill

PS. There really isn’t anything wrong with day planners or using them. My point is that they’re just one of many little things that are very expensive and we could make do with something less expensive to save, especially when, like exercise equipment, many people buy them and never use them.

When we moan and groan saying, “I can’t cut back on anything else,” day planners fall into the category of things we don’t think about where maybe we shouldn’t spend the money on one if we can’t afford it.

Disclaimer from Tawra:

After purchasing a $40 day planner, I went to the thrift store and found one for $3, that worked even better and hadn’t been used, so I took the other day planner back to the store. I have had to “laminate”a couple of pages myself using contact paper, but it’s worked out very well.

Another tip: If you need to make your laminated pages movable (like my daily food log), you can just cut a slit in the paper next to the holes and then you can easily move them each day or week.

      -Tawra (who still isn’t “one” with her day planner but trying).

P.S. I have totally gotten rid of my day planner since this was published. 🙂  Day planners and I are not “one”!

P.S. P.S. Like mother like daughter 🙂  Jill

 

photo by: generationbass