Because it’s Valentines’ Day I feel like I need to talk about something romantic…but this week, I’ve planned to do posts for all of the frugal organizational projects I’ve done lately. This is a slight deviation. It’s a frugal project, but with a heart theme

I wrote in my book, Shopping & Cooking Frugally, I love bath stuff, so I’ve tried to find ways of making some of what I love at home. I consider bath fizzies to be a lovely treat, but the price just keeps on rising for those!

Have you priced bath fizzies? I used to balk at paying $1 each, but now they’re going for $2.69 each at our grocery store.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

Not only was this week Valentines’ Day, but a friend of my girls’ is having a birthday this week, and I thought this would make a great gift for her.

Homemade Bath Fizzies

(makes about 35-40 small bath fizzies)

I realized while cleaning my pantry I had some Citric Acid leftover from when I had been sprouting (it helps with mold). That’s the most expensive ingredient. You can find it at the health food store, some pharmacies, or online.

The other ingredients: baking soda, corn startch, water, food coloring, and essential oils we usually have in house. Perfume would work too.

Start by sifting together:

• 1 3/4 cup of baking soda
• 1 cup of citric acid
• 1 cup of corn starch

Fill a little spray bottle with water and add some food coloring. This is optional, if you want them colored. I chose red, as I’m going to make hearts.

Remove 1 cup of the mixture into another bowl (because it’s easier to work 1 cup at a time), and spritz your mix a couple of times, mix together, spritz again…you don’t want to get it too wet, or it will fizz on you before bathtime.

Keep on going until it’s just moistened enough for you to squeeze it, and it stays together.

Add about 5-8 drops of your favorite essential oil. I added 4 drops of Ylang Ylang and 4 drops of Rose Blend.

Push into an ice cube tray or other mold. I find something without too much definition works well. This heart shaped silicone one I have was found for 25 cents at our local Goodwill! The Silicone ones work well, as it’s easier to pop the fizzies out.

Another option is to use a two piece hollow ball or container from a vending machine (the ones with little toys in them). This would make larger ones.

Let them sit for about 30 minutes, to dry a bit.

Pop them out.

Let them dry a bit more on a tray or other dry surface, while you make another batch.

If they crumble (And that happens), you can use the crumbles in your bath too. They just don’t look as nice for a gift

I found this adorable jar with lid (At the top of post) for $1 at Salvation Army, and this candy dish was part of a box of stuff I bought at an auction last month for $5 a box.When you wash out a container to store them in, make sure it is completely absolutely dry before putting the fizzies in there! A tight fitting lid will help keep out moisture.

I’m giving our friend this pretty dish, with the bath fizzies, as her birthday present.

The other stuff is for me and my girls.

To use, just drop one into the bath while you’re in it. It will fizz up and make a nice smelling bath.

Happy Valentines’ Day,

Well, this hat hanger out of clothespins could actually actually hang pretty much anything, not just hats. Simple, cheap, diy goodness!

This is one of the projects I did to help my younger girls organize their room better, after we decluttered of course.

E. has lots of hats and so I wanted to figure a way to hang them better. At the time they were all stacked on the bed posts, and falling over onto the floor all the time. This works a little bit better, I think

I went downstairs and found an extra piece of wood about yeah long. (actual length is relative to what kind of wood you have available to use, how much room you have, and how many things you need to hang up…it really doesn’t matter…ours is roughly 24 inches).

We chose to paint our wood and our clothespins just to make them look a little nicer, but that probably isn’t even necessary. I was winging it (you can probably tell from the photos).

I had this nifty bottle of paint left over after about 8 years!

This is my little bottle of metallic paint that is something like the “Widow’s cruse of oil” in 1 Kings 17…I bought it about 8 years ago, and painted oh-so-many things with it, and still it’s only about 1/4 of the way gone. It’s a miracle! It makes everything look as though I stained it, but with a slight metallic luster.

Then I pulled out some wooden clothes pins, but I suppose if you have the plastic kind, they’d work too.

We painted the wood and clothespins to match. Probably not a good idea to paint clothespins, as that hindered how easily they opened and closed, but I painted them anyway. And they were a pain to paint. Keep that in mind.

Later that day, after all was dried, I took a hot glue gun, and glued the clothespins at specific intervals away from each other.

We hung them up with screws and wall anchors on the wall, although a couple of picture hangers on the back would probably work too.

One major issue with keeping anything clean and organized is that many of us have frankly too much stuff.

Many times, children have more toys and clothes many times than they know what to do with or can properly organize by themselves. This makes it frustrating for them when you tell them to “go clean your room”, because they may not have enough room to put it all neatly, but that may not be apparent to them. Kids may not see exactly what the stumbling block to a clean room really is.

We just recently did a major decluttering of the bedroom of my youngest two daughters, brought on by a repair project, and long overdue. I’ve spent the last month doing some home repair projects on a house I’m losing to foreclosure. I didn’t really want to, but we knew if we left the problem go for too long, we’d have an even bigger (and expensive) problem on our hands if the whole plaster wall came down.

We painted the room after the plaster patching as an incentive to empty the room and go through everything. It worked.

I try to tread carefully when cleaning out one of my kids’ rooms, especially now that they are older. I want this part of my house clean, but I have to remember to respect that many of these things are theirs, and may have sentimental value attached…gifts from friends and grandparents, mementos from field trips that look like junk to me

The contents of their tiny bedroom filled the ample upstairs hallway to the ceiling, the upstairs bathroom, part of my bedroom, and most of the entryway.  My oldest joked that we looked like we were auditioning for Hoarders.  It took us longer to go through it all than it did to paint walls and add a fresh couple of coats of poly to the floor.

During this whole process, a few friends on Facebook asked how to go about decluttering a kids’ room when they are older, so I thought I’d write a bit on that, before sharing (next week) some super frugal (mostly zero-budget) organizational crafts and quick fixes on the bedrooms that needed fixing.

We had these principles that I came up with, and stressed to them both as we weeding through everything, to help with the process. It’s similar to what one would say to an adult decluttering, but I’ve simplified it down.

Put Seasonal Stuff Away

I shouldn’t be tripping over flip flops in January in Michigan. I shouldn’t see a heavy winter coat on the back of your door in July.

I have a spot (as many families do I think) for totes and bins full of seasonal wear, that we change out every season. We don’t always remember to do it though. The first thing we did was pull out all summer clothing and toys (etc.) and put them into storage, if possible.

If It Doesn’t Fit (or You Don’t Love It), Bless Someone Else

This is pretty straightforward.

If it doesn’t fit, it shouldn’t be in your dresser or closet.

(we moms need to do that too, don’t we?

The same is true for anything that you have that fits, but you don’t ever wear because you don’t like it. I found that kids, like adults, sometimes hang onto things so as to not hurt the feelings of someone who gave it to them.

The exception here is anything that is part of a necessary uniform. Our kids sing in choir, and do all sorts of activities. Most of the time, the girls need a white blouse and a black skirt for these things. Even if you don’t love the only black skirt I could find in your size at the time on short notice before the Christmas cantata, you’re keeping it.

If some “object” doesn’t fit in the room, we need to get rid of it if we don’t have a place for it, especially if we don’t have a “need” for it.  We were able to bless another family with our old metal school desks, which no longer fit our very tall children, and which don’t fit anywhere in the house either.

Get Rid of (or Store) Duplicates

– no one needs 6 pairs of black sweat pants in their dresser. Right?

When we are battling clutter, sometimes we buy (or fetch from other parts of the house) duplicates of what we already have, but cannot find. Pencils, pens, boxes of Tissue, dustpans, boxes of small garbage bags…

All of this translates to clutter.

Now if you’ve read my blog a bit or ready some of my books, you’ll note I am big on bulk buying and stocking up when things are on sale for a great deal. That’s not what I’m talking about here. When you stock up on something due to a great deal, you don’t unpack it all at once. You store the extras out of the way, so as to not clutter up the rest of the house.

Well, when you are decluttering a room and you find extras, you need to either get rid of it (too many clothing items of the same kind that you don’t need — that is, it’s not a uniform for work or something like that), or put it away in the spot in your house where extras of that item are stored.

In this case, we had one particularly artistic child who had pencils everywhere. I actually filled a cleaning bucket with PENCILS I found. And so, extra pencils (and other office supplies) were put away for later into a common storage area (ours is a drawer in the china cabinet). This is a good way to declutter your desk too.

Damaged (and Unfixable) Items Go to the Curb

Dear husband and I are great bargain hunters, and love thrift stores. I often buy damaged goods that I know I can fix.

But, when you can’t fix an item, it’s time to take it to the curb. I’m talking about stains you can’t get out,holes worn in the wrong spots, tears that are not simple seam repair, broken wood, cracked mirrors, hair elastics that have lost their elastic, broken barettes, hair brushes and combs where the bristles have broken off…you get the picture.

One or two stained up clothes are good for painting and gardening activities, but get rid of anything you can’t wear due to stains.

Being  a crafty person, I usually clip off any cool buttons, and embellishments that I can realistically use on something else.

Evaluate the Organizational Needs based on the Clutter Patterns

I know that Flylady (who I love) says frequently “You can’t organize clutter”. She is right. Sort of.

Just buying organizational stuff isn’t going to fix a clutter problem. You need to go through the first four steps first, and just empty the space as much as possible of anything that is unnecessary or unwanted.

But, in the case of children’s rooms especially, but also any room, there may be better ways to organize and set up the space (many times without blowing money at Target! ). We just have to figure that out.

A simple solution, to give you an idea, was a simple old can used for a pencil cup for the pencil-hoarder. I had a lot of smaller cans from the tiny cans of tomato sauce that went on sale, and we set up smaller cans to be used for things like hair elastics and barettes. We figured out a better way to set up jewelry with items we already had, but which made it look nice.

I noted that one kid wrote notes to herself on the wall. (I let her wash it all of and see why that drives me nuts). I had leftover chalkboard paint from this, so I painted a 6″ stripe of chalkboard on their wall.

I’m going to post next week different individual projects I came up with, using things I already had on hand (you have to love that), to give you some ideas.

Have a great weekend,

I was recently re-reading The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer, and feeling a bit inspired (and convicted).

Has that ever happened to you?

Naturally speaking, I am not a very “homemaker” sort of person. Sorry if that disappoints anyone .

What I mean is, I’m not naturally gifted in domestic things, cleaning, tidying up, keeping things orderly.

I see the need. I like things clean and tidy, but I tend to be very frustrated by it because I’m not so good at it. I love order and organization, but without intense, deliberate effort, it eludes me.

I stand in awe when someone can keep things in their home orderly with little effort. My mom is like this. I think my tendency to not be like that caused every one of her gray hairs. She used to spend a lot of time telling me to clean my room, when it looked perfectly clean to me, and reminding me that I’m smart…so smart that this shouldn’t be so difficult.

But it was.

Mrs. Schaeffer explains it in terms I relate more to – like creating art instead of the “drudgery” I always thought it was. The Hidden Art of Homemaking helps me to relate better to homemaking and keeping house. Hidden art. I like that.

It helped me when I first got the book some 17 years ago now. I remember getting it while pregnant with my son, and I was still reading it when he was born.

Approaching housework like an art project has helped me over the years, because art I understand. Art is a natural gift I have.

And, over the years, my organizational and homemaking skills have improved dramatically. I still have to apologize for non existent messes that apparently only my mom can see,  whenever she comes over.

Coming at this homemaking thing from both perspectives helps me in training my children in helping out. One of my children has the elusive neatnik gene. The rest are like me and their father. .

What helped me more than anything else was getting that fresh perspective that cleaning up was in many ways a work of art…I was creating an installation of sorts. My home is an exhibit, a reflection of who we are as a family, and who I am as the manager of that home.

Zoinks!

Mrs. Schaeffer adds these penetrating thoughts,

…After all, we are an art form. I do not meant that we produce are consciously now, but I mean we are an art form, whether we think of it or not, and whether we do anything about it or not…Just as “The Environment” created by modern artists in the museums involves people when they simply walk in, so we are an environment which is affecting people around us…We produce an environment other people have to live in….

In the power of the Holy Spirit we can be an environment that is really an art form God can be using directly to affect and involve other people….

But it is not just aspects of your character, perspective, personality, attitudes, or spiritual state which will affect the lives of others working or living by your side. It is also your appearance and the way you care for the things in the bedroom, the bathroom, and the kitchen!

Edith Schaeffer, Hidden Art (Of Homemaking), p. 208-209

What kind of “environment” are you? What kind do you want to be?

Well, we’ve come to the end of this series on being more Organized with our Menu Planning and Shopping, so as to help us save time, money, and sanity while preserving our family meal time.

The most important instruction is this: Just do it.

Start.

Start small if you need to. Or start big, if you prefer.

Don’t just read about menu planning. Put it into action.

Don’t worry about perfection. Every little bit with help inch you towards better organization and being more frugal with your grocery money.

I know I showed you some very neat ways to display a menu. You don’t have to wait until you have found the perfect chalkboard or have gathered up your materials before you can begin.

Get started now. Today is a Thursday. You have a few days before the beginning of a new week.You can do this!

To help you get started, here’s a handy, downloadable, printable menu plan chart.

Happy Menu Planning,

As I said at the start of this series, mine is not the “one right way” to plan your menu. You have to do what works for you.

Well, in discussing the matter with several friends, it would seem that most people either plan for a month (some even shop for a month and some cook for a month too!), or by the week based on the sale flyers, but a few had some other creative methods I’d like to share with you.

Family Member Favorite Night

One mom allowed each member of the family (she has 6 children) pick the meal for each day of the week. For example, child one is Monday, so they planned all of the Mondays, child 2 planned for Tuesday, etc.

As long as you don’t have any kids who are stuck on one food that may work. In my house there’s one day a week that we’d probably always have pancakes or french toast though.

We implement this in a small way — the birthday child gets to name the meal on their birthday.

Luck of the Draw

This is a variation on what I suggested, regarding writing out all of your favorite meals from your family. My friend puts her favorite meals on an index card (the index card also has the recipe too), and when the time comes to plan her menu, she randomly draws cards out of a bag.  She said that every favorite frugal meal is in there twice, and she plans 4 weeks at a time, but this could work for one week at a time too.  I think I may use this if ever I am stumped!

She displays them on her fridge in page protectors with pockets for index cards, which is handy – you have your menu and recipes right there.

Luck of the Draw, #2

Another variation on this same technique: another friend does something similar, but she has a box of side dishes, of main dishes, of breakfasts, and of lunches, and even desserts, and she pulls randomly from these.

(that could create some interesting combinations, huh?)

Try Something New Day

Many of the ladies I talked to have a different day of the week to try something new, or try out a new recipe. I thought this was a great idea too. We seem to do the same ones over and over again, but I think I’m going to schedule one day a month to try new recipes. Some of them do a new recipe once a week.

Magazine Suggestion Menus

One of my friends (with a toddler and a baby) said that she pulls the menu calendar out of a popular women’s magazine, and follows that, making minor changes to suit her family. She finds this easier because it comes with a shopping list, and the work is done for her. Plus, her children are still so little, they don’t have too many preferences yet. I’ve seen this in a few different magazines, including some healthy living magazines.

Do you have a favorite way to plan your menu? Do share!

One thing that will make the implementation of our menus more organized and frugal is figuring out the best places, locally, to purchase ingredients for those items on our regular menu.

Our family lives rurally, so everything for us is a drive in one direction or another. I have to be orderly about how I go shopping, because gas is expensive, and my time is valuable. My bulk foods store is in one direction, my favorite grocery stores are in the other, and the health food store is off in yet another direction. I some weeks I go in one direction, some weeks in another, and most weeks I just go in the direction of my normal grocery stores.

What do I mean by sources?

Well, as I mention in my book, Joyful Momma’s Guide to Shopping and Cooking Frugally, there are a few ways we can shop. If we just go into the store, one store, and buy everything there, we may not be getting the best deals. Many stores entice us with “loss leaders” — those great deals which save us money and get us in the door, but they make their money on jacking up other prices. We’ve got to beat them at their own game, without wasting our savings on added fuel for the car!

Here are some sources to look for locally that could potentially save you big bucks:

Bulk Foods — No, I’m not talking about a Warehouse Club (those tend to be pricey). I mean some sort of whole foods natural store or food co-op, which sells items with minimal packaging in bulk. Ours is run by the Mennonites. Some Seventh Day Adventist congregations have small food co-ops too. This is a great place to buy staple items such as flour, wheat, grains, beans, coffee, and spices.

Heath Foods — most of the time these can be pricey too, so shop around. A good health foods’ store can have a great deal on items such as herbs and spices, vitamins, and specialty health foods such as coconut oil. If you have food allergies in your family, they can be a source of allergen-free foods, usually for a good price (depending on the store of course).

Bread Thrift Store — if you use a lot of bread for sandwiches, a bread thrift store offers huge savings. Huge. I spend about $4.50 a week at the bread thrift store on about $15 worth of all natural, whole grain breads. Bread that normally sells for $4 and up in the store is discounted to 89 cents a loaf (or less).

Ding n Dent Store — Sometimes you can find a “value center” or ‘ding n dent” (usually as part of another store) which sells slightly outdated or damaged items for a super price. I buy my tortillas at one (4 for a $1 on 12 packs of tortillas, instead of paying $1.89 a pack. Huge savings!). What they have tends to vary with what outdated/damaged goods they have in stock.  Some stores have a smaller section of “damaged goods” or “clearance items”, usually near the bottle return area. Recently I bought several bags of decaf Starbucks Brand whole bean coffee (Italian roast!) that was discounted down to $2.50 a bag, and I then used my $2 off coupons on those. You never know what you might find!

Drug Store — Drug Stores don’t just sell drugs.   In our area, we have Walgreens and Rite Aid, and their weekly deals can sometimes allow me to stock up on staple items, toiletries, and personal care products. Don’t forget to look into their weekly sales flyers when planning your shopping trip for your menu items.

Dollar Store — like the drug stores, some Dollar stores can have good deals on some items, but be careful. They make up for those great deals by charging way too much on other items. Again, some staple items, and toiletries are priced well there on sale. My cell phone also came from the dollar store, and is comparable to my old blackberry, but costing only $15 a month.

Farmer’s Market or Vegetable Stand — Here in Michigan, we don’t have these year round. I am thankful for those times in summer when I can buy locally grown sweet corn and other veggies from local farmers for a much better deal than the stores. Ditto for eggs, local honey, local maple syrup, and even local freezer meat. An added plus: you’re supporting the local economy and blessing your neighbors.

Meat Market — I went into this in my book Shopping and Cooking Frugally, but grocery store meat grosses me out. Big time. The exception is tubes of frozen ground beef or turkey, which seems to be fresh(er). Look into local meat markets, where you can walk up to the butcher counter and have your meat packed while you watched. The price is usually significantly lower, and the quality higher. Some meat markets will also allow you to buy in bulk (ordering ahead of course). We get our boneless skinless chicken bread in a 40 pound case, which lowers the cost per pound. Most meat markets have a regular rotation of what is on sale and when.

Supermarket Deli — or regular deli. If you use lunchmeat or sliced cheese at all, those packages are a rip off. Look at how many ounces are in the package. There are 16 ounces in a pound, and most of those packages are not even close to that, yet cost more than the price per pound at the deli. Most deli’s have a regular rotation of what goes on sale, too.

A Coupon-Doubling Supermarket — look into the coupon doubling policies of your local grocery stores. A doubled coupon is where a coupon’s face value is doubled by the store. Many stores around here will double up to 50 cents. So, only coupons worth 50 cents or less are doubled (to give you $1 off). One store doubles to $1, giving me $2 off for each of those coupons. Watch for sales, and combine those sales with coupons, for big savings on the items you need.

For more information on couponing, you can read my article on the 12 simple steps to start couponing.

Happy Shopping,

Would you like a “freebie”? There’s a freebie at the end of this post!

That probably got your attention, huh?

Today, let’s talk a little bit about how we’re cooking, and how to make homemade frugal foods taste better. After all, there’s no point in planning a menu of homemade tasty goodness if your family is begging after Taco Bell. Let’s try to change that!

In emails I get and conversations I’ve had, it seems that seasoning foods is a matter of confusion for many women, and it’s part of the reason why many use packaged foods and take out so often. It’s hard to get homemade foods to get the same kinds of flavor if you are unfamiliar with spices and seasonings.

I was blessed to learn how to properly season first as an exchange student and later as an Au Pair in Austria. It was like my very own apprenticeship into frugal homemade cookery! I’m thankful to be able to pass some of that knowledge along. My husband comments over my shoulder  that he is thankful to be married nearly 20 years to a great cook. Awww.

When we are making frugal meals, and when we’re trying to save more money at the grocery store (as well as cook healthier), our meals don’t have to taste flavorless and bland. We can create meals that are a feast for all of the senses on a tight budget.

In short, being frugal doesn’t mean that we don’t get to enjoy the spice of life. There are many ways to make even the most frugal meal taste amazing. Rice and beans can be just plain old rice and beans…or it can be an incredible fiesta at your dinner table. It’s all in the seasonings, ladies.

I have devoted a whole chapter in Joyful Momma’s Guide to Shopping and Cooking Frugally to this very topic! I was pretty blessed to see that most of the reviews on blogs and on Amazon.com for this book mention my instructions for seasoning frugal foods well. I saw a need and wanted to meet it, and apparently I hit the target I was aiming at.  Actually, I was just plain blessed by the reviews in general. But I digress…

Here’s the good news: I’m going to give you a small freebie from that book.

What am I giving away? It’s a handy seasoning guide, to help you know how what spices and seasonings to use to achieve which flavors.

If you're on Pinterest, and you're blessed by this handy seasoning guide, would you do me a favor, and "pin" this image, linking back to this page, or "liking' this post on Facebook? There's a button at the end of this post. Thanks!

You can download Seasoning Frugal Foods with Herbs & Spices here.

As you can see from the seasoning chart, certain spices and herbs go well together. By combining them, you can create different flavors. Most of the time, when I’m cooking, my seasonings are “to taste”. I don’t really measure spices, except when I’m baking.

Most of these herbs and spices can be bought very frugally in some kind of bulk foods store (whole foods co-op) or health food store. If you are purchasing herbs and spices “in bulk” they may say on the bin something like $32.75 per pound. Don’t freak out . Most of those little jars in the store contain a half an ounce, and can cost $4-12 (depending on the spice). You’ll not be buying a pound of any spice. You’ll buy an ounce at most.

Herbs and spices can be stored in glass jars. Jars from salsa are a great size and shape, as are old baby food jars.

Sometimes fresh works best for some herbs (basil and cilantro in particular — nothing compares to fresh basil, and though fresh cilantro smells gross, it really adds some kick to Mexican dishes). These can be easily grown at home, even if only in a pot on your windowsill. Pluck off leaves as you need them. A little goes a long way.

I’ve also included some vegetables and other ingredients common in certain kinds of dishes, to help give it a good flavor. For example, we love Asian dishes. Two flavors that goes well in Indian and Asian food are Coconut milk and Sesame Oil. Whenever I have a coupon for either of these, and it goes on sale, I stock up a little on items like that. I have found that every few months, most of these more “exotic” ingredients do go on sale, and I do find coupons for them too. A little goes a long way with either of them too.

Did you get your copy yet? You can download Seasoning Frugal Foods with Herbs & Spices here.

Happy Seasonings,

I mentioned earlier that I prefer to do a 4 week (monthly) menu plan, and that I find this saves me money. Mostly this is because I love having a well stocked pantry, and I have a fantastically frugal bulk foods source near us and I buy my meat in bulk as well.

The monthly menu plan isn’t the only way to plan for maximum savings, though.

Particularly if space is at a premium for you, you may find huge savings with the weekly deals menu planning method.

How does this work?

Well, each week, when I get my newspapers (I get 3 subscriptions of Sunday only, primarily for the coupons), I look through the sale flyers for all local stores in the paper. Then I take what is on sale (especially if I have a coupon for it), and I plan meals around what the best deals for that week are going to be. By the way, don’t forget to print off some free coupons from my site, while you’re at it!

Alternatively, you could plan your menu for the following week, if you shop later in the week.

This method can also be used to flesh out a more general monthly menu plan.

With my monthly menu plan I do a variation on this. We do plan things about 4 weeks in advance in our household (it works for me), but I sometimes add specific veggies, fruits, and other ingredients depending on what is on sale.

For example, if I am planning Pizza for Friday (which is what we had yesterday), I will decide what goes on the pizza based on what was on sale.  We got some bell peppers 11 for $10 last week, some onions, and some italian sausage, plus 5 Cheese Italian Pizza Blend was what was on sale in the Cheese department.

Assignment:

This week, when the sale flyers arrive via mail or the Sunday paper, look them over, and see how many meals you could possibly make for the week with those items on sale for a great price. Make it a game to see how much you can save in a week, while still preparing meals your family loves.

I’ve talked  a bit about using your menu plan to create a master shopping list and price list, and how that saves money at the grocery store.

Now, I’m going to talk about a different kind of shopping list.

In our family, if someone sees mom doing the dishes, washing a floor, or otherwise “in the zone” doing something, they assume that if they tell me we’re out of something, I will remember it when I next go to the store.

I don’t, usually.

I came up with a plan a few years ago to hopefully remedy this. It involves one of my absolute favorite substances on the planet — chalkboard paint.

I painted a small chalkboard onto the side of one of my cabinets in the kitchen, put some leftover molding around it, and hung some little planters I found at a garage sale to hold the chalk.

Theoretically, this is where anyone who notices we are running low on or out of something should write it down, so I can buy it next time.  We’re still working on them consistently doing this, but it’s getting better

Assignment:

Especially if your children are able to write, having a place to write down “needs” for the shopping list is a good idea. Do you have a spot for your shopping list somewhere handy?