My diy easy home management binder has been a huge life saver throughout my many years of homeschooling.
Long term goals accomplished are especially sweet and satisfying. I heart organizing but it has to be balanced with caring for a family, homeschooling, leading a field trip group, organizing co-ops, and every other hat I wear.
Home Management Binder
You can see why I enjoyed doing this project that had been planned for a few years. Too, most of you that follow my blog know my obsession with binders and planners so that helped prod me along.
When You Homeschool and Organize
My original inspiration for the cover and colors on this binder came from a card I had bought from Target. I find inspiration in all kinds of things. From there I created other printables throughout the years.
Enjoy the binder and all the free printables as I blogged and shared this with my blog followers first as we created it together!
How to Plan a Home Management Binder – It REALLY Matters
It matters to me because I not only want something that is organized, but useful to my family.
Those two words, many people think are synonymous, but they are not. Something may be quite organized but if it does not fit my needs, then it is a waste of valuable time.
Don’t waste your time, have clear cut expectations what you want out this tool.
Easy Pre-planning for the Home Management Binder
Ask these questions…….
BEFORE you buy supplies, ask yourself these questions;
- How big will it be?
- Do you want something slender or to have pockets to hold kitchen appliance instructions and warranties or will you store most of it digital? Me? I prefer to still have it printed so I can put my fingers on it without having to boot up a device.
I opted for a larger binder because I wanted this baby to work it for me and store all types of warranty and directions needed for house appliances. I wanted it located in one spot and I wanted to add to it as I went along.
- Where will you store this Home Management Binder? Is storage an issue? If so, you may want something more slender.
Initially, I chose a 3 inch brown binder initially from Office Max the {in place brand} like the binders pictured below because it holds 600 pages.
I want to fit all my appliance instructions for my kitchen in it and have plenty of room to grow and expand. {Note you can still use my printables, just not the spine insert which I made for a 3 inch binder unless you choose that size too.}
I can see that changing out binders is beneficial if it gets a lot of use or if you want seasonal changes to match your kitchen.
- How many extra or printables for unique items do you need in your binder?
For instance, I don’t have toddlers anymore and don’t need messages for a babysitter section. You may want babysitter instructions, kids sleep time routines, proper medicine dosage, medical consents or young child’s favorite books and toys section for others who care for your children.
Easy Home Management Binder
In addition, for my family my husband does not work a shift schedule, yours may or may be out of town regularly for work. You may want to include a section for that timetable.
- Do you like color on your printables? I happen to LOVE color and as you notice most of my work is color, including all the free printables for this binder. I figure if I am going to look it at a lot, it better look good.
As I go along, I will pin other free Home Management Printables from other sites, even black and white printables on my Pinterest Board – Home Management Binder.
- How important is it to you that pages are editable?
This is something I learned about myself along the way. I shared with my followers starting out this project hat I thought most of the forms would be hand written {I happen to like to print using different colored hues of pens}.
However, as I went along, I noticed how many of the forms I felt should be printed because of how important the text is like our Family Emergency Plan. I still have some forms to fill in by hand, but realized I really like editable forms.
Supplies Deserve a Starring Role
- Binders are important. I happen to be obsessed with them. I designed covers with many colors in mind so you can change out binders when bored. {me} Use one with clear outside so you can add one of my cover choices OR use one with a designed front.
- Page Protectors. You want to put everything in a page protector.
- A plastic zipper pouch to hold highlighters, acid free pens and other supplies when using your binder.
About the Home Management Binder Printables
- I enjoy sharing and freely share all the printables I make. It’s all my hard work.
- However, please do not download them to other sites. They were created with a creative commons license.
- All of my forms are in color, including the cover.
- A LOT of my forms are EDITABLE.
Important: Be sure to copy/paste a couple of copies of any form you may need to update later. After you fill it in, it may be more work to delete information when you update. So having another copy {or two} of the original is a good back up plan. - All of my forms have lines for DATES on them. It keeps you organized so that you know when you updated last. Be sure to use the date line. One form like Family Apparel will need to be updated more often because children’s sizes change as they grow, whereas the Family Emergency Plan may not need to be updated as often.
- I happen to like Table of Contents in any planner. It serves as a Quick Glance of what forms you have. I provide a free download of my table of contents.
- Also, where possible I try to make wallet size forms. The Family Apparel and Medication Card are smaller than a credit card and need to be printed on plain paper so they fold easily.
- The feel of the Binder is better with cardstock for all the printables but not necessary. ME? I like cardstock and still like to put each page in a page protector.
- Like my 7 Step Homeschool Planner which has several options and growing, I will continue to add forms to this Home Management Binder.
1. Select a Home Management Binder COVER.
{The cover download comes with a spine insert & back cover}. Add a Calendar Section at the front if you like that. I do.
The first step in setting up a home management binder is to choose on these covers I created for you.
Pretty 3 inch binders are not always easy to find so I created some options for you below. Each download comes with a front cover, a back cover, and an insert to go on the spine of the binder,
2. Select a CURRENT CALENDAR Option.
Next, you decide what type of calendar set you want. I have a few choices below.
Also know that I use the 2 page per month calendars for each year which have big boxes for writing. I keep a physical year and academic year for the current year on this page.
3. Add an ABOUT US Section to your Home Management Binder.
This next Add an About US section is one of the most useful for my Home Management Binder. I didn’t realize this until years later as I use it.
I feel it is way more organized to have Medical Information, Family Clothing Sizes, Emergency Plans, Allergies in one spot than to be flipping throughout the binder. Those forms are in this About Us section.
I want to turn to one spot and have it all there. Most all of the forms here in this section are EDITABLE.
About the Family Information Sheet – This form has a box at the top right. I use that to put our neighborhood security gate code.
That box on the form could be used to identify the apartment you live in, subdivision or security codes, or like here in Texas we have FM {farm to market} roads and need more instructions on how to find our house.
Remember to think of these forms as information so that if you are sick or have a trusted babysitter, they have all information they need in one area.
These next forms are the cutest ever that I love! You can keep something like this on your phone or print these which are credit card sized.
4. CONTACT Section for Home Management Binder.
If you are like me, most of your contacts are on your phone.
HOWEVER, the whole idea of using a Home Management Binder Contact section is so that others {your children, your spouse, a friend caring for you while you are sick or resting while pregnant} who may need this list have these useful numbers.
It is also a place for you to store numbers you may not use as often. Most all of the forms here too are editable.
5. HOUSE KEEPING Section for Home Management Binder.
The Daily Chores/Weekly form I created so that ANYBODY could use. Really, don’t we have enough cutesy free forms on the net for young kids? {I love ’em too}. The problem is that they outgrow them real quick.
So I created something that even *I* could use or teenagers. It can be filled out once and then print off one copy for each week or laminate it and use dry erase markers.
Remember use your date at the top line so that if your needs change {kids grow older, I grow older..lol} or you need to update your cleaning routine, you know when you did it last.
The Monthly Cleaning Schedule lets you list for each week what you want to accomplish AND if you choose to use it as checkoff list, there are boxes.
The Weekly Cleaning list your “map overview” to layout your housework.
Fall and spring cleaning list are designed to be used by ROOM. I have seen so many forms that list way more rooms than my house has or not enough.
So by leaving it blank, you make it EXACTLY for your use. Fill in the ROOM in the blank box and list the chores to be done.
Chores – {Daily, Weekly, & Monthly Cleaning}
All Editable Schedules
Chores – {Seasonal}
6. MEAL PLANNING Section.
I happen to be a 30 day menu planner girl! But as expressed I get wild hair from time to time and need something different.
There are {2} 7 Day Menu Planner pages to choose from.
Since I have some girlfriends whose husband works shift work, their week begins on a “different” day. So I just listed the numbers 1 – 7.
Then I provided a “traditional” 7 Day Menu Planner with the days of the week.
Then of course I love 31 Day Menu Planners.
I color coded every 7 days so that you can see one glance at a time. I plan for 30 days but shop weekly. So seeing the whole week at one time speeds up the process for myself.
Also I wanted a full page Recipe Page. {editable yes}. Everything you want in a home management binder.
7. HOME PROJECTS Section.
My goal with this section was to arrange the forms in a way that if your project needed light planning, then only use form 1 and then proceed to form 2 and 3 if your project was more detailed.
For example, gardening is light planning {not light on performing it} but light meaning you have to hire outside help or contractors normally.
Whereas a laundry redo or renovation is more time consuming and details will need to be kept. So for a garden or lighter project, use the first page only. I know some gardens require more detailed planning, but just using that as an example.
That is how I normally approach my form making anyway. I start from easiest to more time consuming planning tasks.
Also, I thought long and hard about the advantages, if any, of having this editable.
I find in working projects they are just that “work in progress”. It would be hard to have all this information to fill out at one time since normally on a project you have to run to stores or locate items on line.
So for me this form will have to be filled out slowly writing in my notes as I made my way through the project.
Download all 3 Home Project Forms.
You may need all the way to form 3 on some projects. This page has an area to list important phone numbers or contacts to remember for this project.
Also, some after project thoughts. When we gutted our older home, I wanted to be sure I remembered a cabinet style I liked when we updated the rest of the cabinets.
Jot down what you want to remember and store it in your binder. Maybe there were some do’s and don’ts you learned and may want to repeat them or not on your next project. Here is the place to do that.
8. FINANCIAL Section.
This form is the Monthly Budget and is EDITABLE. Editable forms, to me, are ones that either set a budget in place or keeps information stored for a while.
Forms to fill in by hand are ones that we either write day by day or add info a little at a time. {like my homeschool planner}.
This monthly budget form should be something your family works toward meeting.
A plan of action! I have “Source” down because some of us need to identify where our incomes comes from.
There may be child support payments, social security for a young child, dividend profits or maybe you contribute to the income on a part time basis or you are the sole provider. Use that area to fill that in.
The GROSS INCOME and EXPENSES boxes were made to be highlighted better.
The MONTHLY SPENDING form is for ACCOUNTABILITY. We have it as much as we don’t like it.
This form is for “Actual Spending”, a tracking form of a sort. So it is not editable because most times we will be hand writing in one expense at a time.
Then a small area at the bottom if we had a deficit or surplus if we saved.
This form can be used to track ANYTIME the budget gets adjusted.
Download 3 Monthly Budget forms.
9. HOME INVENTORY Section.
In this section you include the inventory of your home furnishings, vehicle maintenance, and home appliances and machines.
10. The EXTRAS for your Home Management Binder.
You’ll also love these other diy forms:
