The Queen of KAOS @Home

Do you feel guilty when you brainstorm inexpensive christmas gift ideas? 

Do you think that your kids will be doing with out? That you are a mean mom (or sister, or wife or daughter). 

There is no doubt that much of our Christmas traditions are for kids and family - the presents, the goodies, and the good cheer of the adults who make being a kid a little more fun.

But without the presents and the goodies, can we still have Christmas? Can it still be special?

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by Maria GraciaStart off each day in an organized way, and you’ll get more done than you can imagine. Here are 5 simple steps.

1. MAKE A TO DO LIST. Make a list of the things you have to do tomorrow, the evening before. Prioritize and organize each item in the sequence that it should be accomplished. Consolidate similar tasks together. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll have a clear-cut guide detailing everything that must be done.
2. BE CAREFUL OF GETTING DIVERTED. Very often, a schedule gets thrown off track due to distraction. If you find that you constantly get off track, get a watch with a timer and set it so it goes off every 30 minutes. Every time it sounds, be sure you’re working on what you originally said you would. If you’re not, stop what you’re doing and get back on schedule. Most distractions are not emergency situations.
3. CALL BEFORE YOU LEAVE. If you have an appointment during the day, always call to confirm before you leave your home or office. This will ensure that the person you’re meeting did not forget about the appointment. Also, if there is going to be a long waiting time, perhaps you can do something else first, before you leave.
4. CHECK OFF ITEMS AS YOU COMPLETE THEM. Every time you finish something, cross it off your To Do List. This will give you a sense of accomplishment throughout the day.
5. DO A FINAL CHECK. At the end of the day, take a look at your list. How many items were you able to accomplish? Are there only 1-2 things left undone, or many? If there were just a few undone, simply move them to tomorrow’s To Do List. If there were many undone, and you worked diligently on everything all day, then you probably had too many things on your list to begin with. Re-think how much you can possibly do in a given day. Remember, you only have 24 hours, and you should be using a third of those hours to sleep!

by Maria Gracia - Get Organized Now!â„¢
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In response to a recent Living on a Dime story about budgeting, Yvonne writes: My problem is not setting up a budget but sticking to a budget. Gas costs what it costs. Groceries - It is expensive to eat healthy. Do you have suggestions for how to live on a budget? We don’t do a lot of things but we seem to overspend our budget each month. And I know there is no way my husband is going to keep track of every penny he spends. Please help!

Tawra: This is a question that I receive frequently. Many people feel that the thought of budgeting is too daunting. My first thought is that if you set up a budget and can’t stick to it, either your budget, your spending or both are not realistic.

One thing I should mention up front is that there are several reasons why you might make a budget and how you handle your budget depends largely on why you have one. Here are the main two groups:

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Keeping a clean house can seem to be an impossible task some days. Too many of these days can start to wear not only on our house, but on our state of mind too. And that of our family.

When I finally found myself getting “on top” of the piles and constant struggle to keep the mess away, I realized that the reason I was able to do it was one thing - CONSISTANT ACTION.

ACTION IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

I’ll say it again!

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By: Aurelia Williams

Do you ever feel guilty when you buy yourself a two dollar bottle of nail polish? How about when you take the long way home from a quick ride to the store just to get some extra quiet time, and when you get home the kids ask, “what took you so long?” does this make you feel like you did something wrong? I am here to tell you that you shouldn’t feel an ounce of guilt!

Moms always seem to give, give, and give some more until we’re running on empty. The truth of the matter is; if you don’t take time to yourself on a regular basis, you’re going to end up feeling deprived and downright exhausted. What good are you to yourself, friends and your family if you’re too tired and irritable to do the things you need to do each day?

Here are a few tips to help you overcome feeling guilty for setting aside time for yourself:

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Although I could spend some more time finishing up a few decluttering projects, I am going to spend some time today decluttering with Christmas in mind.

Where are we putting the tree? Maybe a nice Christmas display? Maybe wash some windows if it isn’t too cold, for some window decorations.

I have always been the original scrooge at Christmas (except when I was a kid!) It usually has just been all too much.

But this year I can already see a difference. I am actually looking forward to the fun of decorating and even gift giving.

Why? For one reason, the house is for the most part looking pretty good, so it will be much easier to actually decorate.

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When I saw this, it immediately came to mind that I better gather some pictures for Christmas gifts, the grandmother’s always love them.

But this year there are no gramma’s to give them too.

Nana Brown used to collect family pictures. They covered her livingroom and every time you went to visit you would get updates on who was doing what, she always knew.

At reunions, and funerals, many times I recognized the people there from the photographs in her livingroom. Her updates made it easier to know them and to put me at ease when I met them.

She would have loved this. If you have gramma’s and grampa’s, check it out, it’s an electronic picture frame that works a little like a power point presentation, you can load your pictures into it and then they can watch a never ending presentation of their favourite people :0)

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First thing Monday I got the call that my husband’s grandmother had passed, our Nana Brown.

 She was an amazing woman, one who was far before her time, having one of her children out of wedlock back when it was certainly not cool, being married three times… one marriage isn’t talked about much, I gather it wasn’t all roses, and she lost two good men, one to the war and one to a tragic work accident, leaving her for many years of her life raising 4 girls alone.

Having only 2 girls, I can only imagine!

My husband often called her Mukluk Annie, a family nickname but he doesn’t know where the name came from. I searched “the google”, and I think it was because she got her drivers license when she was 56 and did a lot of travelling, especially in Northern Ontario where she had family. There is a famous restaurant in the middle of nowhere in the Yukon near Alaska named Mukluk Annie’s.

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Jeff from Maryland writes: My wife and I would like to use some kind of simple budget program on the computer. Can you give any suggestions or what you use? Thanks for your help.

Tawra: Mike and I use a paper budgeting system, listing all of our income and expenses. We don’t recommend using complex computer programs, like those that require you to enter every receipt for every purchase, though a simple spreadsheet works well. If you make things too complex, you will get frustrated with it and quit.

Here is a recent example of our budget. We rarely have to look at it, since we pretty much have it memorized. The budget just gives a guideline for spending. We tend to re-make the budget whenever we have a significant change in our income so we can determine what we need to cut or where we’d like the surplus to go. If you have an increase in income and don’t budget it, you will find that the money will get spent even if you don’t know where it goes, so it is best to decide where you want it and budget accordingly.

For our readers, we have created a simple version of our form that you can download and use. We have three versions available (below). If you prefer to have the form perform the calculations and you have a program that can use Excel files, the Excel Budget form below will calculate your income and expenses and also project your budget surplus or shortfall.

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by Maria Gracia‘Spring Ahead. Fall Back.’ That little saying always helps us remember whether we should set the clock ahead or back one hour. Similar little sayings, are also great for helping you to get and stay organized. Here are just a few:

1. A HOME FOR EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE. Every item you have, no matter what it is, should have a designated home. For instance, the home for your magazines might be your magazine holder, which is located on your bookshelf. Or your home for your extra file folders and labels, might be the top shelf of your office supplies cabinet.If an item doesn’t have a specific home, it’s considered to be ‘homeless.’ Something that is homeless, tends to get lost.

   Designate a specific home for all of your stuff. Then, be sure that everything taken, gets returned to its home when done being used.

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