Let's start with the endless paper piles in my house. Lucky for you I don't have a picture of my filing cabinet before. Let me tell you, it was a mess, and did not function well for what I needed. Not only was it tucked into a back corner of my closet, but the hanging files were constantly falling. Because it wasn't functional I found myself just stacking papers on top of the filing cabinet telling myself I'd file them later (which never happened). That being said, functionality was my number one objective for this project. I wanted to be able to find a bill or phone number fast and have it be easy to get to and understand, even for my husband who wasn't home during the long process. The supplies you will need are three ring binders of varying sizes, a pen, a trash bag, a three hole punch, and lots and lots of clear page protectors and dividers, and if you're like me, you'll need lots of time with no kids running around.
The first thing I did was pull out all of the papers and organize them into piles. House, HOA, Insurance, Monthly bills, Ect. Mine looked something like this.
After I had all of my piles made I designated each pile to a specific binder. Here are the categories I used, but just use whatever makes sense for you and your family. One binder was for monthly bills (cell phone, utilities, etc.) as well as any bill that has been paid off, such as credit cards. The next binder was for any and all house info. That is our mortgage payment bills, HOA, title, and Appraisal info. Another binder was for car, health, and house insurance. The next binder contains our bank statements and rewards. And the last two are family binders that hold student info, birth certificates, and so on. The second family binder is a home organization binder that has guides for babysitters, meal plans, emergency numbers, and things like that. Once all of the piles are assigned to a binder, then starts the fun part! Whole punching, labeling, and page protecting! Once all was done, my crazy mess turned into this:
Our household binder is not in the picture, because it is not kept with the others, but you get the idea. What a difference! I am now working on cute covers for each binder, and making them a little more eye-catching, but even without that, talk about functionality! I am so happy with the end result!
