Preparing for a Trip to the Grocery Store

There are many right and wrong ways to tackle your weekly, daily or even bi-weekly trip to the grocery store. I like to think that my way is the right way, but I guess that's up to the judge. Like most things I get myself into I take the time to plan ahead and make sure I am prepared to go to the grocery store so that I don't forget anything or miss out on a great bargain.

I am new to the world of coupons at the grocery store and don't find myself utilizing them too much. I buy a lot of meat, produce and dairy which is hard to find coupons for - I just look for the grocers sale. One of my newest and biggest secrets of grocery store success is to plan out your meals based on what is on sale at your grocery store. Instead of spending extra on chicken during the week it's not on sale, I stock up on it during the week that it does go on sale. Check out the grocer's ad in the paper or mail and search their website too. If you can find a use for coupons definitely check out some coupon websites and buy a Sunday paper. Roughly 80 percent of coupons are found in the Sunday paper.

Since you're planning your meals based on what's on sale, that means you have to plan your meals ahead of time. When I get the grocery store ad I pull out my recipe books to search for some great meals to prepare. I always plan ahead what I am going to cook for the week just because it makes grocery shopping easier since you are bound to have the ingredients the recipe calls for.

Keep a pad of paper on a magnet on your refrigerator or keep a grocery list somewhere that you can access at the blink of an eye in your kitchen to write things that pop into your head when you open the pantry. My refrigerator has a really neat grocery list stuck to it. The note pad already has the foods written on it, I just check it off when I run out or think of something that I need. It's really fast and helpful to have on the fridge. It also makes shopping easier because it is broken down into category based on the layout of the grocery store.



Before you head to the store, do a quick inventory of your refrigerator and pantry. Don't forget about looking in your spice or baking cabinet either. Get in the habit of adding things to the grocery list that you are running out of, but are not quite empty yet. One thing that sets me apart from others is that I foresee running out of something before it happens. Before I use the last of something I almost always have a backup on hand. You don't want to be in the middle of making cookies and run out of butter or flour, just like you don't want to have a full dishwasher in dire need of being run only to find that someone used the last of the dishwasher detergent without letting you know.

So, grab your list and your coupons and head out the door!

As an aside: there's a great cooking show on the Food Network (Robin Miller's Quick Fix Meals) that I watch sometimes for tips on how to plan my meals ahead of time by cooking ahead of time. The chef shows you that you can cook say, double chicken to use for two separate meals instead of cooking chicken two separate times in the week. She shows you how to prepare yourself in advance for the busy weeknights.

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Combat Clutter

When I walk into someone's house and it is filled with clutter I get anxious, mostly because I want to organize it and make it look nice. As far as I'm concerned, nobody likes clutter. There are so many tricks and tips to getting rid of clutter, but really, all you have to do is follow through and not allow messy build up in your home.

Take a gander around your home and notice all of the clutter, whether it is piles of papers, mail buildup, or junk drawers. Think about your habits with regards to why this clutter exists. Are you too lazy to put something in its proper spot? Do you enjoy looking at a mountain of unpaid bills? Why do you allow clutter to occur? That's your first step to addressing the clutter in your home. Now it's time to get rid of it once and for all!



Utilize your shelves, drawers, cupboards, and other built in spots in your home to help you stay organized. If you need more places to put things, turn to file cabinets, stackable file trays, buckets, bins, tubs, stackable drawers, more shelves, and other organizational systems designed to keep you in order. These ideas will help you find a permanent place for your things, but you must change your way of thinking in order to make it work for good.

An important thing to note here is that just because you get excited and implement a new storage or organizational system doesn't magically mean that you are now organized. Staying organized requires time, patience and follow through. To really, truly eliminate clutter from your home you actually need to follow through and put things away instead of throwing them in a pile somewhere. It is much more easy to just pile up your papers, mail and magazines than to take the time to put each thing where it belongs; however, taking the time to be more organized is a vital step towards leading a more organized life.




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Use What You Have

These days everyone seems to be pinching their pennies and holding their pocketbooks a little bit closer. I believe that you can be just as organized with what you have now as you could be after spending hundreds of dollars on an organizational system. Most of us have random things laying around the house that can help us to become more organized. All you need is your creative thinking cap and some motivation to get started!

Depending on what your organizational goals are in your home will depend on what you should be seeking out. Some of my favorite things that I always have around the house are: reusable plastic containers, shoe boxes, gift boxes, wood, random sized buckets, nails, planter pots, ceramic bowls that my brother made me, and coffee mugs. These various types of containers or what have you are perfect storage spots for the random things sitting around that need to find a proper home.

Look in your cupboards - I have about 17 times more mugs and cups than I will ever need, these are perfect "stuff cups" for pens and pencils, pocket change, kids markers or dry erase pens; a shot glass is the perfect container to hold your paper clips.
Now, let's be honest, most of your "stuff" doesn't belong in a box or a bowl or hanging up in your garage. Think about your closets, cupboards, drawers and your desk, as these are generally the "problem areas." What can you do to make them more organized? The most common answers are: rearrange them and stop adding to the disorganization in the first place by putting things back in their proper spot after you are done using it. What are you waiting for? You don't need to spend a dime, you've got everything you need right in front of you.

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Preparing for a party or company

Having guests over to your home can often times create unnecessary stress on you and your family. There is a lot to do to get ready for their arrival; however, if you are properly prepared, it will be a breeze. The more on-top-of-things you are the more relaxed you'll be, which ultimately will lead to a better time for both you and your guests. Plus you can show them how care-free and organized you are.


After you nail down a guest list and a time for the event you should begin preparing yourself for the party. It is difficult to determine quantities and portions until you know for sure how many guests will be in attendance. So skip that until you have a concrete answer on who will be there. But, you can start planning what to eat and drink, where people will sit or mingle, orchestrate decorating details if desired, hire a babysitter if needed, and tend to other logistical planning.

An important part of preparing to cook for a large or small crowd is planning out a timeline. Determine the length of time it takes to cook everything and at what oven temperature then work backwards to figure out when everything needs to go in the oven based on what time you want it all to come out of the oven. When you know how many people to expect you can use that number to calculate the food and drink quantities to prepare, which will help you plan out your serving timeline. Another part to this process is determining what serving dishes to use for your cuisine. Do you have enough serving utensils and platters and casserole dishes, or do you need to borrow some from a friend or relative? It helps to physically set everything out where you plan to use it the night of your event to make sure that you have enough space. Planning out these small but important details can make the event run ever so smoothly.

When I am in a hurry trying to get everything done on time before my guests arrive I can often overlook the cleaning. That is one thing you should never forget, because your guests will not overlook a dirty house, especially a dirty kitchen. Split up the cleaning among your family, or if you hire a cleaning service make sure they come either the day of or the day before your party so everything is spick and span when the guests make their appearance. Cleaning can certainly be done the day before your event, which may be helpful in reducing your day-of-event stress and workload.

Don't neglect the little things. Plan for everything. Do you need a coat rack or a place to store people's jackets and purses? What about parking for your guests - do you have easily accessible parking? Did you remember to put extra toilet paper and hand towels in the bathrooms that your guests will be using?
Should you offer to have a babysitter on-site for your guests to use? If you're thinking of sending your guests home with some leftovers do you have food storage containers for them to use? Of course these obstacles will be more prevalent the more people you invite, but they are certainly plausible things to consider even if you're having two couples for dinner. Planning these steps ahead will save you a lot of stress come dinner time.

For an extra touch, include holiday decor throughout your house, utilize your candle stash to give a festive holiday glow, consider using luminaries to light your sidewalk and driveway and welcome your guests (to make your own: use several white paper lunch bags, cut some holes in the sides, stick a scoop of sand in the bottom and top it off with a tea light), ask your children to greet company at the door and offer to take their coats, make name cards for the hors de oeuvres or entrees, play fun music throughout your home, and some fresh flowers for a nice aroma and clean finish.

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Holiday Shopping Made Easier

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is shopping. I love walking around and looking at all of the holiday decorations, seeing the ornaments, and feeling the holiday spirit in the air. While most people put this off until the day after Thanksgiving (or worse, Christmas Eve) I usually start thinking about what to get people for Christmas at the first sign of fall. My holiday stress level is very low because I plan ahead and prepare for the holiday season.

The timesaving tricks I have mastered for holiday shopping are so simple. Usually by September I have created a gift list with the gifts I am giving to my family and friends. After I do some comparison shopping (usually online) I make a note of the store the gift is sold in and how much it costs. Then I use my gift list as my plan of attack for which stores I need to hit. Like I said, this is really easy. Instead of going to the mall empty handed with the intention of "spotting the perfect gift" you go to the mall with a plan and you will leave the madhouse sooner, and probably have more money in your pocket by having prepared your gift list ahead of time.

Many department stores offer complimentary gift wrapping on purchases made in their store. To cut down on your time spent wrapping gifts, consider dropping your gifts off to be wrapped while continuing on with your shopping elsewhere. For stores that don't have gift wrapping services, many do offer free gift boxes with your purchase. Even if you aren't buying a gift, consider taking the box - you never know when it could come in handy down the gift wrapping road.

Grocery shopping is not on my list of favorite things to do. It's time consuming, tedious, expensive and seems to happen too frequently - especially around the holidays. If there is one grocery store trip that you prepare ahead of time and make a list I suggest that you make that trip during the holidays. Generally your list is longer, more encompassing and much more specific than at any other time of the year since many people entertain or bake goodies for friends and loved ones. It is just as necessary to have a game plan to go to the grocery store as it is to go to the mall. Prepare your list (include quantities, of course), get your coupons ready, and plan ahead by creating your meals ahead of time and around what is on sale that week. Need holiday recipes? Look online, ask your family and friends for suggestions, read the paper, check out your grocer's recipe collection, or look on products in your pantry for recipes.

Happy holiday shopping!

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Holiday Wrapping Storage

It's that time to start bringing out the bows, half-used rolls of wrapping paper, un-sorted tissue paper, stray gift tags, and of course the yards and yards of ribbon. If you're like most people you probably have an area or maybe even a box that you throw all of your holiday wrapping paraphernalia into and forget about it until the next holiday season. I find that it makes it a lot easier to get motivated to wrap gifts if you have your gift wrappings in a more orderly way so that it takes less effort to get to everything.

Before I go any farther I must introduce you to my family's method of gift wrap storage as I was growing up. The method is/was: having an overwhelmingly enormous pile designated for gift wrapping. This drove me absolutely insane, as I am someone who is a bit compulsive when it comes to organizing. Every year around the holidays I would go into that bottomless pit and organize the wrapping paper to prepare to wrap my gifts, only to find that the next time I opened that door it was back to being a mess again. Needless to say, I soon became an expert gift wrapping organizer... Now if only I could have gotten my family to maintain an organized area.

I am a huge fan of clear plastic storage containers. My idea of a perfectly organized holiday wrapping storage area would be a whole bunch of different size storage containers with nice, neat labels. The separation of the larger items such as bags and boxes from the smaller items is one of the key points to take away.

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS: I would use smaller shoebox size containers (or even a shoe box would work!) to house my loose bows, spools of ribbon, gift tags and of course several rolls of tape and a pair of scissors (which always seem to disappear at the most inopportune times).

WRAPPING PAPER: I love the idea of a very large (long but low) container to store wrapping paper since it has kind of an awkward long size to it, but if that doesn't work for you consider a tall cardboard box where you can stand up your rolls of paper. I generally store my tissue paper with the wrapping paper.

BOXES: We've all got a collection of gift boxes that either came with purchases or gifts we have received. What the heck do we do with all of these boxes? I suggest you keep them because you never know when they'll come in handy to help you wrap gifts. I have boxes of so many varying sizes it's hard to keep them straight! I use another large container (consider doubling the wrapping paper container with the box container) and break down the boxes so they lay flat inside. For the nicer, decorative boxes that do not break down I stack them inside of each other to save space.

BAGS: My collection of holiday gift bags outnumbers my box collection by a lot. I keep my holiday bags stored either in my box container or my wrapping paper container and find that the combination works out well. Another alternative would be to use a very large gift bag and store the remaining smaller bags inside of it. I find this works very well and looks nice because you can always see the pretty decorative bag displayed on your shelf.

The key with this is to not let it get too unorganized. I mentioned when I was growing up how I was the only one who organized everything and no one seemed to put anything where it went. This is a real problem and leads to overwhelming clutter and can be very difficult to motivate yourself to create order in a space like that. My very best advice is that after you create an organizational system in an area to follow it. Just because you adopt a system to organize doesn't mean you are organized. You must follow your organizational system to maintain organization.

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Cupboard Organization

Organizing your cupboards is really easy - you just have to do it and stick to it. With regard to food pantries or cupboards it is really easy to try to stuff things on the shelf to make everything fit. Doing this makes it easier for you to push other things to the back, only to forget about them and purchase duplicate items or let the food go bad. One thing I am in charge of in my house is organizing the newly purchased groceries. I actually look forward to coming home, unloading the groceries and finding a spot for them in the cupboard or refrigerator.

For those of you who are able to regularly take the time to keep your food nicely arranged some tips are: maximize your cabinet space by using elevated platforms so you can put things on top of the platform and underneath it, utilize the shelves that come in your cupboard or pantry and adjust them based on your needs; create zones on your shelves, such as a rice zone, a cracker zone, a pasta zone, a cereal box zone, and a canned food zone, or simply arrange by size and organize your food that way; use baskets or small plastic storage buckets to store things like treats, granola bars, bread, or single-serve oatmeal packets.

When organizing your other cupboards use the same general ideas that you would for your food storage areas, such as maximizing space and utilizing the shelves that you have. My bathroom cupboard has a lot of stuff in it, so I use an elevated platform to add to the usable storage space, in addition, I have a plastic basket where I put my hair products, and a small plastic divided bucket where I store things like headbands and bobby pins, I use a travel makeup bag to store my makeup, a beautiful ceramic bowl to store my lipstick, and a small basket that holds my perfume. I would go crazy every time I opened the cupboard door if I didn't have everything contained in its own area. These tips can work equally well for the cabinet under your kitchen sink, too.

The same rules go for cupboards in play rooms, entertainment rooms, bedrooms, offices and anywhere else you have a cupboard in your house. Utilize bins, buckets, tubs, baskets, etc. to store your objects. My favorite are either small baskets or small clear plastic stackable storage containers with lids.

Remodeling is a great time to re-evaluate the usefulness of your cupboards. I really love cupboards that have sliding shelves where you can pull them out and really maximize their usefulness, lazy Susan cupboards are great for using the corner space that would otherwise be wasted or nearly impossible to reach, and customizing your space to meet your needs. Meet with a custom cabinet designer if you're considering remodeling or adding any cupboards to your home. Explain your wants and needs and the designer should be able to create something exquisite that suits your style.

If you're interested in purchasing cabinet organization kits or supplies, my suggestion is to get creative and figure out your ultimate goal with the space, then visit a store that sells organizational tools or kits. Be creative here - there are so many things you can use to better organize your cupboards.

I really like to line the cupboards and drawers in my home with contact paper or a shelf liner. This makes it so much easier to clean - plus if you have really ugly cabinets this can bring some life to them. Underneath my glasses and cups I use a thicker shelf liner that has a sticky feel to help keep my glasses from chipping and adds some style in the process. You're not the only one who looks in your cupboards, after all... Why not have them look nice like the rest of your house?

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