SUYL - Tell us how you stay organinzed

Today Kelly is doing another SUYL (Show Us Your Life) It was not up when I posted mine, but I wanted to go ahead and get mine finished! The topic today is How Do you Stay Organized? Now I would not really call myself organized. I have clutter around the house and if you asked my husband he would probably laugh his butt off if he knew I was doing this. My husband owns his own business and I stay at home with our boys. Since I stay at home I do the book keeping for his business. I actually did it while I worked, but since I stay at home I try to do a better job. We get audited 3 times a year with our insurance and then taxes is a BIG thing that I do. Our tax accountant has mentioned before that I am organized and I keep good records and every time we get an insurance audit they always comment how organized my files are and how good of information I keep. Now I owe most credit to Quick Books. Before quick books it was a total mess. I would spend several of my weekends working on taxes. Now I have a bin for receipt's. Right now the bin is slam packed full so thats why I would not call my self organize. But anyways when the bin gets full I take it out and put all my receipts in quick books. In our quick books my expenses are really really organized. I also organize our equipment so at the end of the year I can tell Bart exactly how much we spent on the truck or trailer or equipment except for diesel. That would be to hard for me to do. He has 2 track hoes and 2 bobcats so I can pull them up individually and say you spent x amount on the yanmar or x amount of the Hitachi. I love how I do my receipts. I don't have to go an add anything at the end of the year it just automatically does it for me!!









Okay so none business related I try to be as organized as I can. I fall short and let things pile up.




This is Jackson's closet. I try really hard to keep his room organized, but lets face it......he is a boy and he is 8. I have always spoiled him and have always done everything for him. His closet stays pretty organized. He has a section in his closet for Church Clothes and a section for winter clothes including sweatshirts, pants and jeans, jackets and long sleeve t's. He has another section for just short sleeve t shirts. The blue cube thingy is a life saver. I bought it years ago from Avon. At our old house his closet was small and so was his room. I thought this would help storing his shoes and weekly school clothes. It also helped me learn days of the week and what day it was, what yesterday was and what tomorrow was. Although now he probably has forgotten all about that!! The bottom of his closet has 2 sets of golf clubs, a whole Kung Zhu world and 2 huge boxes of school work. I have kept every singe piece of school work, bible school and most Sunday school work. There are 2. Pre K through K and 1st grade through 2ND. I love keeping the work just to look from over the years and also a few weeks before school starts we skim through the past years work so he is not so far behind from summer. The top of his closet holds movies, sleeping bags and over night bags. I do use the cube but just took the pic so since its Friday its empty!!




This is Stephens closet. He has a tiny closet and so its hard to store. He has clothes all in his closet and even though its a tiny closet its kinda long. The very back where you can not see holds winter clothes. One side is winter shirts and jackets and the other side is jeans and old Halloween costumes that I have kept. Yes I keep everything. I might should apply for the hoarding show!!! Anyways!! I keep a few pairs of long pants for Church and then shorts, tshirts and dress shirts. The blue and gray Rubbermaid boxes are shoes and clothes that he will grow into. We have been so blessed to have hand me downs!! Most of the clothes are Jackson's size 4 and 5 clothes, but some are also from 2 little boys from Church!! The white basket on the bottom is for clothes that no longer fit. Since we get lots of hand me downs I always pass his clothes off to.

This is my office. I tried to take a real life picture, but it does not always stay like this. You can see the snack trash that Bart left and the water bottle. We are supposed to have a "No eating in the house except the kitchen" rule, but you see it has been broken! There is a slim jim can right beside the monitor. It hold all my pens and pencils and highlighters!! Not the nicest decor, but it works!!

This is how I stay somewhat organized. I know what you are thinking "You call this organized?? I call it a pigs sty." But it works for me and I don't really know how else to do it. One bin is receipts that need to be put in Quick Books, one bin is for Bart. That bin has magazines that come in the mail, paper he writes on do quote jobs, business cards that have not got in his folder, and anything else that belongs to him. The next bin is Bills Not Paid- its for me. When we get paid for a job I can go straight to the bin and look at what needs to be paid. I have a spiral notebook that I keep it all in also. I actually don't keep a check register. My notebook is my friend though. The next bin is bills paid. I make a copy of the check for the job we get paid and then I match it with the invoice. That way at the end of the year I can match what we have through quick books with what I have in hand. The quotes bin really does not get used for quotes anymore. I usually keep some coupons in it and thats about it. The last bin is for receipts or anything that need to be filed after I am done with in in quick books. We have 1 filing cabinet. The top filing cabinet holds our files where I file the receipts in the appropriate place. It is all organized by expense. That way if I have need to question something in quick books I can tell where it would be filed. If Bart needs me to look up a certain receipt I know exactly where to go. Beside the bins are phone books, our Incorporated binder and then Barts CD case!

After the end of the year I box up our filing cabinet into these great things!! I have several more not pictured and I date them. That way if I need to go back to a specific year all I gotta do is pull out that box. Its a great way to store previous years documents. If you have never used one I recommend getting some. They are perfect to organize car documents, insurance, property or car tax documents and bank statement. I use them for what I just listed plus I use them for our expenses. They are truly great!!

Now I know most people are super super organized and will probably laugh at this post, but I know there are some moms/wives out there that are similar to me. Its what works for me and thats all that matters. If you have any other good tips I sure would like to hear them!! I can't wait to read some of the other ladies that link up over at Kellys Korner!!