Organizing with my 2015 home binder

In 2013, I was featured in The Star 2 about having family plans and outlining monthly goals for my family. The idea of having a home binder was actually from one of my favourite organizing sites, I Heart Organizing (I think many of my fellow organizing nerds are familiar with this site too. Jen's team are soo inspiring!).

The binder served us well throughout the year and of course, I have a fresh one ready for this year.

I'll take you through some photos to explain what I have in home binder, but here is one important tip if you plan to have one for your home:

Do whatever that works.

It's easy to get so inspired with what everyone else are having in theirs, but the truth is, different families function differently and with different needs. You'll want to make sure that your home binder works for your family, instead of being left with many empty pages that you do not utilize (plus its a waste of resources too, y'know from the printing and the papers and the time you spent making it).

My home binder is a collection of free printables that I found online. Although I wish that I have a unique design that I made myself, I finally embraced the fact that I just did not have much time. Those freebies are so lovely anyway.

I housed everything in a thick binder file. I designed and printed out the labels myself. Free fonts and MS Word can do wonders :)

Here is the cover of my 2015 binder. This is part of the free printable planners from The Handmade Home website, another site that is oh-so-inspiringgg...

I hoard stationeries, and washi tapes are one of them. Pasted this one on the edge of my binder just because I can.LOL.

Here are the sections of my binder. I used colourful tabbed papers that I bought from a regular stationery shop. As for the labels, I printed it out from my Dymo labelling machine and stick them on the tabs. Most of them are the same since 2013.

And here is a sneak peek of what the Handmade Home made for this year. Want it too? Click on this link to get it from them :)

Here is how the tabbed A4 papers look like :)

I particularly love this printable from I Heart Organizing that I downloaded back in 2013. I am not sure whether they are still available but you can go and  search it at their site. Every week I will sit down and jot down stuff on this document and then take it out from the binder and hang it on our notice board. It's easy for everyone to have an overview of what is happening that week.

This is where I put down all our family goals every month. A tip about goals -- always be specific! I forgot where I got this one (bummer!), but I found it when I googled. You can do the same. I am sure there are lots more lovely ones out there.

This one is brilliant - also an idea from I Heart Organizing. Sometimes we underestimate the importance of basic first aid, and I believe that this is an easy way for reference, especially when there are kids at home. Of course try to make time to READ it before you need it (which I hope you wouldn't).

This is the mealplanning section. I used them to have an overview of what I have in the pantry, and what to eat or cook. But I'll be honest, I only do it when I have the time. It's very very useful if you manage to do it though.

I got this one from Sissy Print, also back in 2013. This is actually part of a whole document of family organization library. I hope they still have it!

I put everything about Bella's school in this section. For example, the yearly school calendar and receipts, as well as letters to parents. Whatever that I feel worth keeping for the year, really.

And this is our automobile log - a document that I used to keep track of our car maintenance and whatever that is related to it (e.g car insurance expiry, driving license expiry, etc). This is the only document that I designed myself and the good news is I want to share it with you (if you feel that this would be helpful too).

{Click here to download this Automobile Log for free :) }

There are other sections that I did not mention here -- Shopping memberships records and medical spending records. I don't show it because I did not find it useful enough for my family, so I am skipping them for this year.

I also have an envelope attached to the back end of the binder, to house income tax claimable receipts or shopping coupons.

So that's pretty much what I have in my home binder for 2015. I am excited to make use of it and hopefully it will continue to help us be more organized this year, Insya Allah.

How about you? Do you have a binder or the same sort of thing to help you organize? Leave a comment and tell me about it! Let's learn from each other :)