Save on Everything This Christmas

Welcome to the spending season! If it seems like your only choices are pulling out the stops and dealing with the credit card consequences later, or cutting so far back it doesn’t even feel like Christmas, then it’s time to look at your third option: creative corner cutting. We’ve got 40 clever ways to save—and no one will even notice you spent less.

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School for life

“A home is more than an economic unit to be traded. At best, it can be a school for life”

Homeowners forced to put down roots after postponing a house move indefinitely. Cash-strapped families compelled to generate their own entertainment. Even unplanned career breaks allowing a newly-redundant parent to devote themselves to full-time home-building.
There is a brighter side to the credit crunch if you believe the importance of hearth and home has been overlooked during the boom years.
The galvanizing effect of recession on family life will be one of the topics debated by delegates to an international gathering of entrepreneurs and town planners at the QEII conference centre next month.
Champions of traditional home economics like Prue Leith have helped organize the event. Its organizers, the Home Renaissance Foundation, argue that rarely has there been a better time for struggling families to learn the lessons of domestic thrift.
The HRF is chaired by Bryan Sanderson CBE, the former BUPA chairman appointed earlier this year to help save Northern Rock.
Sir Brian said: “Nobody would wish to be entering a recession. However, there may be positive unforeseen consequences. A thriving economy sometimes means that houses become little more than hotel rooms as society becomes more atomized. In reality a home is more than an economic unit to be traded. At best, it can be a school for life.”
Speakers at the conference - entitled ‘From House to Home’ - include some of Europe’s best-known architects and urban designers, including Piers Gough. He will argue that too much new-build in Britain is driven by the mathematics of property speculation, rather than the needs of residents.
The conference will hear that evidence for his argument can be seen in the current glut of unsold city centre apartments. Delegates will also ask whether thwarted sellers sometimes learn to love their unwanted houses. Those who choose to add a kitchen extension, for example, might find that their desire to move evaporates. The longer they remain in the area, even unwillingly, the stronger bonds with neighbors, school and community become.
And although recession brings grim tidings for restaurateurs, enforced eating-in might be an opportunity to learn how to cook, just as fewer visits to the cinema or theatre put an emphasis on the home as the focus of entertainment.

* From House to Home, Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, November 20/21. Further details: www.homerenaissancefoundation.org

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Safety Check List for Time Change Sunday

From Organizedhome.com

An extra hour of daylight comes our way on Time Change Sunday, as Daylight Saving Time goes into effect in most of the U.S.

As you circle the house, setting clocks ahead one hour, make time for this short safety checklist. It'll see you into summer months in a safe--and organized--home:

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The ABCs of Household Paper Management

From organizedhome.com

Do you know where your tax records are? Chances are, they're swimming in a stack of paper ... somewhere.
Rafts of paper flood into the average home each day. The mailbox discharges letters and bills and bank statements. Briefcases explode with professional journals, pay stubs and calendars. School backpacks unload children's artwork, meeting notices and sports schedules.
Paper clutter costs money, time and stress. A missing permission slip derails the entire family on the way out the door. Hide-and-seek bills lead to late payment fees. Lose the roster, and it's back to the Yellow Pages each time you need to contact the soccer car pool.
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Get Organized for Homeschool

From organizedhome.com

In my years as worker, mother and home manager, I have experienced a full range of life’s little organizational challenges.

I have run a business from a home shared with two tiny children and moved cross-country (and back). I've merged two cluttered households into one small city apartment, and lived for eighteen happy years with a card-carrying packrat husband.

Home schooling a child beat them all hands-down, organizationally speaking.

How do I count the clutter? The books. The papers. The biology experiments on the kitchen window. The adult-sized child sprawled on the floor, reading. The record-keeping. College admissions and testing and letters from the correspondence school. More

Organize Thyself

Owning a business requires expert organizing skills in order to keep on top of everything. Follow these steps and make more time in your work day.

1. Make a list of all your responsibilities as a business owner. Prioritize them. Income-producing tasks should be at the top of your list. Place your prioritized list on your computer monitor. This will help you focus. Much More

Travel Tip: Create a Custom Packing Checklist

Packing for family travel? A packing checklist can save your sanity--and your vacation. Now it's easy to make a custom online checklist with the Universal Packing List.
An interactive Web page, UPL asks for basic travel information--dates, family members, activities, weather--and generates a comprehensive custom list to guide packing for family travel. Print it out, and you'll never again forget the sunblock!
Universal Packing List

Summer Survival for Busy Moms

by Cynthia Townley Ewer, Editor

OrganizedHome.Com



They're here! Tumbling from the school bus, fresh from Field Day, with papers and projects and petrified sandwiches spilling in their wake: your children. It's summertime, and the living is easy.

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Jumpstart January for an Organized New Year

by Cynthia Townley Ewer

Editor, OrganizedHome.Com

Face it: it's January. Dreary weather is matched only by the dreariness of a house stripped of holiday decorations. Children slog unwillingly through the great dull stretch between New Year's Day and Spring Break, no longer distracted from their schoolwork by the excitements of the holiday season.

December's crowded calendar gives way to January's social slump. Video rentals soar as comfy sweats replace glittery dress clothes on Saturday nights.

Take heart! There's another side to January! The freshness of a new, un-scribbled calendar. The clean lines of household furniture, freed from December's tinsel, trash and clutter. The sweet silence of a second cup of coffee after the children mount the school bus. The delicious feeling of energy to spare, energy released, but not expended, by December's holiday frenzy.

Tap that energy to get organized in the new year! In January, we look forward and we look back. January's two faces provide a natural opportunity to accomplish several crucial organizational tasks. Give in to January's offerings, and you'll bear organizational fruit the whole year long.

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Last-Minute Decorating Tips

Not from me but from Woman's Day and more ideas about printable gift tags from the same page

Multi-Tasking Works

How often do we wish we could bi-locate or have extra hands to do everything we want to do! The reality is, if we were granted that wish, we would likely find even more to do and our wish list would double. We only have so many hours in the day and only two hands and two feet to accomplish the things that need to be done. So as Henry Ford once said "Don't find fault: find a remedy."

You can follow the advice from Home Advantage Plus

Start Smart

Christmas is coming. Be prepared! Christmas countdown starts Sunday, October 22th!
You can also click on organizedchristmas.com

Winning Formula: Plan ahead

You might think it is too soon to start thinking of Christmas Holidays, but the bigger the event the more you need to plan ahead. Holiday Grand Plan starts on August 27th.

If you find it too soon, Organized Christmas will offer you another one on October 22nd. Don't miss it!

Back to School

Get organized with

• organized home
• Packed lunch

and...relax!

Language Message

Life has changed -we live fast-paced lives- and language has changed too. Mobs have obliged us 2 change words 2 save space and time. Depending on the con-text, we change our language.

we also see the need 2 change our way of work, even at Home. To accomodate all we have to do, we need 2 save time but without missing our purpose -that the house B a real Home-. For this, IMO we must take advantage of new technologies, new products & new IT solutions 2 organize our Home.

IOW, the same result -XLNT!- but achieved with a new language, new products and importantly, with a new mind. If we don't start 1DAY we'll lose our target it might B 2L8.

HTH (Hope this helps)

Att-i-tude!

(To Lisa who helped me a lot with this topic)

Home Management Education in the work place was one of my favourite speeches at the Conference EiH. The more organized is our Home, the less stress we have at work.
We can apply management skills of work to our Home in order to improve it.

Now that we are so close to the World Cup, why not start with some ideas from Tom Peters who encourages us to have a sporting spirit in The Cup Challenge ?

Is this your attitude?

Suggestions:

If you have any suggestion please send them to me and I'll include on the blog. Thank you