This is a subject I am kind of a fanatic on. Money is very important to me. Not because I want a new Lexus, or a mink coat, or a cruise around the world, but because I want to make sure that my family is safe and secure, even in precarious financial times such as these.
I've had some tough financial times in my life and it wasn't fun at all. And it isn't all about having nice clothes, or eating in nice restaurants, or taking nice vacations. It's about having a safe place to live.
Because of my Mom's financial situation as a single mother, I was raised in some very rough neighborhoods. The kind where your Mom doesn't let you play in the back yard or go across the street by yourself to play with a friend. The kind where there are shootings and police around all the time and scary looking guys walking around. Where the kids at school have lice and belong to gangs and will be only too happy to beat you up if you look at them wrong. My Jr. High School backed right up against the Long Beach Projects, so when we moved to Orange County a year or so later, I thought I'd died and gone to paradise.
Here's a great post I found on Unclutterer.com the subject of Financial Clutter - click HERE to go and check it out.
3/29/09
Spring Cleaning
OK folks, it's about that time of year - time for Spring Cleaning! However, the kind of Spring Cleaning I'm talking about is a little different. This is an exercise from the Fishful Thinking institute (the people who belong to that cute little fishy on my sidebar). This type of Spring Cleaning is a way to help both you and your kids eliminate mental clutter, negative thinking, and limiting beliefs. I know this exercise is designed for the kiddos, but especially if you have house cleaning issues, you have a lot of shame and guilt in your life and it isn't doing you any good. Try this exercise yourself to release those negative thoughts and replace them with positive intentions and a plan of action to make a few simple and small changes that will make your life so much better.
Fishful Thinking
Week 2 Activity: Spring Cleaning – Bag It Up!
Ingredient: Optimism, Emotional Awareness
Ages: Grade 2 to Grade 5
From Dr. Reivich:
It is finally here, springtime! It’s a time of renewal, rejuvenation and — spring cleaning! Our desire to start fresh each spring doesn’t have to stop with cleaning out drawers and bagging up all the hand-me-downs. This can also be a good time to take stock of our mental clutter, and help ourselves and our children to “bag up” any old perceptions that no longer fit.
One of my sons found the start of this school year challenging and would wake up in the morning with thoughts like; “I don’t like my class,” “I won’t do well,” “I can’t do the homework,” swirling around in his head. It was a rough start. But rough starts don’t have to mean rough middles or endings. Now, he’s enjoying school, finding the homework to be manageable and liking his class.
I can help my son develop confidence by talking with him about “those old beliefs that just don’t fit anymore.” In doing this, I’m helping him to take notice of how he’s grown—not just physically, but mentally, too!
How to Bag It Up!
Help your child to take stock of the mental clutter. Start by sharing an example of a negative belief that you want to get rid of. Write the belief on a slip of paper and then put it into a bag labeled “giveaways.” (If your child will find the “bagging up” part silly, simply talk through examples of beliefs that are no longer accurate.) After you’ve given your example, ask your child to come up with examples of his or her own. These questions will help:
• Is there something that you used to think about yourself that no longer seems to fit? Examples: “I’m not smart enough” or “I can’t do that.” Can you give examples of how that old belief no longer fits?
• Can you think of a negative thought you have that gets in your way or makes you feel down about yourself? Examples: “Nobody likes me” or “I stink at sports.” What is some evidence that proves that belief is not true?
• What is one thing you are doing now that you weren’t able to do last year?
Getting rid of things that no longer “fit” creates extra space, and that feels good. This spring set a goal of cleaning out negative beliefs, and filling up that extra space with Optimism!
Article for Mom:
Live Long and Smile; Keep Smiling, Be Healthy (Natural Life magazine)
According to a recent study, maintaining an optimistic perspective throughout your daily life can have a beneficial effect on your physical health. In fact, positive thinking may just help you to live longer!
Legal stuff - I am a Mom-bassador for the Fishful Thinking website and as such, I am eligible for prizes and incentives based on my activities and the traffic I generate to the site. Please contact me if you are interested in becoming a Mom-bassador too.
Week 2 Activity: Spring Cleaning – Bag It Up!
Ingredient: Optimism, Emotional Awareness
Ages: Grade 2 to Grade 5
From Dr. Reivich:
It is finally here, springtime! It’s a time of renewal, rejuvenation and — spring cleaning! Our desire to start fresh each spring doesn’t have to stop with cleaning out drawers and bagging up all the hand-me-downs. This can also be a good time to take stock of our mental clutter, and help ourselves and our children to “bag up” any old perceptions that no longer fit.
One of my sons found the start of this school year challenging and would wake up in the morning with thoughts like; “I don’t like my class,” “I won’t do well,” “I can’t do the homework,” swirling around in his head. It was a rough start. But rough starts don’t have to mean rough middles or endings. Now, he’s enjoying school, finding the homework to be manageable and liking his class.
I can help my son develop confidence by talking with him about “those old beliefs that just don’t fit anymore.” In doing this, I’m helping him to take notice of how he’s grown—not just physically, but mentally, too!
How to Bag It Up!
Help your child to take stock of the mental clutter. Start by sharing an example of a negative belief that you want to get rid of. Write the belief on a slip of paper and then put it into a bag labeled “giveaways.” (If your child will find the “bagging up” part silly, simply talk through examples of beliefs that are no longer accurate.) After you’ve given your example, ask your child to come up with examples of his or her own. These questions will help:
• Is there something that you used to think about yourself that no longer seems to fit? Examples: “I’m not smart enough” or “I can’t do that.” Can you give examples of how that old belief no longer fits?
• Can you think of a negative thought you have that gets in your way or makes you feel down about yourself? Examples: “Nobody likes me” or “I stink at sports.” What is some evidence that proves that belief is not true?
• What is one thing you are doing now that you weren’t able to do last year?
Getting rid of things that no longer “fit” creates extra space, and that feels good. This spring set a goal of cleaning out negative beliefs, and filling up that extra space with Optimism!
Article for Mom:
Live Long and Smile; Keep Smiling, Be Healthy (Natural Life magazine)
According to a recent study, maintaining an optimistic perspective throughout your daily life can have a beneficial effect on your physical health. In fact, positive thinking may just help you to live longer!
Legal stuff - I am a Mom-bassador for the Fishful Thinking website and as such, I am eligible for prizes and incentives based on my activities and the traffic I generate to the site. Please contact me if you are interested in becoming a Mom-bassador too.
3/27/09
The Clutter Game
Let’s play a game. Let’s pretend that over the course of the next month, you have to actually use everything that is currently in your house. You have to wear every piece of clothing, eat off of every dish, use every towel and sheet, and read or watch every single book or movie!
That’s pretty ridiculous, isn’t it? But even if you stretched it out to a year, what percentage of your “stuff” do you think you would use? I would think 50% would be a pretty generous estimate. If the statistics folks are right, it’s probably closer to 20%. That means that 50% to 80% of the stuff in your house is living there absolutely rent free, all year long! Because when you think about it, that is how possessions earn their keep, by providing us with comfort and convenience and by serving some useful purpose. But if you’ve got a whole house full of “freeloaders” who aren’t pulling their weight, they are costing you money.
You have to own and maintain a larger house with more and more storage space to keep them in. Some people even rent additional storage spaces because they’ve outgrown their houses. You have to buy boxes and baskets and bins to store it all away and keep it out of sight. I’m hoping you do anyway. If not, then you have the emotional cost of having all this stuff lying around and taking away your peace of mind.
And how much time do you spend messing around with it? I just spent almost a whole weekend reorganizing all my pictures. That was OK with me because those pictures have a lot of meaning for me and now I won’t have to do that for probably another 5 years, but how often have you spent a whole Saturday or a whole weekend cleaning out the garage or doing the “stash and dash” for company? That’s a lot of time and effort this stuff is costing you.
Then there’s the energy drain. There are some things that really give you joy and bring back fond memories for you, but a lot of excess stuff just acts as a drain on your spirit and just makes you feel depressed and guilty for letting it pile up so much. And you feel so embarrassed when someone drops by and your house is all messy and disorganized with your” freeloaders” taking up every spare inch. Not to mention the conflicts with your children, spouse, or mother! More than one marriage has ended because of conflicts between over messy homes.
Wow, I’ll bet you’re really looking at your freeloaders with new eyes, aren’t you? Let’s do one more fun game. Mentally estimate what percentage of your house is filled with unused “treasures” – everything from old broken toys, clothes that don’t fit, stuff hiding out in the garage, books you aren’t ever going to read, etc. Be honest now. Now mentally pack it in boxes and stack it up in one (or two) rooms of your home. Estimate what percentage of your square footage that would represent. Let’s say it’s 10%. If your house payment is $1500, you are paying $150 a month to keep all that clutter! If you’re not getting $150 worth of joy out of it, I suggest you start sending that stuff out into the world to go freeload off of someone else!
That’s pretty ridiculous, isn’t it? But even if you stretched it out to a year, what percentage of your “stuff” do you think you would use? I would think 50% would be a pretty generous estimate. If the statistics folks are right, it’s probably closer to 20%. That means that 50% to 80% of the stuff in your house is living there absolutely rent free, all year long! Because when you think about it, that is how possessions earn their keep, by providing us with comfort and convenience and by serving some useful purpose. But if you’ve got a whole house full of “freeloaders” who aren’t pulling their weight, they are costing you money.
You have to own and maintain a larger house with more and more storage space to keep them in. Some people even rent additional storage spaces because they’ve outgrown their houses. You have to buy boxes and baskets and bins to store it all away and keep it out of sight. I’m hoping you do anyway. If not, then you have the emotional cost of having all this stuff lying around and taking away your peace of mind.
And how much time do you spend messing around with it? I just spent almost a whole weekend reorganizing all my pictures. That was OK with me because those pictures have a lot of meaning for me and now I won’t have to do that for probably another 5 years, but how often have you spent a whole Saturday or a whole weekend cleaning out the garage or doing the “stash and dash” for company? That’s a lot of time and effort this stuff is costing you.
Then there’s the energy drain. There are some things that really give you joy and bring back fond memories for you, but a lot of excess stuff just acts as a drain on your spirit and just makes you feel depressed and guilty for letting it pile up so much. And you feel so embarrassed when someone drops by and your house is all messy and disorganized with your” freeloaders” taking up every spare inch. Not to mention the conflicts with your children, spouse, or mother! More than one marriage has ended because of conflicts between over messy homes.
Wow, I’ll bet you’re really looking at your freeloaders with new eyes, aren’t you? Let’s do one more fun game. Mentally estimate what percentage of your house is filled with unused “treasures” – everything from old broken toys, clothes that don’t fit, stuff hiding out in the garage, books you aren’t ever going to read, etc. Be honest now. Now mentally pack it in boxes and stack it up in one (or two) rooms of your home. Estimate what percentage of your square footage that would represent. Let’s say it’s 10%. If your house payment is $1500, you are paying $150 a month to keep all that clutter! If you’re not getting $150 worth of joy out of it, I suggest you start sending that stuff out into the world to go freeload off of someone else!
Clean up Music
I read a good tip this week - I forget which blog I saw it on, but I thought it was great. Not only does upbeat music boost your mood and get you in the right frame of mind to want to do your cleaning, but it also can be used as a sort of a clue to your family that it's clean-up time.
If you always play the same artist or the same genre of music when you do your cleaning, your family will start to build a subconscious association with that music and when they hear it, they will be more likely to get up off the couch and pitch in with the work.
Flylady has a whole CD of songs that have been put together just for cleaning. You might want to pop over to her website and check it out. My favorites are the Pointer Sisters or the score from Dreamgirls.
PS: Here's a quick tip from my Grocery Tips for Smart Shoppers. Bring your Ipod with you when you go grocery shopping. The stores play that draggy elevator music so you'll shop slower and buy more stuff. Listen to your own upbeat music and keep your own pace!
If you always play the same artist or the same genre of music when you do your cleaning, your family will start to build a subconscious association with that music and when they hear it, they will be more likely to get up off the couch and pitch in with the work.
Flylady has a whole CD of songs that have been put together just for cleaning. You might want to pop over to her website and check it out. My favorites are the Pointer Sisters or the score from Dreamgirls.
PS: Here's a quick tip from my Grocery Tips for Smart Shoppers. Bring your Ipod with you when you go grocery shopping. The stores play that draggy elevator music so you'll shop slower and buy more stuff. Listen to your own upbeat music and keep your own pace!
3/23/09
Fishful Thinking
Maybe you noticed a new little goody on my sidebar there. I just signed up as a Mom-bassador with a new website called Fishful Thinking. It's sponsored by Pepperidge Farm who are the goldfish cracker people and it's all about optimism and using positive thinking to raise our children.
I know this is a blog about cleaning and organizing, but I think you need to have a certain amount of optimism to be able to make the kinds of changes we are trying to accomplish. We are definitely trying to make positive changes and improvements to our lives and our homes and I think a positive attitude can be a big help with that. Plus, I think most of us have kids as well and this is a great resource for raising kids. There are a ton of great articles, ideas and quizzes on there, plus there is a whole kid's section of the website that has games and activities for your kids to play.
Go ahead and click on the little fishy over there to go and check out the site. I think you'll really enjoy it.
I know this is a blog about cleaning and organizing, but I think you need to have a certain amount of optimism to be able to make the kinds of changes we are trying to accomplish. We are definitely trying to make positive changes and improvements to our lives and our homes and I think a positive attitude can be a big help with that. Plus, I think most of us have kids as well and this is a great resource for raising kids. There are a ton of great articles, ideas and quizzes on there, plus there is a whole kid's section of the website that has games and activities for your kids to play.
Go ahead and click on the little fishy over there to go and check out the site. I think you'll really enjoy it.
3/22/09
Photo Storage and Organization
My husband and son are at a father-son campout this weekend, so I just devoted my entire day - literally about 10 hours straight to organizing our photos. Now normally, I wouldn't advise a client to tackle such a large and time-consuming project. But I know myself and my schedule and believe me, large blocks of spare time are a pretty rare thing in my life. And I also know that with a semi-unpleasant job like this, my best bet is to do it in one large chunk because otherwise I can let a project like this drag out for weeks.
In my house, photos and other personal mementos are probably my largest source of clutter. I'm pretty sentimental and over the years I have amassed a pretty extensive collection of "stuff". Not only pictures, but craft items my mother made for me and my children, clothes that have particular significance, birth announcements and certificates for variance achievements, report cards, etc.
It's a LOT of stuff and it takes up a fair amount of space in my house. But because a lot of it has meaning to me, I am willing to forgo other types of clutter to make room for it. I have it all in a large cedar chest that my mother bought me when I was in college and I have three large Rubbermaid tubs that fit neatly into the closets in several rooms. So, even though it is technically clutter, it is fairly neat and pretty organized clutter.
However, I have decided to take it a step further. I like to scrapbook and I am on the verge of digging into digital scrapbooking, so I need my pictures converted to digital format for scrapbooking. Plus I am nervous something could happen to ruin all these special memories for me, so I have found a place that converts them to digital images on CD. It's not a bad deal. You send them a box of approximately 1,000 photos, sorted by size and organized the way you want them, and for $50 they scan them and send them back to you on CD. The place is called Scanmyphotos.com and they're based in Irvine, CA. That's important because some of these places send your pictures off to India or China for scanning and that makes me nervous.
Anyway, that sounded like a pretty good option at about 9:00 this morning. The problem is that I think I've got a lot more than 1,000 photos. I haven't counted yet, but I'll bet it's in the neighborhood of 5,000! Yikes! I don't know if I'm up for spending that kind of money to get all those pictures scanned. We'll see when I'm all done and have a chance to count the photos. I may have to pick and choose and only scan my most favorite ones. Plus I'm not sure what to do with them once they're scanned. 1,000 photos is a lot more than my poor computer can handle. I'd have to find some kind of an on-line picture storing and organizing place. Sounds like I need a bit more research.
But in the meantime, I am definitely accomplishing something. I got all of our oldest pictures out of those old-style magnetic albums that were ruining them. That was a heck of a job right there, I'll tell you! I've also gotten all the old pictures out of their individual envelopes and gotten them all sorted by size if I do decide to scan them. And I've weeded out all the negatives and thrown away all the paper envelopes that were taking up a lot of room. Yes, I hear you gasp, but I know perfectly well that I'd never go back and go to all the trouble of figuring out negatives to get reprints of anything made from them. And besides, the last thing I need is MORE pictures, so I felt comfortable in decluttering them. Duplicates too! Lord in heaven, who ever came up with that particular marketing scheme?
I've also made some progress in getting some of the larger stuff organized - pictures in larger frames, report cards, envelopes of the kid's school pictures. I'm hoping that by the time I'm done, I may be able to eliminate one of the Rubbermaid tubs. Then I just need to figure out what to do with the actual pictures. I'm torn between keeping them in those shoebox-style photo boxes, or putting them into large photo albums, the kind with slip-in sleeves. The boxes hold more, but they're easier to use for scrapbooking when you can see them all laid out in the flat albums.
This is one instance where I could use some good advice. What great strategies to you have for keeping track of your pictures and keeping them organized?
I'm participating in the Photo Storage challenge over at Organizing Junkie. Click the link to pop over and find more ideas on photo storage.
In my house, photos and other personal mementos are probably my largest source of clutter. I'm pretty sentimental and over the years I have amassed a pretty extensive collection of "stuff". Not only pictures, but craft items my mother made for me and my children, clothes that have particular significance, birth announcements and certificates for variance achievements, report cards, etc.
It's a LOT of stuff and it takes up a fair amount of space in my house. But because a lot of it has meaning to me, I am willing to forgo other types of clutter to make room for it. I have it all in a large cedar chest that my mother bought me when I was in college and I have three large Rubbermaid tubs that fit neatly into the closets in several rooms. So, even though it is technically clutter, it is fairly neat and pretty organized clutter.
However, I have decided to take it a step further. I like to scrapbook and I am on the verge of digging into digital scrapbooking, so I need my pictures converted to digital format for scrapbooking. Plus I am nervous something could happen to ruin all these special memories for me, so I have found a place that converts them to digital images on CD. It's not a bad deal. You send them a box of approximately 1,000 photos, sorted by size and organized the way you want them, and for $50 they scan them and send them back to you on CD. The place is called Scanmyphotos.com and they're based in Irvine, CA. That's important because some of these places send your pictures off to India or China for scanning and that makes me nervous.
Anyway, that sounded like a pretty good option at about 9:00 this morning. The problem is that I think I've got a lot more than 1,000 photos. I haven't counted yet, but I'll bet it's in the neighborhood of 5,000! Yikes! I don't know if I'm up for spending that kind of money to get all those pictures scanned. We'll see when I'm all done and have a chance to count the photos. I may have to pick and choose and only scan my most favorite ones. Plus I'm not sure what to do with them once they're scanned. 1,000 photos is a lot more than my poor computer can handle. I'd have to find some kind of an on-line picture storing and organizing place. Sounds like I need a bit more research.
But in the meantime, I am definitely accomplishing something. I got all of our oldest pictures out of those old-style magnetic albums that were ruining them. That was a heck of a job right there, I'll tell you! I've also gotten all the old pictures out of their individual envelopes and gotten them all sorted by size if I do decide to scan them. And I've weeded out all the negatives and thrown away all the paper envelopes that were taking up a lot of room. Yes, I hear you gasp, but I know perfectly well that I'd never go back and go to all the trouble of figuring out negatives to get reprints of anything made from them. And besides, the last thing I need is MORE pictures, so I felt comfortable in decluttering them. Duplicates too! Lord in heaven, who ever came up with that particular marketing scheme?
I've also made some progress in getting some of the larger stuff organized - pictures in larger frames, report cards, envelopes of the kid's school pictures. I'm hoping that by the time I'm done, I may be able to eliminate one of the Rubbermaid tubs. Then I just need to figure out what to do with the actual pictures. I'm torn between keeping them in those shoebox-style photo boxes, or putting them into large photo albums, the kind with slip-in sleeves. The boxes hold more, but they're easier to use for scrapbooking when you can see them all laid out in the flat albums.
This is one instance where I could use some good advice. What great strategies to you have for keeping track of your pictures and keeping them organized?
I'm participating in the Photo Storage challenge over at Organizing Junkie. Click the link to pop over and find more ideas on photo storage.
3/15/09
Handy Tip for Transitioning Seasonal Clothes
You guys know that I always share great tips with you when I run across them. Here is a great solution I found on a new blog I've found called MeckMom.com. I think this is brilliant and it works great for both kid's clothes and your own clothes and fits in very nicely with my active/inactive storage concept, so click HERE to pop over and see. Be sure and leave MeckMom a nice comment for sharing such a lovely tip with us.
3/14/09
Organizing Your Kids - Part 2
As the mom of two ADHD kids, I've had to learn to think on my feet when it comes to getting them moving in the morning. When Matt was younger, mornings used to be my daily nightmare. It was mostly about herding him around, yelling at him, and raising my blood pressure thinking he was going to be late for school every single day. Needless to say, it caused both of us to start our day off on totally the wrong foot.
After some trial and error and reading a number of good books, I decided to revamp our whole morning routine. It worked wonders with Matt and I have been able to carry that same strategy along with Blake. Now our mornings are usually pretty great - well, probably 90% of the time and that ain't too bad!
Here are some of the fixes I put in place.
- Minimize distractions. No cartoons, video games, or even radio, ever. ADHD kids just cannot split their focus between two different activities and really neither can I. Whenever the TV is on, it's like a magnet and it draws everyone in the house right to it, even if there's nothing interesting on. If I find him drawn to books or toys in his room, I will even have him get dressed in a bathroom or the laundry room where there aren't any distractions clamoring for his attention.
- Set a wake up time and stick to it. This just makes it easier on your body if it knows you have to get up at a specific time. For Blake it is 6:50 (his choice). Since he goes to bed at 9:00 most nights, that gives him enough sleep to function and he likes getting up that early on weekends to watch cartoons. In fact, he insists on it when I would prefer to have him sleep in a bit later, but he's one of those morning kids.
- This also makes it easy to set benchmark times. For instance, they should be dressed by ___ time, lunch made by ___ time, and ready to go out the door by ___ time. Sometimes it helps to have an extra alarm clock in the kitchen to give them a warning 20-30 minutes before they have to leave. Then they know if they are running behind. (I do this for myself sometimes too!)
- Make kids responsible for getting themselves up in the morning. If you make yourself responsible for waking them up, then you get into the "sneaking back into bed" game and that is just no fun. It just turns into a power struggle and a frustration. Even a six year old can work an alarm clock and they like the feeling of responsibility it gives them.
- If you have a kid who is hard to wake up, get an alarm clock with a very loud alarm and put it across the room from him. If nothing else, "the call of nature" should get to him once he is up and moving around. That's why you put the alarm clear across the room. (For Matt, I got him a "Clocky" which is an alarm clock on wheels. If he doesn't shut it off, it jumps off his dresser and runs around the room beeping like mad - drives the cats absolutely crazy!)
- As a last resort, use a squirt gun. He might get mad, but he will realize you mean business about getting his butt out of bed in the morning. Or if you don't want to use the tough love approach, offer hot chocolate or some other treat on the mornings he is successful in getting himself up at the appointed time. It may take a while, but it's important that kids learn to take responsibility for themselves.
- Get your morning routine set in stone. That is the only way these kids can remember to do everything they need to do is if they do exactly the same things every morning in exactly the same order. Here is our routine:
- Get up 6:50
- Make bed
- Get dressed
- Brush teeth and comb hair (All by 7:15)
- Make lunch
- Get backpack ready - by 7:30
- Eat breakfast
- Then there is usually some extra time to finish up homework, do extra reading, practice the piano, or even watch a little TV (as a special treat) before the carpool comes to pick him up.
Yes, I can hear you now, he's brushing his teeth first and then eating his breakfast, instead of vice versa. However, having the breakfast last on the list is absolutely the KEY to the whole thing. That way if he does have a rough morning, I can toss him a piece of toast and shoo him out the door. Obviously, I'm not going to make him go hungry, but if he's a little bit hungry by lunchtime, that's probably a good motivator for him to be better organized the next day.
This way, he suffers for his lack of focus and not me, because I'm not frantically running around trying to find shoes and backpacks and gloves at the last minute. Instead, he's the crazy guy running around trying to grab a bite to eat with the pressure of the carpool honking in the driveway. That's a very good natural consequence and it works very well as a motivator.
After some trial and error and reading a number of good books, I decided to revamp our whole morning routine. It worked wonders with Matt and I have been able to carry that same strategy along with Blake. Now our mornings are usually pretty great - well, probably 90% of the time and that ain't too bad!
Here are some of the fixes I put in place.
- Minimize distractions. No cartoons, video games, or even radio, ever. ADHD kids just cannot split their focus between two different activities and really neither can I. Whenever the TV is on, it's like a magnet and it draws everyone in the house right to it, even if there's nothing interesting on. If I find him drawn to books or toys in his room, I will even have him get dressed in a bathroom or the laundry room where there aren't any distractions clamoring for his attention.
- Set a wake up time and stick to it. This just makes it easier on your body if it knows you have to get up at a specific time. For Blake it is 6:50 (his choice). Since he goes to bed at 9:00 most nights, that gives him enough sleep to function and he likes getting up that early on weekends to watch cartoons. In fact, he insists on it when I would prefer to have him sleep in a bit later, but he's one of those morning kids.
- This also makes it easy to set benchmark times. For instance, they should be dressed by ___ time, lunch made by ___ time, and ready to go out the door by ___ time. Sometimes it helps to have an extra alarm clock in the kitchen to give them a warning 20-30 minutes before they have to leave. Then they know if they are running behind. (I do this for myself sometimes too!)
- Make kids responsible for getting themselves up in the morning. If you make yourself responsible for waking them up, then you get into the "sneaking back into bed" game and that is just no fun. It just turns into a power struggle and a frustration. Even a six year old can work an alarm clock and they like the feeling of responsibility it gives them.
- If you have a kid who is hard to wake up, get an alarm clock with a very loud alarm and put it across the room from him. If nothing else, "the call of nature" should get to him once he is up and moving around. That's why you put the alarm clear across the room. (For Matt, I got him a "Clocky" which is an alarm clock on wheels. If he doesn't shut it off, it jumps off his dresser and runs around the room beeping like mad - drives the cats absolutely crazy!)
- As a last resort, use a squirt gun. He might get mad, but he will realize you mean business about getting his butt out of bed in the morning. Or if you don't want to use the tough love approach, offer hot chocolate or some other treat on the mornings he is successful in getting himself up at the appointed time. It may take a while, but it's important that kids learn to take responsibility for themselves.
- Get your morning routine set in stone. That is the only way these kids can remember to do everything they need to do is if they do exactly the same things every morning in exactly the same order. Here is our routine:
- Get up 6:50
- Make bed
- Get dressed
- Brush teeth and comb hair (All by 7:15)
- Make lunch
- Get backpack ready - by 7:30
- Eat breakfast
- Then there is usually some extra time to finish up homework, do extra reading, practice the piano, or even watch a little TV (as a special treat) before the carpool comes to pick him up.
Yes, I can hear you now, he's brushing his teeth first and then eating his breakfast, instead of vice versa. However, having the breakfast last on the list is absolutely the KEY to the whole thing. That way if he does have a rough morning, I can toss him a piece of toast and shoo him out the door. Obviously, I'm not going to make him go hungry, but if he's a little bit hungry by lunchtime, that's probably a good motivator for him to be better organized the next day.
This way, he suffers for his lack of focus and not me, because I'm not frantically running around trying to find shoes and backpacks and gloves at the last minute. Instead, he's the crazy guy running around trying to grab a bite to eat with the pressure of the carpool honking in the driveway. That's a very good natural consequence and it works very well as a motivator.
3/12/09
Organizing your Kids Part I
I know this is supposed to be a blog about organizing your house, but hey, your kids LIVE in your house so you might as well organize them too while you're at it. I'm sure their future wives or husbands will bless you for it and it might help with your sanity as well.
Launch Pad
I think a launch pad is an essential part of kid wrangling. What is a launch pad, you ask? Well, it can be just about anything - a hook, a shelf, a bulletin board, or even a chair. What you need is a specific place to keep their bookbag, coat, lunch box, and whatever other stuff that needs to go to school with them. Then whenever they have a homework assignment, or a permission slip, or a school book that needs to go with them, you put it in the launch pad and they have a pretty good chance of remembering it. Note that this tip works well for parents too!
Homework Station
This year, we started something new in addition to the launch pad. I set up a homework station - just a little plastic organizer with a collection of file folders for completed assignments, homework in progress, and papers from the school that I need to read. This really helps with getting the papers out of the bookbag, but not letting them get scattered all over my kitchen. We also incorporated extra paper, pencils and other items so he can do his homework at the kitchen table where we can supervise him.
Chore Checklist
We also started a new checklist concept this year. My son has ADHD so getting him into daily routines and patterns is extremely important. But as the old saying goes - you can lead a boy to college, but you can't make him think (or something like that!). So I sat down and thought about all the things I wanted him to do in a day - make his bed, wear clean clothes, take a shower, do his homework, practice his instrument, etc. I put them all on a checklist and put spaces for every day of the week. As he does every item every day (hopefully!), he checks it off the list and then keeps count of his check marks.
However, I needed to create some motivation for him to want to use the check list every day. So, what does every 10 year old boy want? Video games. And money. So we decided that he could not play video games until a certain number of items were checked off his list. If he got at least 13 out of the 17 items completed, he could earn up to an hour of video game time and he got a dollar of his allowance. If he got at least 15 of the 17 items done, he earned a fifty cent bonus and a bit more video time. It hasn't been a perfect system and we've refined it a bit here and there, but on the whole, it's worked better than anything else we've tried.
Room Organization
Kid's rooms can sometimes be a nightmare. I know mine always were. One thing that helps is to really cut back on the amount of stuff they have to deal with. Several years back, I started banning toys from the bedrooms and that was the best decision I ever made. The only things I allow them to have in their rooms are clothes, books, and stuffed animals and that makes it a lot easier. I also make sure there is a large laundry basket and a trash can. I just recently labeled his drawers and that is also a big help, but you need to go in a couple of times a year and just help them to reorganize and restructure a bit.
On Line Organization
One thing that has been a big help to me is my Google calendar. I have the ability to set up recurring reminders on both my account and both my son's accounts. I set up a schedule of reminders to clean the cat boxes, clean their rooms, have my older son and husband check the fluids in the cars, empty the trash cans, and do the vaccuuming. That has been a really big help because I'm terrible about remembering to do things on a set schedule. But my computer remembers for me just fine!
Truth or Consequences
In order to accomplish all this, you need to have some consequences in place for when the kids don't do the things they are supposed to do. We have several different methods that work for us. First of all, it is a standing rule that if someone doesn't do an assigned chore, they not only have to do the chore the next day, they also have to do a penalty chore of my choosing. We also have something fun where if they don't make their beds or do some other simple chore, their brother can do it and charge them $1 fee. That's actually a pretty good incentive because it really ticks them off. And on the chore checklist, if I catch him marking down anything he hasn't actually done, there is a two day penalty of loss of video games. Yes, I'm a mean Mommy, but it's working and it's saving my sanity, so I declare it a good thing!
Stop by next time and I'll give you some ideas for getting kids up and out the door in record time!
3/10/09
My SITS Spring Fling Contest
Welcome SITsas and friends! My most favorite blog site - The Secret is in the Sauce or "SITS" is having their Spring Fling event today. They are not only offering a fabulous giveaway every hour all day long, but just about every SITS member is offering a give away on their blog. All you have to do is click the pretty button below to go to the site and pick which contests you'd like to enter. Fun stuff!
Naturally, I have to have a giveaway too. I have a great report for you of "Smart Tips for Smart Grocery Shoppers" and I'll include my quick 'n easy grocery list form, so you can put together your grocery list in 5 minutes or less and not forget anything you need.
There are three ways to enter the giveaway - 1. Share your favorite cleaning tip in a comment below for one entry. 2. Click my Subscription button and sign up for a new subscription for two entries. 3. If you are in the Salt Lake area, you can sign up for my next Messy Moms class which starts in two weeks. Details are in the post above and you can click on the Paypal button to pay (or I accept checks, cash, or other credit cards). That will get you an extra 5 entries!
Then click on the SITS button above to go back to the site and enter more giveaways!
This contest is now over. I've picked the winner via a randomizer.
The winner is Tamara at Tamben7996 (I had two Tamara's in my comments). I'll be contacting you to get an address to mail your report to. Thanks so much to everyone for entering my giveaway.
Naturally, I have to have a giveaway too. I have a great report for you of "Smart Tips for Smart Grocery Shoppers" and I'll include my quick 'n easy grocery list form, so you can put together your grocery list in 5 minutes or less and not forget anything you need.
There are three ways to enter the giveaway - 1. Share your favorite cleaning tip in a comment below for one entry. 2. Click my Subscription button and sign up for a new subscription for two entries. 3. If you are in the Salt Lake area, you can sign up for my next Messy Moms class which starts in two weeks. Details are in the post above and you can click on the Paypal button to pay (or I accept checks, cash, or other credit cards). That will get you an extra 5 entries!
Then click on the SITS button above to go back to the site and enter more giveaways!
This contest is now over. I've picked the winner via a randomizer.
|
|
The winner is Tamara at Tamben7996 (I had two Tamara's in my comments). I'll be contacting you to get an address to mail your report to. Thanks so much to everyone for entering my giveaway.
3/8/09
Declutter Weekend
I had a very productive weekend! We were having a big party for my husband's birthday - about 18 people, so went spent most of the weekend tidying up and getting ready for the party. In the course of doing all that, we ended up removing a TRUCKLOAD of unneeded stuff out of our house. Yes, a truckload! And when you consider that our house isn't really all that cluttered, that is quite an achievement.
Here's how we did it. First I organized all the movies. This project has been in progress for a couple of weeks. As we have been repainting our basement, I decided to switch my movies and my books. I had half the books in our built-in bookshelf downstairs and half in a freestanding bookcase in my guest room and the same thing with the movies - half in the basement and half upstairs. So I decided to switch them and get them all in the same place, so it would make more sense. Here is the final result:
I sorted out all the movies by category and labeled each shelf to help keep them organized. There are chick flicks, kids movies, westerns (my husband has a whole shelf!), action movies, comedies, and dramas. As I was doing this, I sorted out all of our old home movies and put them in a special place where they would be extra safe and I also weeded out a large box of VHS movies that were either duplicates, or ones we had taped off of TV. I made a list of those movies so we can work on buying them on DVD a few at a time. I wish I'd thought to take a before picture, but believe me, it didn't look all nice & neat like this. Movies were stacked up all haphazard and messy taking up a lot more room.
Here is the final result on the bookshelves:
Again, a great improvement, though I didn't really get rid of very many books. I had already decluttered two big boxes of them before we moved into this house two years ago.
While I was putting all the movies in order, I had my son bring up his whole toy box, one drawer at a time. Now that he's 10 and very into video games and computers, he doesn't play much with toys any more. So I asked him to pick out 5 or 10 toys out of each drawer that he really wanted to keep and the rest of them went into the giveaway box. Fortunately, he's always very good natured about this and doesn't seem to mind giving away toys as long as he can keep his favorites. In fact, I think he's a little relieved to have a bit less to deal with. So, that added 2 more big boxes to the truckload.
Then our DVD player broke. I know perfectly well that we wouldn't ever get around to getting it fixed, so I just had my husband borrow the one from our basement TV for upstairs and put the old one in the truck. We have a Tivo downstairs so we rarely watch DVD's down there anyway and that's just one less piece of hardware to deal with. And I'm sure someone can take the time to fix it up.
This afternoon, I spent a couple of hours helping my youngest son organize his room. His dresser was a complete mess. Every drawer was filled to the brim with a haphazard collection of clothes with no rhyme or reason.
So we took everything out of the drawers and his closet (scary!). I sorted everything by type of clothing and size so I could see what fit and what didn't and how much we had of each type of clothing. Then I was able to determine how many drawers I needed to allocate to pants, shirts, sweatshirts, etc. In order to help him keep more organized in the future, I took my handy-dandy label maker and neatly labeled each drawer so he will know exactly where to put his clothes away and where to find clothes when he wants them. I was surprised at how many really nice items of clothing he had that were going unworn because they were hiding around at the bottom of a drawer under a stack of outgrown clothing.
That little exercise netted us a large bag of trash, plus a large box full of nice outgrown clothes and shoes. I'm sure a homeless shelter or other charity will definitely appreciate them. It was a lot of work, but it does feel so nice to have all our books, movies, toys, and kids clothing so nice and organized.
Here's how we did it. First I organized all the movies. This project has been in progress for a couple of weeks. As we have been repainting our basement, I decided to switch my movies and my books. I had half the books in our built-in bookshelf downstairs and half in a freestanding bookcase in my guest room and the same thing with the movies - half in the basement and half upstairs. So I decided to switch them and get them all in the same place, so it would make more sense. Here is the final result:
I sorted out all the movies by category and labeled each shelf to help keep them organized. There are chick flicks, kids movies, westerns (my husband has a whole shelf!), action movies, comedies, and dramas. As I was doing this, I sorted out all of our old home movies and put them in a special place where they would be extra safe and I also weeded out a large box of VHS movies that were either duplicates, or ones we had taped off of TV. I made a list of those movies so we can work on buying them on DVD a few at a time. I wish I'd thought to take a before picture, but believe me, it didn't look all nice & neat like this. Movies were stacked up all haphazard and messy taking up a lot more room.Here is the final result on the bookshelves:
Again, a great improvement, though I didn't really get rid of very many books. I had already decluttered two big boxes of them before we moved into this house two years ago.
While I was putting all the movies in order, I had my son bring up his whole toy box, one drawer at a time. Now that he's 10 and very into video games and computers, he doesn't play much with toys any more. So I asked him to pick out 5 or 10 toys out of each drawer that he really wanted to keep and the rest of them went into the giveaway box. Fortunately, he's always very good natured about this and doesn't seem to mind giving away toys as long as he can keep his favorites. In fact, I think he's a little relieved to have a bit less to deal with. So, that added 2 more big boxes to the truckload.
Then our DVD player broke. I know perfectly well that we wouldn't ever get around to getting it fixed, so I just had my husband borrow the one from our basement TV for upstairs and put the old one in the truck. We have a Tivo downstairs so we rarely watch DVD's down there anyway and that's just one less piece of hardware to deal with. And I'm sure someone can take the time to fix it up.
This afternoon, I spent a couple of hours helping my youngest son organize his room. His dresser was a complete mess. Every drawer was filled to the brim with a haphazard collection of clothes with no rhyme or reason.
So we took everything out of the drawers and his closet (scary!). I sorted everything by type of clothing and size so I could see what fit and what didn't and how much we had of each type of clothing. Then I was able to determine how many drawers I needed to allocate to pants, shirts, sweatshirts, etc. In order to help him keep more organized in the future, I took my handy-dandy label maker and neatly labeled each drawer so he will know exactly where to put his clothes away and where to find clothes when he wants them. I was surprised at how many really nice items of clothing he had that were going unworn because they were hiding around at the bottom of a drawer under a stack of outgrown clothing.
That little exercise netted us a large bag of trash, plus a large box full of nice outgrown clothes and shoes. I'm sure a homeless shelter or other charity will definitely appreciate them. It was a lot of work, but it does feel so nice to have all our books, movies, toys, and kids clothing so nice and organized.
3/6/09
Quick cooking tip
Here is a quick and easy cooking tip I learned from a book called Queen of the Castle. It's called Whack-a-meal. What you do is pre-brown your hamburger using your crock pot. You put a couple of pounds of hamburger in your crock pot and leave it for 4 hours on low - stir every hour or so.
Then you drain it and let it cool. Then put it into gallon sized zip lock freezer bags. Be sure to get it as flat as you can and get all the air out so it won't get burned in the freezer. When you're ready to use it, you just whack it on the counter a few times to loosen up the frozen hamburger and pop it into your recipe. Isn't that clever?
Then you drain it and let it cool. Then put it into gallon sized zip lock freezer bags. Be sure to get it as flat as you can and get all the air out so it won't get burned in the freezer. When you're ready to use it, you just whack it on the counter a few times to loosen up the frozen hamburger and pop it into your recipe. Isn't that clever?
3/4/09
New Messy Mom's Workshop for March
I am getting ready to set up a new Messy Mom's workshop starting in March. To give you a little background on my workshops, they are four week sessions that are taught right in my living room. I try to pattern my classes in a way that is similar to the Weight Watcher's format - each week we have a combination of lesson time and time for sharing our experiences. I want to hear what challenges each person has and whether or not they have benefited from the previous week's lessons. That helps me fine-tune the workshop to provide the most helpful information to you.
The reason I have it as a four week workshop is to give my students a chance to build on each week's lesson. Let's face it, we've all been down this road before, many of us several times and we have to build up our credibility all over again, both with ourselves and with our families. We've all tried the latest and greatest gimmicks, books, websites, and advice from friends and family to get our darn houses cleaned up! Some methods have been more successful than others, but I don't know many people who have had the opportunity who have been able to attend a live class like this to get ideas from a real person in a way that works for them.
Here is the basic plan for the 4 week workshop:
Week 1 - Basic daily cleaning routines and your vision for the home you want to create
Week 2 - The easy way to declutter your house and what to get rid of and how
Week 3 - Get your family on board. How to get your family to participate in the daily cleaning process without fussing, arguing and nagging, and how to get them to show more appreciation for your efforts.
Week 4 - Resources to keep you going in the future/Getting your finances in order
The base cost of the workshop is $50 for the series - prepaid. I offer a 10% discount for signing up with a friend or relative and the first 5 people to sign up with receive a free gift.
I'm starting a new advertising program, so I am expecting these classes to fill up pretty quickly. If you want to reserve a spot, you'll want to contact me pretty quickly. Click HERE to E-mail me for more info or click the Paypal button to sign up for a class.
The reason I have it as a four week workshop is to give my students a chance to build on each week's lesson. Let's face it, we've all been down this road before, many of us several times and we have to build up our credibility all over again, both with ourselves and with our families. We've all tried the latest and greatest gimmicks, books, websites, and advice from friends and family to get our darn houses cleaned up! Some methods have been more successful than others, but I don't know many people who have had the opportunity who have been able to attend a live class like this to get ideas from a real person in a way that works for them.
Here is the basic plan for the 4 week workshop:
Week 1 - Basic daily cleaning routines and your vision for the home you want to create
Week 2 - The easy way to declutter your house and what to get rid of and how
Week 3 - Get your family on board. How to get your family to participate in the daily cleaning process without fussing, arguing and nagging, and how to get them to show more appreciation for your efforts.
Week 4 - Resources to keep you going in the future/Getting your finances in order
The base cost of the workshop is $50 for the series - prepaid. I offer a 10% discount for signing up with a friend or relative and the first 5 people to sign up with receive a free gift.
I'm starting a new advertising program, so I am expecting these classes to fill up pretty quickly. If you want to reserve a spot, you'll want to contact me pretty quickly. Click HERE to E-mail me for more info or click the Paypal button to sign up for a class.
Slacking off a bit
Dear blog friends - I hope you don't think I'm ignoring you. I know I haven't posted as often as I normally do, or visited your blogs as much either, but it's just been busy lately. I've had 4 stamping events to prepare for over the last two weeks, so I've been spending a LOT of time in my stamp room lately and my husband has been making rather pointed comments about me staying up later and later to mess around on my computer.
So, I've decided to just cut myself a little bit of a break and not give myself a hard time if I don't get my posts put together as often as I would like. Hope you understand!
So, I've decided to just cut myself a little bit of a break and not give myself a hard time if I don't get my posts put together as often as I would like. Hope you understand!
3/1/09
Learning to Let Go
I think I am in a unique position to understand the importance of not hoarding things. Over the course of our marriage, we have lost all four of our parents and had to clean out two full houses worth of "stuff". And believe me, these people were hoarders. Not the scary type of hoarders who save mountains of newspapers and stuff, but normal Mom & Pop type hoarders.
It made me sad when I was going through my Mom's house, particularly her craft room, which was crammed to the rafters with unfinished projects, art supplies, and expensive, unread craft books. I kept thinking if she'd spent more of that time and money on doing fun stuff with us instead of all this useless junk, what great memories I would have instead of cussing her while I was wading through all this stuff and trying to sell it for pennies on the dollar at an estate sale.
You need to think long term and realize how this might come to roost on your children. If things go in the normal way, you might have 20, 30, or even 40 years before this becomes an issue, but we all know that this can happen very unexpectedly. My cousin and his wife died suddenly and violently in their mid-30's and left behind 3 orphaned children. Things like that happen sometimes, and if something terrible like that happens, do you want your children to have to deal with your whole house full of junk, in addition to all the other traumatic stuff they would have to deal with?
Cleaning out a house after a death is a terrible thing. It's exhausting, both physically and emotionally, it's heartbreaking, it's frustrating and annoying, and it's just about the least fun thing you can imagine doing. My in-laws were very clean people and not pack rats (so we thought) but we had a big eye opener when we started digging into the drawers and closets and all the little hidden areas of the house - ugh! They had saved every pay stub, every birthday card, every paid bill, and 20 years worth of bank statements - what a mess. And because we were out of state, we had three days to do the whole house. I've never worked so hard in my entire life and my kids and husband did too. Everyone hated me by the end of the week, but we got most of it done and the neighbors and people from Goodwill had to deal with the rest of it.
So take a minute a go around your house and put yourself in your kid's shoes and imagine them having to deal with your house if something happened to you. Then take some action and get rid of some of that stuff.
On another note - do you have a will and a trust? Yes, I can see your eyes rolling. I can see that guilty look on your face. This is something you HAVE TO DO! Yes, I am yelling. As I said, we have lost 4 parents and not one of them had a really proper will set up and it cost us THOUSANDS of dollars - real serious actual dollars that we could have used to buy cars, pay for college, or put towards retirement and instead it was just wasted on lawyers, court fees, and other unnecessary expenses. I think most people have no idea at all about what happens to your property after you die. Let's look at two scenarios:
John and Sally are married and own a house that is in both of their names. They have two kids and no will. John suddenly has a heart attack and dies. In this scenario, Sally would have no access to any money other than what she can grab out of their checking account or what she might have stashed in her name. She can't sell the house, his vehicle, or any personal belongings of his until it is cleared by the court, which may take months and will require very high cost legal representation. Our lawyer cost us $38,000 for a simple transfer of property. If you can't come up with that kind of money (and who can these days?), you are going to be stuck with a property that you can't easily sell and will still have to make payments on and maintain.
If the estate is large enough to require probate, the state will automatically take 10-18% right off the top. Chew on that for a minute. Sally will most likely be awarded custody of the children, but if some relative decides to kick up a fuss and paint a bad picture of her, that could even be a chancy thing and they could end up placed with another relative or even in foster care. And in the meantime, Sally is grieving, trying to figure out how she is going to support her family, dealing with insurance companies, and lawyers, and real estate agents, maybe for the first time ever and she is going to be tearing her hair out and downing tranquilizers just to keep her sanity.
Now here is the second scenario. Same circumstances, but John and Sally had a properly written will and have a simple trust set up with their house and all their major property in it. The house, vehicles, and all other property passes smoothly and automatically to Sally and all she has to do is show the death certificate to the proper parties and have John's name removed from the assets. She can mortgage them or start selling them the day after the funeral if she so chooses with no questions asked, no lawyers needed, and a minimum of taxes to be paid. Custody of the children is prearranged with backup plans set in place as needed if both couples were to die or become incapacitated.
Which scenario would you choose? I know which one we would. About a month after my father-in-law passed and we saw what a heck of a mess we were in for with his estate, we found a good estate lawyer for our own estate. We didn't have to go far, we found one right at the end of our street. We sat down with him for about 2 hours, answered some questions, made some decisions, and paid him about $1,000, which was without a doubt the best money we've ever spent! Then in less than a week, we had a will for each of us, a trust, power of attorney forms, guardianship forms and everything needed for every possible combination of catastrophes that could befall our family.
That's more than I usually share in a public blog about my finances, but this is something I feel so strongly about. As an adult, you have a duty to put your business in order to protect your family - you just have to. You need life insurance, wills, backup custody plans, the whole enchilada. 'Cuz I've been on the receiving end of a situation like this and I'll tell you, it ain't a pretty picture and it is easily the most stressful period of my life and I'm not about to put my kids through all that and I hope you won't either.
It made me sad when I was going through my Mom's house, particularly her craft room, which was crammed to the rafters with unfinished projects, art supplies, and expensive, unread craft books. I kept thinking if she'd spent more of that time and money on doing fun stuff with us instead of all this useless junk, what great memories I would have instead of cussing her while I was wading through all this stuff and trying to sell it for pennies on the dollar at an estate sale.
You need to think long term and realize how this might come to roost on your children. If things go in the normal way, you might have 20, 30, or even 40 years before this becomes an issue, but we all know that this can happen very unexpectedly. My cousin and his wife died suddenly and violently in their mid-30's and left behind 3 orphaned children. Things like that happen sometimes, and if something terrible like that happens, do you want your children to have to deal with your whole house full of junk, in addition to all the other traumatic stuff they would have to deal with?
Cleaning out a house after a death is a terrible thing. It's exhausting, both physically and emotionally, it's heartbreaking, it's frustrating and annoying, and it's just about the least fun thing you can imagine doing. My in-laws were very clean people and not pack rats (so we thought) but we had a big eye opener when we started digging into the drawers and closets and all the little hidden areas of the house - ugh! They had saved every pay stub, every birthday card, every paid bill, and 20 years worth of bank statements - what a mess. And because we were out of state, we had three days to do the whole house. I've never worked so hard in my entire life and my kids and husband did too. Everyone hated me by the end of the week, but we got most of it done and the neighbors and people from Goodwill had to deal with the rest of it.
So take a minute a go around your house and put yourself in your kid's shoes and imagine them having to deal with your house if something happened to you. Then take some action and get rid of some of that stuff.
On another note - do you have a will and a trust? Yes, I can see your eyes rolling. I can see that guilty look on your face. This is something you HAVE TO DO! Yes, I am yelling. As I said, we have lost 4 parents and not one of them had a really proper will set up and it cost us THOUSANDS of dollars - real serious actual dollars that we could have used to buy cars, pay for college, or put towards retirement and instead it was just wasted on lawyers, court fees, and other unnecessary expenses. I think most people have no idea at all about what happens to your property after you die. Let's look at two scenarios:
John and Sally are married and own a house that is in both of their names. They have two kids and no will. John suddenly has a heart attack and dies. In this scenario, Sally would have no access to any money other than what she can grab out of their checking account or what she might have stashed in her name. She can't sell the house, his vehicle, or any personal belongings of his until it is cleared by the court, which may take months and will require very high cost legal representation. Our lawyer cost us $38,000 for a simple transfer of property. If you can't come up with that kind of money (and who can these days?), you are going to be stuck with a property that you can't easily sell and will still have to make payments on and maintain.
If the estate is large enough to require probate, the state will automatically take 10-18% right off the top. Chew on that for a minute. Sally will most likely be awarded custody of the children, but if some relative decides to kick up a fuss and paint a bad picture of her, that could even be a chancy thing and they could end up placed with another relative or even in foster care. And in the meantime, Sally is grieving, trying to figure out how she is going to support her family, dealing with insurance companies, and lawyers, and real estate agents, maybe for the first time ever and she is going to be tearing her hair out and downing tranquilizers just to keep her sanity.
Now here is the second scenario. Same circumstances, but John and Sally had a properly written will and have a simple trust set up with their house and all their major property in it. The house, vehicles, and all other property passes smoothly and automatically to Sally and all she has to do is show the death certificate to the proper parties and have John's name removed from the assets. She can mortgage them or start selling them the day after the funeral if she so chooses with no questions asked, no lawyers needed, and a minimum of taxes to be paid. Custody of the children is prearranged with backup plans set in place as needed if both couples were to die or become incapacitated.
Which scenario would you choose? I know which one we would. About a month after my father-in-law passed and we saw what a heck of a mess we were in for with his estate, we found a good estate lawyer for our own estate. We didn't have to go far, we found one right at the end of our street. We sat down with him for about 2 hours, answered some questions, made some decisions, and paid him about $1,000, which was without a doubt the best money we've ever spent! Then in less than a week, we had a will for each of us, a trust, power of attorney forms, guardianship forms and everything needed for every possible combination of catastrophes that could befall our family.
That's more than I usually share in a public blog about my finances, but this is something I feel so strongly about. As an adult, you have a duty to put your business in order to protect your family - you just have to. You need life insurance, wills, backup custody plans, the whole enchilada. 'Cuz I've been on the receiving end of a situation like this and I'll tell you, it ain't a pretty picture and it is easily the most stressful period of my life and I'm not about to put my kids through all that and I hope you won't either.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)