Hello, ladies. :)

The other day, I left a comment where I spoke rather briefly about using a household binder. To my surprise, quite a few people expressed an interest in the binder. So I figured I’d make a proper post about it, in case this binder might be helpful for anyone who might not have read the original comment.

Also, when I left that comment, I wrote my tips on using the binder only with the OP’s needs in mind. By making a post on the subject, I can now give a fuller picture of how one might effectively utilize this tool.

I originally considered just writing a post about home management in general. And while I might still do that, building a household binder is one of those subjects that kind of requires a post of its own, especially if I expect to make this guide even somewhat thorough.

Anyway, I hope you find this post helpful! If you decide to make a binder, please share some pictures -- I’d love to see them! :)

Table Of Contents:

1. What Is a Household Binder?
2. What Is NOT a Household Binder?
3. Who Should Be Included in Your Binder?
4. Which Categories Should You Choose?
5. What You’ll Need to Get Started
6. Category Ideas

 

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What Is a Household Binder?

A household binder, also known as a home management binder, is an easily accessible compendium of all the information anyone in your family needs somewhat regular access to.

The key to an effective household binder is making sure it is comprehensive and organized.

 

Comprehensive

A household binder should hold all kinds of information if you expect it to be worth the effort. For example, my binder has my husband’s clothing & shoe sizes.

Why would including such a minor detail in my binder be useful? After all, I could just ask my husband what his sizes are. But sometimes you need to know these things right now.

Let’s say I’m getting ready to head to Target after seeing a commercial that advertise a sweet sale on men’s clothing, and OMG, the sale ends today!

If I didn’t have my binder, I would need to call my husband while he’s busy at work, wait for him to get back to me during a break, hear his irritated response as he realizes the urgent-sounding voicemail wasn’t an emergency after all, and then rush to Target with only 30 minutes to spare before I’ll need to leave and pick up the kid from school. With the binder, I can just look it up before heading to Target, and I can take all the time my little heart desires.

 

Organized

Aside from simply being a convenient source of information, look at your household binder as an instruction manual. If your family were a business, reading through your binder should supply enough information for a new employee to assimilate with ease. This binder needs to be clearly organized so that even a stranger could flip through it and understand what it is they are looking at.

This can be incredibly important in the event of an emergency. If, God forbid, I were to suddenly pass away, my husband would have access to all my information regarding my bank info, my insurance info, or anything else he would need in order to get the resulting paperwork in order. In the event we both were to pass, our parents would have all the information they would need in order to continue caring for our daughter, like her school schedule and medical info.

 

Note:

Some families use a household notebook rather than a binder. I prefer a binder because families are not static. Families grow, their needs and interests change, they become added to and subtracted from. In order to keep the information relevant, it will need to evolve along with them.

If you have a notebook, you’ll probably end up needing to replace it every year or so in order to keep up with the times. With a binder, you can simply remove one or two pages and replace them with updated information.

Additionally, with a binder, you can easily rearrange your categories. This is useful if, for example, you have a category near the back for Travel. You don’t use it normally, but now that you’re about to go on a vacation, you can move this category closer to the front as you find yourself referencing more often.

If you like having a notebook because you need a place to empty out your thoughts without any order or organization, consider keeping a section of ruled, loose-leaf paper in your binder.

 

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What Is NOT a Household Binder?

A household binder is not meant to keep things that are better left in a fire-safe box or in your archived files.

These do not belong in your binder:

• social security cards
• birth certificates
• marriage license
• titles
• deeds
• 3 years of tax returns and W2s

Instead, write your social security numbers and birthdays down onto the relevant page, and keep the page in your binder. These important documents belong somewhere else, in a location that will be more sensible and/or safer.

If the subject is of interest to anyone, maybe I can make a post later on about how to store and organize your archived files.

 

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Who Should Be Included in Your Binder?

A household binder is a tool meant to help manage and organize your home. It can’t just be about you; that’s what day planners and diaries are for! In order for it to effectively assist you in managing your home, it needs to include every single member of your family.

When I say “family”, I’m referring to everyone you are responsible for within your home.

 

Your binder needs to include:

• You
• Your spouse or common law partner
• Children
• Pets
• Any elderly or disabled relatives under your care

 

Special Considerations:

• Boy/Girlfriend

  While I don’t recommend long-term cohabiting, your binder should include your boy/girlfriend if you live together.
  To what extent they are included depends on your situation. For some couples, all you might need is an emergency contact page for your partner. For others, you might need to cover them in your binder just as thoroughly as you would a spouse. This is a decision best left to you.
  (I’m not judging any cohabiters, btw. Due to unavoidable circumstances at the time, my husband and I ended up needing to live together for a few months before we married. However, I would still advise against it if you have the choice.)

• Adult Children

  Your binder should not include adult, self-sustaining children who have moved out, as they should be capable of managing their own homes; they would be better off having their own binders.
  If your adult children live with you due to disability, they should be included.
  If your adult children live with you due to life circumstances, such as unemployment, I would recommend that you leave them out of your binder. However, every family’s situation is different, so the decision is ultimately up to you and what you think makes the most sense.

 

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Which Categories Should You Choose?

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

The first step to making sure any organizing project will be a success is to think. You need to have a clear vision of your desired outcome for the project. Before picking your categories, buying your supplies, and even before gathering your information, start by taking some time to think.

 

The categories you decide to include will depend on two things, and it is these two things you’ll need to spend some time thinking about:

1. What kind of job you would like your binder to perform
2. Your family’s lifestyle and needs

 

Family A

Family A likes to use their binder daily, treating it like a second brain. (In many families like Family A, it’s actually just mom who uses it daily while everyone else only refers to it occasionally.) Family A probably answered #1 with “any and all jobs it can possibly handle”, and their lifestyle is probably a bit hectic, in which every day is usually filled with the kids’ after-school activities and fun weekend events. Mom likes using her binder to help her get prepared and organized for the day.

 

If you find yourself relating to Family A and you think you’d also prefer your binder to be the ultimate multitasker, your binder will probably have 2” rings and will weigh in on the heavier side, filled with lots of categories.

You might want to include a section of monthly or weekly calendar pages, or a section for planning and organizing your volunteer work, so that your binder can replace your day planner.

Maybe you’d want a category labelled “Today” or “Just for Me” at the front of the binder to help you center yourself in the morning, filled with yoga poses, meditation guides, dream journaling pages, and inspirational quotes.

Or maybe your “Just for Me” category would serve you better as a place to empty out your brain, constantly getting updated with to-do lists, vacation ideas, magazine clippings, or book recommendations you’d like to check out later.

You can expect to be calling on your binder so often that it might as well just live on your desk. I hope the binder you bought was a sturdy one!

 

Family B

Family B is a lot more like my own family. Family B uses their binder less frequently and treats it more like an encyclopedia, only referring to it as needed. Family B answered #1 with “a memory aide”, with their binder containing tons of reminders, helping them keep track of important information and tasks that would otherwise be forgotten during day to day life. And while Family B’s lifestyle is just as hectic as Family A’s, the members of Family B have too much going on or are too easily distracted for them to bother with flipping through a binder in order to see what they have planned for the day -- they’d much prefer having the calendar and all the to-do lists up on a wall where it’s easy to see with a quick glance.

 

Maybe you find yourself relating a bit better to Family B. Perhaps your brain prefers things to be a bit more compartmentalized, possibly becoming overwhelmed with a binder that tries to perform too many jobs at once. Your binder will probably be fine with 1” rings since it will be slimmer, as some of the potential categories, like the calendar pages and “Just for Me”, are already being handled by other items, like a day planner and a journal.

You might prefer strictly informative categories, like Cars to keep track of your vehicle maintenance, or Passwords to keep track of all your websites.

You might still enjoy having some more frequently used categories in your binder, like Finances or Holiday Planning, but you also might be more tempted to place those sorts of things in separate binders altogether!

 

How you decide to use your binder is up to you and what works best for your family. It’s okay to add and remove categories that don’t seem to be serving you well. Any organizing project requires some trial and error in order to figure out what works best, so don’t lose heart if your binder doesn’t prove its worth right away. (And don’t forget to purge outdated pages from time to time!)

 

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What You’ll Need to Get Started

When it comes to organizing projects, I feel that it’s worth splurging (just a little!) in order to get prettier supplies. After all, you’ll be more likely to work on a boring or time consuming project if you enjoy getting to look at it!

To help you out, I’ve link you to some attractive supplies to get you started (or at least I think they’re cute). I’m only linking to Amazon since it’s accessible to most people, so definitely go look at some other stores. Consider checking out Target -- their clearance section is a treasure trove of adorable office supplies. I always find something useful when I’m there.

 

Required:

• A Binder (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
  • Mine is 1” with 7 categories and room to spare. You might need a larger one if you want more categories, though.
• Tabbed Dividers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• One divider per category. Consider your categories when deciding if you want pockets on your dividers.
• Sheet Protectors
• Feel free to buy these in bulk -- it’s cheaper, it’s better to have too many than needing to buy more halfway through, and you’ll probably find a good use for the extra ones elsewhere.
• Pens or pencils (1, 2)
• 3-Hole Punch
• A Lot of Patience!
• Putting the binder together will take a lot of time. It took me nearly an entire month to put mine together. The amount of time it takes you to gather up all of the info you’ll want in your binder should really put into perspective just how convenient this tool will be.

 

Optional:

• Binder Pouch(es) (1, 2)
• You’ll need one pouch (or some other pen-holding alternative) if your binder doesn’t have a pen strap (this thing).
• For certain categories, you might need extra pouches (like under Finances to hold a calculator).
• Dry-Erase Markers
• So you can write on the sheet protector instead of on the paper. This is particularly helpful for pages that get updated frequently, like meal plans.
• Baseball Card Sleeve
• I only use one to hold business cards. Some people like to use another one to hold coupons.
• Ruled Loose-Leaf Paper
• You can also use a 1-subject notebook instead.
• I don’t have loose paper in mine, but it might be useful for those who want a multitasking binder.

 

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Category Ideas

I certainly don’t have all of these categories, or even most of them, in my own binder. These are simply some ideas to help you get your wheels turning.

If, after reading through this list, you’re still finding it difficult to decide on your categories, there are loads of free household binder printables out there that come in packs. Just print out the entire pack and fill it all in with your info.

I actually use some printables in my binder, but that’s mostly because they’re way prettier than any page I could come up with. I’ve never downloaded a whole pack of them, though, so unfortunately I can’t offer any recommendations.

Note: In the future, I’m thinking about making separate posts that will go more in-depth about cleaning schedules and meal plans, so I’m not going to hotlink those here. Other things aren’t getting hotlinked due to laziness. :(

 

• Finances
  Monthly budget, recurring bill payment schedule, bank account info, credit card info, debts, financial goals.
  Tip: Keep a binder pouch in this section to hold your checkbook, a calculator, and a pen.

• Contact Info
  Name, address, and phone numbers for your mechanic, plumber, HVAC, doctor, dentist, veterinarian, insurance providers, local police station, local hospital, babysitter, and any other trusted business you need to call on from time to time. I even have my tattoo artist listed. Keep another page here for addresses & numbers of friends and family (in case you forget to backup your cellphone!).
  Tip: Put a baseball card sleeve in this section to hold any important business cards.

• Travel
  Petsitter notes, babysitter notes, children’s morning/bedtime routines, CPR/First Aid instructions (like this), winter & summer luggage packing checklists, itineraries.

• Home Maintenance
  A copy of your daily cleaning checklist, monthly & yearly cleaning checklists (or you can keep a master list that covers all three), spring cleaning checklist, cleaning product recipes, laundry tag cheat sheet, seasonal maintenance checklist, home maintenance log(PDF), home inventory.
  This category is mainly a bunch of reminders for things that need to be cleaned/fixed but are often forgotten about, like cleaning the gutters or replacing the hot water heater.
  Tip: The printables I’ve linked here are just ideas to get you started. Feel free to search Pinterest for checklists that better suit your home -- or make your own and share it with us!

• Cars
  Vehicle info (year, make, model, VIN #, license plate #, tire size, speaker sizes, a recent photo for insurance purposes, etc.), maintenance log, insurance policy, warranties, and perhaps a copy of your insurance card.
  Tip: Keep your title in a safe box, your registration in your glove box, and one of your insurance cards should go in your purse or your glove box. If you have a digital insurance card (like from E-surance), print a copy of it and keep it in your purse/glove box. Some states do not accept digital copies if you are pulled over. Even if your state does accept digital cards, consider printing a copy anyway -- by handing your phone to an officer, you are giving them the right to search your phone.

• Food
  Weekly meal plan, a stash of blank grocery lists, pantry & fridge inventory. You can keep take-out menus in the pocket of your tabbed divider, in another binder pouch, or in a folder (hole punching them isn’t always a great solution). If you don’t have many coupons, you can keep them along with weekly sales ads in a pocket, pouch, or folder here as well.
  Tip: For many families (mine included), sometimes Food is better off having its own binder entirely. This way, you can have a section near the front for meal planning that includes all of the items I’ve just listed, and you can use the remaining space in this binder to store recipes categorized by meal type (e.g. breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, etc.) or main ingredient (e.g. pork, beef, vegetarian, etc.).

• Medical
  Emergency contacts, vaccination records, surgery records, blood types, weights, heights, body measurements, prescription info/schedule, children OTC dosing chart(PDF), OTC medication inventory, evacuation plans.

• Calendars
  Monthly calendar pages, school calendars, sports schedules, activity schedules (e.g. Girl Scouts, bowling league, etc.), event calendars (e.g. library, museum, concerts, etc.).

• Brainstorming/Inspiration
  Blank pages for writing ideas down, magazine clippings, inspirational quotes, wishlists, bucket lists, goals.

• Holiday Planning
  To-do lists, decorating schedule (e.g. when to buy the tree, when to take it down, etc.), activities and events (e.g. ice skating, weekend markets, etc.), recipes, gift lists, family clothing size chart, home decoration inventory, Elf on the Shelf ideas.
  Tip: This was how I used to plan my gift giving. You may have caught my recent post where I’ve pretty much decided to move this task to Pinterest. Just an example of how it’s okay to reconfigure your organizing.

• Bible Study
  Lessons, notes, quotes, a list of books for further study. I don’t participate in a bible study, so I’m just guessing at what you might put here!

• School Info or Homeschooling
  Curriculum, report cards, upcoming events, spelling words, parent-teacher conference notes, PTA papers, newsletters.
  Tip: If you don’t have a Calendars category, keep the school calendars and the kids’ activity & sports schedules here. If you do have a Calendars category, try keeping that stuff here anyway; it might make more sense to keep all of the kids’ papers together. Homeschoolers might have better luck keeping a separate binder, since I assume it requires more paperwork.

• Loans
  Log of items lent to others, log of items borrowed from others, library checkout log, Redbox checkout log, movie and/or book inventory, log of movies/books your children have “rented” from you.

• Hospitality
  Party ideas, recipes, place setting ideas, mini contact list of preferred guests.
  Tip: You can use this section to plan birthday parties and other special events you might host, like baby showers or engagement parties.