organizing Archives - Kids Ain't Cheap

Sometime between Christmas and summer I get an urge to clean and organize everything in our home. I think this comes from a combination of the influx of new gifts at Christmas (in with new, out with old), the fact that we spend more time inside in the winter so I’m surrounded by ‘’stuff’’ and the fact that come summer, I don’t want to do any of this so I want it done beforehand!

Things have changed for us a bit over the past few years. Since adding a child to our family suddenly there are a lot more important ‘’things’’ in our home. Things I want protected in the off chance something were to happen to us or our property.

Paper Documents

Passports, birth certificates, proof of insurance, you name it, if it’s very important we keep it in a fireproof safe. I thought about getting a safety deposit box but it seemed like more effort. I was lucky enough to receive a large safe from my in-laws for Christmas, which we use to all important original documents.

If it’s something you can have duplicates of (think insurance papers, not passports) scan them and keep a secondary copy on a computer or ideally in a cloud like Dropbox which you could access anywhere in the world.

Pictures

One of the things I am most thankful for in this technology age is digital pictures. I need to get better at backing them up but it’s a lot less stressful than only having that one single original picture like our parents. I have a memory card that I upload all my important pictures to which again, goes in the safety deposit box. I also like to print some pictures giving me an added copy.

Kid and Family Stuff

Though we couldn’t possibly keep every little craft or picture she makes us, there are some things she has made that I can’t imagine ever losing. I have decided I can’t let it get out of control though, I bought a small airtight plastic container to save these things in and once it’s full we need to stop or cut back. Though this wouldn’t be any good if we were in a fire or something alike, it’s safe from everyday ‘house elements’ and I also take pictures of my favorite, special crafts which again gets backed up.

Computer Stuff/Digital Life

External hard drives can be a lifesaver. You’d think I would have learned my lesson when my computer crashed in university, losing everything, but it took losing my computer full of non backed-up photos of my child to really learn the lesson. I now back everything up on an external hard drive- which again can go in the safe, or a cloud- which I have access to anywhere in the world.

Life is suddenly more precious when an entire family is involved. If a fire hit our house I couldn’t care less about our clothes, dishes or appliances but if I lost my first Mother’s Day card I’d be devastated. Kids put everything into perspective, keep your family safe and make sure your important things are protected!

How do you keep your family documents safe?

Catherine

Catherine is a first time momma to a rambunctious toddler. When she isn’t soaking up all that motherhood has to offer, you can find her blogging over at Plunged in Debt where she chronicles her and her husbands journey out of debt. You can also follow her on Twitter.

plungedindebt.com

Christmas is over and if your house is anything like mine you need to now make room for the new stuff.

It’s not even that we got a lot of stuff but I don’t want my things to collect. For instance, my husband received a really nice set of steak knives to replace the crappy ones we’ve been using for a few years. I could add the new knives to our cutlery drawer and forget about it but I’d rather not place things on top of things.

I also received new food storage containers. I don’t know how, but throughout the year I end up with mis-matched tops and bottoms. Opportunities like this allow me to go through them and recycle the ones I can’t use.

My mother kept everything and from that I think I inherited a very minimalistic mindset. If I don’t have any use for something, or will only use it a handful of times, I’d rather not own it. I want to limit the stuff in my small home and so every December and January I declutter and organize like crazy.

These are a few rules of thumb that I follow to help keep things organized in my home:

If you receive a gift that can replace something, get rid of the other thing. If it is still in good use, donate it but if it’s not worth keeping, toss it. I don’t need 16 steak knives, eight good ones will do just fine.
When putting Christmas decorations away, go through everything and throw out broken decorations and ornaments. Also it’s ok to not keep every single card that was ever given to you. My sister has kept every card, ever, and it sort of drives me crazy to go over and see all the clutter. Keep the special ones and toss the rest when the season is over.
While putting things away try to be organized about it. I packed all my Christmas decorations away very neatly and was able to get rid of two storage boxes in the process. This gave me room to store a new decoration that I received as a gift.
Look for areas to improve while putting things away. While I was putting some new DVD’s, I decided that I needed to compress our collection. As small as DVD’s are, after a while they consume a lot of space. Since my husband insists we keep them all I plan on organizing them in thin plastic DVD sleeves and getting rid of all the cases so we can store them in a small box instead of an entire media shelf. Looking around the home I can see many areas where I can compress things we already own to make more room.

Keeping things cleaned and organized make all aspects of your life flow better. It is a huge relief to not have to search all over the place for an object. I plan on using a few days of my Christmas vacation to get everything organized for the new year and start the year out with my best foot forward!