In her book Simplify Your life, author Marcia Ramsland begins with the Kitchen as the first system to tackle. Specifically, mealtime woes is what she is referring to. Chapter 6 is dedicated to working on that one system.

I have already spent a lot of time on this process since I just finished the Grocery Budget Makeover Online Course with Erin Chase from $5 Dinners.com. It was really worth the money because it challenged me to look at this very system along with how to maximize my dollars at the grocery store.

As I looked at the system I already have in place, I asked myself what is the one thing that keeps tripping me up. I wondered, what is the one “habit that would smooth out the most jolts and delays in life” as Sonya Shafer puts it in her book Laying Down the Rails for Yourself. What I realized was I was constantly forgetting to defrost my meat/freezer meal for the day and constantly having to improvise once I realized that I had done it-again.

I wanted to make this a habit that I would not forget so I decided to set a timer on my phone on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights to pull out the meat for the next 3 meals. Sunday I pull out Monday’s, Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s meat. Then on Wednesday I pull out Thursday’s and one more for either Friday or Saturday. Sunday mornings, I usually decide whether we will eat at home or eat out so I can wait til then.

Once that habit is formed, I think mealtime will be much smoother.

Sunday Prep is another system or habit I want to start and stick to. I have saved many pinterest articles about Sunday prep and it is basically a dedicated time on Sunday (or whatever day you chose) to set yourself up for the following week.

So this Sunday, I finally had a mini prep session and here is what I accomplished:

• I cut up zucchini and carrots for lunches
• I shred some zucchini for zucchini muffins that I will bake later in the week
• I made ranch dressing
• I mixed up some taco seasoning
• I boiled 6 eggs for egg salad or deviled eggs
• and I baked those flourless brownie muffins I posted about here.

That is only half of what I intended to do.

So along with the system I already have in place, I plan to implement these two timesaving habits into my weekly routine and I think it will be much much better.

Ligia

I recently picked up Simplify your Life by Marcia Ramsland again. This is my second time reading through it. I hate when I do that. I read a book, really like it, and then forget everything I learned. This time it will be different. I am going to put the principles taught in this book into practice and stick to it.

I started off by visiting Marcia’s website: organizing pro.com. She has an online 7 week course which I would have liked to do but it’s out of my budget, so I decided to implement her 7 week course at home- minus the coaching.

Her week 1: Simply Begin Your Journey & 1st System: The Kitchen

Step 1: Read chapters 1 and 6

Step 2: Implement new system.

What I like about this book is the “system” she teaches. She teaches a concept called PUSH.

P=Project- a one time planned organizing and simplifying event.

U=You! -Customize to fit you.

S= System-a simple plan to maintain the accomplished project every day. It should take 10-15 minutes a day-tops

H=Habit-creating routines that become Habits. (Incidentally, I am also reading a book about creating Habits called Laying Down the Rails for Yourself by Sonya Safer that complements this step beautifully)

For this first week, I wrote out why I need to simplify my life and basically it comes down to wanting to balance homeschooling, home care, physical and spiritual well being and work. (Well, Hello! Can anyone say Busy Mom). This is my on going struggle to balance it all.

Second, I realize that in order to simplify my life I need to simplify the “Systems” that I use to organize all these areas in my life. When I try to get all my plates spinning and one of my systems is out of whack, I then drop all my plates, unfortunately. I feel anxious about all my plates spinning out of control. I don’t excel in any of the areas and feel like I am mediocre in all areas.

Marcia says something brilliant ” Manage what you must; Organize what  you care about”. I care about my home, my children, my health, my relationship with God, and my personal goals and ambitions.

So my desire then is to do what Sonya Shafer  encourages: one habit at a time. A key principle of habit-training is to focus on one habit at a time. Choose one habit that you are going to work on first. Get that habit up and running well, then focus on another one. (pg. 12)

Then I love what she says Think about which one would smooth out the most jolting and delays of life for you.”

Each habit takes six to eight weeks. Length doesn’t matter, it could take  more or less but it will be built.

Finally, she says ” To keep the end destination in mind. To map out how you plan to get there” (pg 15)

So it might take me more than 7 weeks, maybe it takes me 49 weeks, but wouldn’t it be nice to see that in one year I have simplifying my life!

So I am excited to tackle the first of those systems: The Kitchen

Ligia

Grocery Makeover Challenge, am I up to it? 

I am participating in a Grocery Makeover Challenge sponsored by 5 Dollar Dinners so that I can revamp our grocery budget. As I have shared before, I am challenged with two very big hits to our grocery budget. The first one being that we are gluten free. That in itself is huge. Here is a small example: A one pound package of spaghetti may cost you .79 on sale. My gluten free pasta is $1.88 on sale. Basically almost 3 times the price. The second challenge is we switched to a paleo diet. That is HUGE. The true paleo diet is ALL organic, non GMO, organic meat, dairy, fruit, veggies, etc. That basically added about $200-$400 to my monthly budget.

So thanks to this grocery challenge, I am taking baby steps to getting my grocery budget under control. Baby step one, was actually getting down and dirty and deciding what is a good budget for me. For my family of four, with the issues I face, and living in the San Francisco Bay Area. I decided on $1,100.

This number is loosely based on the numbers suggested by the United States Department of Agriculture.

For a family of four on a “moderate plan” which is what I considered mine to be, it says $1070 so I rounded it up to $1,100.

Another method I have used to get a good idea what my budget should be is by saving my receipts for a month and then adding them all up.  You can then compare that to the numbers on the  USDA recommendation or use Dave Ramsey’s suggestion of 5-15%, but that includes all food (dining out too).

What I plan to do with my budget is continue to work on shaving some of that down. I would like to try shaving off 10% every 4 weeks by using coupons, sales ads, etc until I get down to around $860 which is the “thrifty” category on the USDA recommendation. I’ve been slacking off with this method even though I know it works. So can I save $110 this month? I sure hope so.

I want to share a link to a grocery budget series I’ve done in the past. Its by Don’t Waste the Crumbs she has a great article and worksheets.

Here is the link to the current challenge I am doing Grocery Budget Makeover.