Financial Literacy Parenting Tip
Staying organized as a busy parent can be tricky, especially if you’re on a budget. However, with so much tech available at our fingertips these days, it’s easier than ever to manage your household and stay on top of every task without spending a lot of money. Many tools are free to use, including sites that offer helpful resources for families on where to find activities, new products, and kid-friendly recipes.
Collaborative for Children outlines a few more ways you can get your family organized on a budget:
Digitize your paper documents with an online tool
Most parents have a lot of paperwork to keep track of, whether it’s medical documents or important school papers, and these add up quickly over the school year, making it a hassle to quickly find what you need. Instead of spending money to give your home office an organizational makeover, you can use online tools to go digital and file your paperwork away in a secure spot that will be easily accessible whenever you need a document. Rather than keeping many separate files, you can change pages PDFs using a free tool that allows you to convert files like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint into editable PDF files. You can then combine them into one PDF document to save space and make access easy.
Declutter your home and make some space
Digitizing your paperwork is a great way to get started on decluttering, but you can also take a look around the most-used rooms of your home and consider some easy ways to improve those spaces. Utilizing inexpensive organizational items and storage containers can help immensely, especially if you have small children who have a lot of toys and gear. Abundant Life With Fewer notes that not only does this process help you clean up and create more space, but it’ll also help you maintain the organization over time, which is a crucial aspect of decluttering. Just make sure you have room for these tools before you buy. You might consider measuring the space and moving furniture around in different configurations to ensure everything fits comfortably.
Make meal planning much easier
For many parents, organizing physical items in the home is just one part of the battle. Planning, shopping for, and preparing healthy, budget-friendly meals is an entirely different kind of stress that can be especially challenging on nights when the kids have sports practice or when work has run late. The good news is there are several options available to you that don’t involve fast food or pizza, including a meal delivery service that brings healthy ingredients and a recipe right to your door. If you’d rather buy your own items, consider utilizing a meal planning app, many of which offer low monthly subscription rates and free trials. You can also use Pinterest to find nutritious meal ideas that the entire family will love. Pin your favorites to a board for easy access to the ingredients you’ll need when you’re shopping.
Work from home without the stress
If you’re a work-from-home parent, mealtimes aren’t the only areas where you may need a little help from time to time. Staying on top of your work responsibilities while the kids are at home can be challenging, to say the least, so it’s a good idea to set some routines and boundaries that will help you get through it without all the stress. Southern Motion shows you how to give yourself a dedicated workspace with everything you need to get things done. You can also take a look at some of your daily practices and think about how you can make better choices, such as not multitasking or making it a point to spend some time outdoors with the kids for a little while each day.
As a busy parent, you already know how difficult it can be to stay organized and stick to a budget, but it doesn’t have to be a struggle. By utilizing a few online tools and getting your house in order, you and your family can make the most of a newly organized space.
