How I Get My House Ready for a New Year

 

Isn't it wonderful how the difference in a day can make you feel like you have a new beginning? This is why I love New Years and having a brand new 12 months laying before me, like a blank canvas. 

I've always loved new beginnings! I love Mondays for offering us the opportunities of a new week. I love a new notebook, with all of it's blank pages. I love a new challenge, new ideas, new projects and basically, anything that holds hope and promise. 

What I don't love is saddling myself down with rules, resolutions, goals and obligations that make me feel like a failure in a matter of weeks. So I don't do them. 

However, there are a few things I do at the start of a new year to set me on a good foot, and I thought I'd share those today, for anyone who might need some motivation (or just likes to know how others do things, which I totally do 😀). 

1. New Office Files

At the beginning of the new year I always start a new set of files for our home office. I throw out anything that doesn't need to be saved for taxes and I start new files for the new year. I've really simplified this over the years, as so many things can be found online now. But I do still keep medical receipts, auto information, sales receipts, a pet file and several other folders for quick reference. 

I always dread doing this task, but will usually take an afternoon to conquer the pile of folders and it's never as painful as I make it out to be in my mind.

2. New Budget Book

Now this one, I get excited about! I love budgeting and working numbers throughout the year. It's like a puzzle to me and each month I enjoy fitting the pieces into a manageable form, to use our money the best I can. So every new year I set up a 3 ring notebook with our budget, account ledgers and a few other tools and begin a fresh new set of pages for the year. It's very simple to use and this is important, because I take care of all the finances and I need a system that would be self-explanatory if David should ever need to take over. 

Over the years I've tried many different systems touted by "the experts" and yet, always come back to my very simple system that has stood the test of time. When something works, stick with it!

3. New Planner

Well, speaking of wasting money...I confess, I'm a planner junkie. That sounds awful, but it's true. 

However, at the beginning of a new year, I buy a new planner. (and sometimes in the Summer and maybe even in the Fall 😊) I love planners, notebooks, stickers, washi tape and being creative with paper. 

I will go through and write all the important dates for the year and even write a list of projects I want to work on during that year. 

Like the other tools I use in my office, I like to keep things simple. I don't like complicated planners that have too many sections for flipping back and forth. I basically need a calendar, a daily to-do section and some note pages to write my projects on. That's it. 

So why so many planners then? Just because they're pretty. That's it. 

4. New Bible Study 

This year I'm doing a year-long study (as you can see in the picture). I will probably add some devotions to the study, as well, but this is what I'll be working in each morning. 

Those are the only things I bought for the new year, but there are a few other things I did on New Year's Eve to get organized for a fresh new month and I thought I'd share those too.

*Big Grocery Haul 

 I went shopping the day after we got home from vacation, which happened to be New Year's Eve. I try to avoid all retail areas on a holiday, but since we were going on vacation, I didn't buy groceries the previous week and we needed some things to get us through. So early Saturday morning I went to Walmart and bought groceries and items to stock up for several weeks. 

As I was walking the aisles, I kept thinking about my kids and how they were affording the ridiculous grocery prices. You can really get worked up if you think about it for too long, but that's not a conversation I'll start today. 

*A Pantry and Fridge Clean Out

While putting away groceries, I was also cleaning out the fridge and organizing the pantry. I find these tasks so satisfying 😀 I just love being organized. It's good to spend a few hours sorting and refilling spice jars, making the fridge and pantry look nice and neat and even taking inventory and writing down the possible meals for the week (or two) and putting it up on the fridge.

Sidenote here...I don't make meal plans, as in, eating certain meals on specific days. I like to be in the mood for my food, so what I do instead, is take an inventory of the fridge and pantry, make a list of possible meals, write it or type it and put the list on the fridge. 

During the week, I can look at the list and see what I'm in the mood for. This works much better for our family, than assigning certain food to a specific day. 

And that's how I got myself ready to start 2023! There are a few other things I'll do within January, such as start what I call my "Winter Project List" and I'll share that someday soon. But for now, I hope you've enjoyed hearing how I do things around Millie's Cottage. I'm looking forward to hearing from some of you as well!

Until Next Time...

Blessings!