Keeping it Simple (part 2)

In part 1 of my Keep it Simple series we cleaned the girls' playroom in little over 9 minutes.  The toys that they have are kept very simple so that even when it is a mess it is easy to clean.  This is the goal for the rest of the house.  I would like to make clean up in each room in our house this simple as well to make for a quick clean up.  

Part 2 of this series was to clean the girls' bedroom.  Here are the BEFORE pictures of their room:

It doesn't look too bad, but there were a ton of little toys and random items, trash and papers all over the floor. So this took us a little bit longer because there were so many random things to put away.  

Here is our stopwatch time:

 End result including vacuuming the floor:

Tips:

*I usually make a list of things that need to be put away in the room.  

example: books, clothes, stuffed animals, puzzles, cups in sink, make beds, etc.   I can then let the girls know what needs to be done and they can choose which item they would like to start with.  This way things get done, but they get a choice of what they would like to clean up.  

*Having the timer running while we were cleaning made the girls work a little faster.  They thought it was neat to see how quickly we could get their room done.   Next time we clean we will see if we can beat out previous time.  Each of the girls have a sticker chart (more about sticker charts later) and they may get a couple sticker for their chart if we can beat out time.  :-)  

$50/week Shopping

I try to keep a pretty tight weekly grocery budget for our family of 6.  I have strayed from sharing my weekly grocery hauls (I guess they aren't really hauls, but, whatever!), but I have recently had a few people asking me about how I do that, what do I get, what do I make, etc.  So, I figured I would try to get back into the habit of posting them at the end of each week. 

$37.05 was the total for my first trip.  We already had meat in the freezer so I didn't need to get any meat.  We did however need shampoo, conditioner and kids toothpaste. 

We were also able to stock up on some shredded cheese, pringles (this was a real treat!), potatoes and bread. 

This is not grocery related, but wanted to share.  :-)  I needed to get some ink for my printer and as always when I go into CVS I scan my care card and the scanner to see if there are any coupons available.  There was a $4.99 coupon for this acetaminophen which was on sale for $4.99.  FREE!!  WooHoo!!

When I got home, I realized I had a $5 off coupon for an ink cartridge so I returned the ink the next day and then bought it again, but used my coupon.  I got the ink for $17.49. 

I was disappointed with is quick trip.  One thing we always have in our cupboards are pasta and pasta sauce.  Well, I was making chicken parmesan for dinner and realized I didn't have any sauce.  I make a quick trip to our local store and had to pay $1.99 for this jar of pasta.  :(  This was a bit more than I would usually pay, so I was kind of bummed. 

This was my last trip and I was MEGA excited about this one!!  I am NOT a couponer, but recently a friend of mine and I were talking about it and she was telling me that she was trying couponing.  After chatting for a bit I was getting a bit excited and after looking a couple sites I started printing a couple coupons.  I don't like using coupons because I usually buy generic products and there aren't many coupons for store brand items.  So I thought......

As I started looking I found several coupons for the generic store brand items I had on my list!!  This got me pretty excited.  I was able to combine all sorts of sales and coupons and finish off my week with a trip that cost me $8.85!!  I saved over $21.00!!  This has gotten me motivated to try couponing a little more.  Am I going to go crazy?  NO, but I won't rule it out completely.  ;-)

Keeping it Simple (part 1)

Sometimes I get frustrated with how messy my girls' rooms get and how quickly they get that way.  I find myself and/or my husband telling them things like 'Do we need to throw some of these toys away since you can't put them away?' or 'Maybe you don't need to get anything for Christmas.'  But when it actually comes time to clean their room, I realize how many toys they DON'T have.  Compared to the amount of toys their friends have, you would think we didn't have any money!!  This last time we cleaned their room I decided to take before and after pictures and time us to see how long it took myself and the girls (ages: 6, 4 and 3) to clean their room.  I wanted to show myself that even though it may look awful, it really isn't that bad and maybe we really don't need to threaten with getting nothing for Christmas.

The room I am going to share with you today is Emery's room/playroom.

BEFORE:

Pretty bad, huh??

Well, like I said, I set the timer on the ipad and......

Yep, that's right!!  LESS THAN 10 minutes!!  and that includes getting it vacuumed!!

Not too shabby, huh?!

AFTER:

 1st picture -  You can see we have the work bench and a chair and there is a basket in between the crib and the tv stand with all the dress up clothes in it.

 2nd picture - All of the stuffed animals and dolls go into the blue bin.  The baskets on the shelves have little toys that aren't necessarily a part of anything else.  

3rd picture -  The desk and any workbooks, a couple coloring books and pens.  Really anything to play school with.  The purple shelf in this picture is one of my favorites.  It is magnetic!!  I didn't take a picture of the shelves on the other side, but it has baskets with play food and dishes, magnetic dishes and the tools for the work bench.  

All that mess for so few things!!  See when I type out what they actually have it really isn't that much.  KEEPING IT SIMPLE makes for a quick, easy and painless clean up!!!  

Stay tuned for other rooms we KEEP SIMPLE!!