Working mom outside home

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Some of the main concerns among homeschooling moms that work outside home, are more about dealing with those miscellaneous tasks that can occupy much of our time like running errands. We read plenty sources about managing the home in the sense of keeping everything clean, belongings organized, and even decluttered. Nevertheless, some of the concerns in my Facebook support group relates more with balancing the time to run errands, like grocery shopping, dry cleaners, and random tasks like keeping up with bill payments, and other important paperwork like getting taxes ready. Today I’ll tackle a few of that “other home stuff”.

RUNNING ERRANDS

It is best to plan grocery shopping and errands on your day off.
- Make sure you don’t do those in your block of time for schooling.
- If an errand requires immediate attention, maximize time efficiency like planning to do drive-thru errands, such as dropping off mail in the post office and going to the bank on your way to work or vice versa. Usually, something will have to be skipped, and that’s ok. Just prioritize accordingly.

Do your best not to touch school time.
- Life happens and many times it is more unpredictable than we would like it to be, and that is why a flexible schedule is necessary for us working moms. So give yourself grace. It is not always like that.

At all costs, plan ahead those errands.
- A time block planner is useful to know with clarity what you will do every day at any given time.
- There will be occasions that you may have to plan for a shorter school week.

MANAGING BILL PAYMENTS

Set up online payments if possible. This really is a time-saver for me. I’m not really into automated bill pay, so I just write it in my planner when to schedule them on my online banking account.

I store the statements in an accordion style folder with 13 pockets. I use the first 12 for each month of the year, and in the last pocket I have all the statements, held together with a rubber band, from the previous year. At the end of the year, or once the first bill in January comes, the rubber banded stack gets moved to a file cabinet, for archiving. My dad, a retired bank auditor, recommended me to store up to 5 years of statements, then from time to time to shred the ones older than that.

MANAGING HOUSE PAPERWORK

I’ve tried two systems that I can share with you. I’ve done file cabinet, and binder systems. I currently use a combination of both.

For current paperwork that includes house and car insurance policies, health insurance policies, birth certificates, property and car ownership documentation, retirement statements, etc., I use a two inch binder with clear sheet protectors.

Mail can be placed on a tray and sort it out as quickly as possible.

Bills need to be placed in a distinct area or labeled tray where you can grab them and schedule the payments according to your planned date.
Immediately following the pay scheduling, write on the statement the scheduled paid date and store it in the accordion folder.
Schedule going over mail weekly. You can schedule this along with another house duty, for example after doing a load of laundry in the washer.
Immediately toss ads and discount paper coupons that you don’t even plan on utilizing (there is not such thing as “I can use it later”).

ORGANIZING TAXES PAPERWORK

At the beginning of the year grab a letter size (9′ X 12″) open end envelope and label it with the tax year (e.g. “TAXES 2018”).
Anytime you make an expense related to your job, business, etc. place the receipts there. You will also need to place your W2 and any other job tax forms in it, and property taxes.
If your state allows you to claim homeschooling expenses, it is more manageable to keep a separate envelope with all the receipts of expenses you make for your homeschool. You could also use a smaller envelope labeled “Homeschool Receipts 2018” for example, and place it inside the letter size envelope.

Two things that I like of this system is that it doesn’t take too much shelve space and you can keep that envelope neatly stored in a magazine holder for easy access. Also, the envelope is easy to open to throw in a receipt when I’m in a rush.

I hope this gave you an idea of how to organize and get the “other home stuff” done. For a full month on successful schedules of working moms visit:

*I would like to note that by all means I don’t have the perfect organized life. Sometimes I fail (more than I would like to), but with prayer, motivation, and dedication these systems work. Usually it requires building a habit in order to have workable time saving systems in place.*

“We can do all things through Christ, who strengthens us” (Phil. 4:13), but we can’t do them all at once.