Printable Household Notebook
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I created a household notebook for my family several years back, and it’s been a great help in keeping my family organized. This is my command center – the tool that I use to keep up with all the moving parts of our daily lives.
Before I show you what I keep in my household notebook, let’s take the first step in getting one set up for you. Here are a bunch of free printables that you can use to create yours.
Be sure to read to the bottom, if you want to see how my household notebook is set up.
Use this cover to start your household notebook. Just print it out, and slide it into one of those binders that allows you to customize the cover. There’s a front, back and spine for you to use.
And here are some tabs that you can use to organize your household notebook into sections. This printable also includes tabs that you can use to set up a family recipe book and a coupon notebook.
Add this weekly planner to keep up with everyone’s comings and goings. It has way more space than most planners.
Use this calendar to keep up with all the important dates that you have coming up in the next year, so you don’t double-book yourself.
Have a hard time keeping up with birthdays? Get them all on this birthday calendar, and it’ll be easy to see whose is coming up.
Use one of my chore charts to divvy up the chores in your house. There are six designs to choose from. Pick the one that works best for you.
Stay on top of seasonal chores with these seasonal to-do lists. There’s one for spring, summer, winter and fall.
Get all of those passwords out of your head and into this password organizer. It’s easy to alphabetize and expand over time.
Use this budget worksheet to map out where you want your money to go each month. It includes all those expenses that other budget worksheets leave off, and can be customized to your needs.
Keep up with where you’re at with your bills, account balances and financial goals. This Financial Snapshot Worksheet gets everything on one page.
Check off your bills as you pay them, so nothing gets overlooked. This worksheet makes it easy.
Have a bunch of bills on auto pay? Use this sheet to keep up with all the details, so if one of your cards ever gets stolen, you’ll know which bills you need to move over to your new card.
Plan meals in advance, so you’re less tempted to eat out. This weekly meal planner includes a spot to list what you need to buy and pull from the freezer.
And this one has enough room for your entire grocery list.
I keep all of my holiday planning stuff in a separate binder. If you’d prefer to include a holiday section in your household binder, you’ll find all of those printables here:
Many web browsers have their own built-in PDF viewers, but they tend to be buggy. If you’re having trouble printing or editing one of our printables, click here for help.
Peek Inside My Household Notebook
Now that we’ve gotten you going on your own notebook, let me show you some of the extras that I’ve added to my household notebook.
To minimize what we carry around in our wallets, I added a baseball card page to hold all the store loyalty cards that we only use occasionally. Each slot holds a card. I have a second page just like this where we store gift cards.
Since I never seem to be caught up on sewing Girl Scout badges onto my daughters’ uniforms, I added another pocketed page for badges. This keep them from getting misplaced, and I have to say, there’s a certain out-of-sight-out-of-mind appeal to this set up. Who knew Mom guilt was so easy to banish?
After I grew tired of printing Girl Scout permission slips at the last minute, I got smart and printed out a big stack for each kiddo. These are pre-filled with all of our contact information, so all I have to do is add the event information and a signature. I keep these tucked inside a folder in my notebook. This system has now been in place for several years.
Also included in my binder: a page with all the kids’ school passwords, a folder for each kiddo and one for vacation planning (that one is currently empty, so I’ll have to get busy planning our next adventure).
We’ve now been using our household notebook for eight years, and it’s still working brilliantly for us. Everyone in the house knows what goes inside, and they file things away without any nagging from me — even the kids put things in their proper place.
And it shocks me to say that I’ve never once in those eight years had to reorganize our household notebook because it had gotten unruly. That’s how you know when you’ve landed on something that works.
Tips on Setting Up Your Own Household Notebook
The beautiful thing about a household notebook is that you get to make it your own. My notebook works well for my needs, but it might not work well for yours. Spend some time thinking about what it would take to get you more organized, and build solutions into your notebook. What drives you nuts? Stresses you out? Leaves you feeling like you’re not on top of your game? If you can figure that out, you can fix it.
Trying to get all of your paper piles under control?
Be sure to check out my complete binder system. This is the system that I use to stay organized, and I’ve made it available to you for free.
Hello Erin, just wondering if there are any updates on this? Also, I was wondering as you and I share many of the same views (I agree with you about the smartphone), do you still print and write out most everything or are you digitizing more stuff (like calendars, to do lists etc) and if so what platform and or clouds do you recommend. I would LOVE for you to do a post on “frugal” record keeping (in relation to ALL of your printables) and if you have found it more frugal to print all, digitize all, some of each and what you find most cost effective.
Hi Rhonda, Our household notebook is still working beautifully for us. I just flipped through it, and the only thing I’ve added since I first wrote about it is copies of our insurance card. That’s something we seem to need fairly often these days — for summer camp, trips to grandma’s, etc., so it’s just a time-saver. Other than that, my set up hasn’t changed a bit.
I’ve actually been surprised at how well my binder system has worked and how little I’ve had to tweak it. Everyone knows where things go, so they actually file things away as they come in. In fact, I’ve never had to clean up any binder messes.
I’m a little old school, so I still keep a written calendar and to-do list. I honestly think it helps to keep our schedule less busy. If someone asks me if we’re available to do something, I can’t just whip my phone out and check on the spot. I have to go home and check the calendar. This gives us time and space to think about whether said activity is really something we want to commit to.
That said, almost all of my MFH record keeping is digitized. I use Google Drive to keep track of our editorial calendar, to-do list, etc. This makes it easy to access records from anywhere and to share them with whomever I need to.
An update on my record keeping approach is a great idea. I’ll put it on my digital to-do list. Ha!
Thank you SO much and regarding this “Trying to get all of your paper piles under control?
Be sure to check out my complete binder system. This is the system that I use to stay organized, and I’ve made it available to you for free.” what if anything have you found easier to digitize rather than print and hard copy? You sure have made MY life easier;)
Thanks for the free binder for household printables. I am having trouble with the weekly planner and the Important dates ones. When I click on them to open they are in really small box in the upper left corner. They are not opening as a PDF like all the others. Can you check it out so that I can get them. Thanks again for the printables, I LOVE them
Thanks for letting me know, Mary. I’ve fixed the link for the important dates calendar. I can’t seem to find a problem with the weekly planner. It opened properly when I tested it. Is it still doing it?
Erin,
Do you still have the “Half-Sheet Address Pages”? Thank you
Yep, this link should take you to it:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B72K29b_qbR3ZU9pQVUzX3BodHc/view?usp=sharing
Thank you so much…