organization – Page 5 – Pollywog's Place Blog

Getting organized a little at a time … January 7, 2023

Published on January 7, 2023 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

Whew! It’s been a busy first week of the year but our house is finally ‘undecorated’ all except for the inflatables which are hanging over the back porch railings as they need to dry out.

Yesterday we had our first dance of the New Year at a new location. I tried not to do too much work as I didn’t want to be completely exhausted before the dance… I tried but with my arm, in the condition it is in right now, it doesn’t take much to wear me out at all. I went to one of our sheds to dig out a couple of outfits and then had to go back to find my dance shoes. While we were out in the shed I remembered that someone had mentioned they needed some little boy clothes so I found a tote of clothes our kiddos have outgrown and brought that to the house with us.

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Starting the New Year Off Right with Bill Organization!

Published on December 26, 2022December 3, 2022 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

These are a couple of older posts but the information still holds true and I am still using those printables… last year I didn’t print off a new set and things got a little confusing as I was trying to just ‘reuse’ the old ones but I’ve already printed out my new ones for 2023 so I can get a head start.

I also went ahead and wrote down the balances on any accounts that I am working on paying off so I can keep track of my progress… it feels so good to pay something off! We are slowly climbing out of debt even though we’ve had a couple of rough years. We’ve been making repairs to the house whenever we get the cash saved for a project while trying not to go into debt for anything else.

Sometimes we have to go without something for a bit or we have to wait a bit longer than anticipated but the money we save in the long run is a great bonus. With the increased costs of EVERYTHING, we need to save money every place we can!

Having all of your bills organized so you aren’t forgetting about due dates and such can save you a lot of time and money because hopefully, you won’t have as many late fees. I keep a simple pocket folder in a desk drawer with a place for my printouts and any incoming bills for easy access. It truly does make paying bills an easier process although it can still be a bit painful on the wallet.

Here are the links to the posts and printables if you want to check them out yourself!

Keeping Up With The Bills

Keeping Up With The Bills Free Printable

This also works great as a worksheet to help teach kids about budgets!

Getting your calendar organized!

Published on December 18, 2022December 3, 2022 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

Do you ever feel like you are running a day late and a dollar short? I know this past year or two have been like that for me. Our lives were completely turned upside down for a bit and it has taken me quite a while to figure out which way was up. I have found a lot of comfort in going back to some of our old routines and they are helping us to get better organized.

It’s almost a new year so I am trying my best to get our home running even smoother which will help alleviate a lot of the stress that we have around here.

One of my best organizational tools over the past several years has been our Cozi Calendar. I also like to keep a large calendar handy for everyone to access so there is less confusion about what is happening and who needs to be where and when they need to be there. I haven’t tried out some of the newer scheduling systems because the one I currently use seems to work pretty well for us and I don’t really want to try to implement a lot of new changes while we are still trying to find our way back to ‘NORMAL‘.

We do pretty well about keeping our doctor appointments and such straight but sometimes it’s the other things that get overlooked… I actually almost forgot one of the kid’s birthdays last month! Thankfully I had already bought the supplies I needed so I was able to pull it all together fairly quickly.

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Large Family Organization: Getting Started with the Pantry

Published on March 21, 2022March 16, 2022 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

I thought I had done a post on this but I wasn’t able to find it… there’s no telling what happened as our internet does some really crazy things around here. I know that ‘Getting Organized’ is usually at the top of many people’s New Year’s Resolutions and it is definitely one of our major goals for this year.

If you’ve been following our blog for any length of time you probably know how crazy the past several years have been. We downsized, with 6 kids, to a 600 square foot cabin. After saving up and getting things in order we decided to purchase a home to go next door on some property that Mr. Awesome had.

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10 Smart Ways To Spend That Tax Refund

Published on March 19, 2022September 15, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

This post might be a little bit late to catch some of you but I do believe that with the various delays the IRS has had this year, there may be many who haven’t gotten their tax refunds yet. If you have, maybe you haven’t spent it and you are trying to think of sensible ways to spend it. Here are a few of the things that we are using ours on: