Having an organized pantry is important in your kitchen. It allows for less time during meal preparation and a much better feel in your kitchen. I know that I feel a whole lot better when I walk into my kitchen and know exactly what I have in my pantry.

We do dehydrate a TON of veggies and herbs from our garden that I use in a variety of cooking when I do not have fresh available. I know that if I bag them up in zipper bags, then I can’t always find what I was looking for when I need it. We also store all of our mixes in gallon sized jars.

In my pantry, I use mason jars in both pint and quart and recycled gallon size pickle jars work great for mixes and bulk food.I don’ t loose anything this way!!!

I also use chalkboard labels so that I can change the label on them if I need to (There are many out on the market. I posted a link to the least expensive that I found on amazon.com.) The changable labels come in handy with our homemade instant oatmeal container. The kids always know what flavor is available!!

It does not take a ton of money to make your pantry be usable. (Yes, those are milk crates as extra shelves as well!)

Our Organized Linen Closet

Trying to organize the 7 of us has, at times, been an EPIC FAIL! There are certain things however that I really keep organized, because it makes our life just a bit easier! And trust me when I say that this is easy to maintain as well. Even my kids, when helping with laundry, can find the correct baskets to put items away with this system.

My linen closet is one of the most important things that I do organize. I always have the fear that someone in the middle of the night will get sick and I will need to change the sheets, but can’t find any fitted sheets or any pillow cases. I can just imagine myself trying to comfort a crying child while DIGGING through the closet, just making myself even more flustered. I still cannot imagine the horror that I would go through and would probably wake up the entire household in the process.

I started out by picking up a few of the $3 laundry baskets from the dollar store. They fit directly on my shelves in my linen closet. I also picked up 2 gallon zippy storage bags at the store. A twin set of sheets fit perfectly in these – I know BRILLIANT! I fold down all matching sheet sets – the fitted, the flat and the matching pillowcase along with a dryer sheet and fit it into the zippy bag. I then throw these into one of the laundry baskets in the closet. This basket is now the matching sheet basket!!! What an easy grab if I need to change sheets in the middle of the night (or any time for that matter!).

The kids pull their sheets off of their bed on their laundry day (another post on this next week) and grab a new sheet bag from the closet. The empty bag goes back in the basket so once I wash and dry their old set, it gets folded right back into the bag and bask into the basket in the closet. The rotation begins! And everything stays neat and tidy in my closet for the next person, the very next day to grab their new set of sheets.

I found some twin comforter sets at Target for $10 (marked down from $69.99) so I bought 4 and have left those in the bags. (For those who didn’t already know, my husband and I are on a waiting list for both foster kids and foster adoption along with emergency intake of kiddlings for singles and siblings 12 years and under, boy or girl) I wanted to have something new for new family members. The bags that those comforters come in are useful for my organizing. And will come out of the bags once we get kids. Those sets will go back into the bags if the kids don’t stay with us permanent.

I also have a laundry basket in the closet for just table clothes, baby blankets, afghans for the living room snuggle time, extra pillow cases, etc.

We change our table clothes at least once a day in the dining room sometimes twice or more. My kids are messy eaters! But, the table clothes do cover up my old table that needs refinishing. I don’t bag up table clothes like I do sheets, but I do fold them and keep them in their own basket. A HA! The Table Cloth basket! We even have smaller baskets in my pantry for our cloth napkins (don’t use paper in this house).

After the organization got going, I got rid of any sheets that I did have all 3 pieces except for the extra pillow cases. Goodwill was more than happy to take them, although, I wish now that I kept many of them to make skirts and dolls for my girls.

I am serious when I say that I believe in NOT giving out allowance for everyday household chores. As a mom, I don’t get paid in money for washing the floor or folding laundry… why should my kids earn money for keeping their rooms clean or brushing their teeth? These are every day items that are required to run a household (I know that I will have those who disagree with me, however I want to show your something else that we have implemented with out clan before you scold and cuss me out for being a bad mom!!)

Having one child who doesn’t understand the concept of money anyway and thinks that you can go to the store and ALWAYS buy him a toy while we are there, we have made out own store at home with items that I have picked up on sale racks, dollar sections of Target, Walgreens sale aisle, etc. We call it Mommy’s Treasure Box Store.

Here’s the Breakdown for our family

Point Reward System for chores and extras

(I found everything that I used on sale or at yard sales – DO NOT overspend on these items… I budget this very closely and take $20 cash out and can only use that $$$.)

I started by making POINTS – I used the pre-made sheets of business cards and ran them through my printer with 1 Point, 2 Points, 5 points and 10 points on them. I then took with the kids and stamped on each card.

I keep these in my desk. As children complete normal chores, I give out these points. If I have to ask more than once for something, then, they don’t earn anything. We don’t ever take away points… If my kiddlings do something extra, without asking, they will earn extra points. And we give them for good behavior (especially with my Autistic son, Berlyn.)

At the end of the week, our family store opens up. I spend less than $20 every paycheck on items for the store. The kids get 30 minutes to shop and purchase items with their points. I purchase little things at the dollar store, Target Dollar section, sale rack at Walgreens, etc and also print up (on the same business cards) rewards that they can buy as well.

Everything in the point basket is priced at 5, 10, 25, 50 or 100 points… and then there is a movie theater card that is 500 points.  Included in the basket are school supplies (decorative pencils, notepads, stickers) toys, games, candy, dolls, bubbles, color books, cooler TEEN stuff for Shelby, etc.

I store everything in a basket that I picked up at a yardsale for $1! I store it up out of reach of kiddlings. If they have 50 points and spend 35, then they have 15 that carry over to the next week. They store their points in an envelope on their chore clipboard in the hallway. Here is the link to the Chore Clipboards that we made: http://scrapwarrior.com/blog/2010/07/03/chore-charts-on-our-wall/

My kids LIKE to help out around the house. They make it a point to remind me when they do extra things just so that they can earn points.

Point Reward System for chores

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December 28, 2010 – Our first batch is just about used up – 11 weeks later for a family of 7 – not too bad – I will NEVER go back to store bought. I love how my clothes feel and smell and the amount money that we saved!!! WOWWIE! – NOTE: Stir twice a day for the first week after making it and it won’t be lumpy and will look like store bought laundry soap!!  Also – I added 2T of essential oils on the second batch

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I have been hearing from a handful of my friends on how they make their own laundry soap and LOVE it.

I am game for saving money and knowing EXACTLY what is in items that we use.

Here are the ingredients and step by step.

Ingredients:

• 5 gallon bucket (reusable for additional batches) I picked mine up at the Chino Valley Ace Hardware
• 1 whole bar of soap (used Ivory- it was really soft and easy to grate)
• 1 cup Washing Soda – I found this at Chino Valley Ace Hardware (not at Walgreens or Safeway)
• 1/2 cup Borax – Found this at both Safeway and at Ace Hardware
• 3 Gallons (48 cups of water) plus 4 additional cups of water
• 1 tablespoon Essential Oil (OPTIONAL) – I get mine off of the Internet – www.WFMed.com however you can get them from your local health food store.

Directions:

1. Boil 4 cups of water
2. Grate bar of soap and add to boiling water
3. Stir until dissolved (took about 4 minutes.)
4. Add 3 Gallons of warm / hot water to your 5 gallon bucket. (3 gallons = 48 Cups)
5. Add the dissloved soap to the bucket and stir
6. Add 1 cup of washing soap and stir for 2+ minutes with a long handled spoon until dissolved
7. Add 1/2  cup borax and stir until dissolved (about 3 minutes)
8. OPTIONAL: add 1T of essential oil and stir. (I used lavender for our first batch)
9. Place lid on tight and let it sit overnight.

Rowan kept insisting that this was white cheese:

Add the grated soap to 4 cups of boiling water:

Shelby was my official “stirir”:

Looks like really soapy water right now, however tomorrow it will be a very lumpy gel: (photos to come)

With 5 children, we budget a TON. I refuse to purchase furniture new with the kiddoes either. Yard Sales 100% for their rooms.

last Friday, I picked up these 2 semi matching dressers at an estate sale for $10 each. (Then went to Ace Hardware here in Chino and matched pink paint to their pillowcase.

So they went from THIS:

To become matching dressers for the “Little Girls’ Room: