Okay, chugging along here…. To recap, so far we’ve covered Personal (#1-5), Health/Fitness (#6-10), Kids/Family (#11-15) and now: Household goals (#16-20)!
1. Implement a standard grocery shopping time.
Let me explain. I’ve touched on this in previous posts, but meal planning and groceries are not really my forte.
Historically, we’re pretty loosey goosey in this arena. We usually just shop…whenever it fits in… and just buy a bunch of staples and then figure out what to eat with what we have. 🤷♀️I mean, it works?
However, with my recently amped up workload, less flexibility and longer hours, this area has become more stressful. I started to feel like we were floundering more than usual here. Not just figuring out what we’d eat, but also when someone would get groceries, and also who is cooking and when, what days are we even home to eat… it was all just starting to feel very chaotic.
I know the answer is usually “you need to meal plan!” And that’s not wrong. But I think in our case, I had to back up even a couple steps to find the root of the problem.
After some analysis, I decided the root cause of our meal issues was: we didn’t have a standard grocery shopping time.
This issue trickled downstream and impacted everything else. Before, I’d often do a HUGE grocery shop every couple weeks (and then scramble to refresh a few things in between as needed, on some random day = disorganized). We’d end up with too much of some things, not enough of others, and sometimes it would also lead to food waste (or, missing a key ingredient…). I also tended to dread this huge shop because it turned into such a long production (so.many.bags….). I would try to avoid shopping on the weekends because “too crowded!”, but going on a weeknight never felt desirable, either. We’re often already busy many evenings, so the nights we do cook at home are often our “free” nights that we don’t have to go somewhere. So now I’m supposed to work all day, cook dinner AND then still go and get groceries- on my “off” night? No thanks.
Additionally, because we didn’t shop religiously every week, the fridge leftovers would pile up and become more burdensome to clean out, making the whole grocery shop/ put away process that much worse.
SO! I decided that first and foremost, we need a standard grocery day. (Revolutionary idea, I know. 🤣)
I also decided that it would help a lot to break it up. I landed on the following schedule:
Thursday –> clean out the fridge, inventory what we have/need, start making grocery list
Friday –> make meal plan
Saturday –> grocery shop! (*Get over the fact that the store is crowded. Yes, it’s crowded on weekends because people work M-F, which I do too! I am one of them…. It is what it is! Need to let this go. It’s not actually nearly as big of a deal as I built it up to be in my head.)
I am now 2 for 2 doing this in January, and I have to say, it’s working GREAT!!!
Thursday nights are often lighter (heading into the weekend!), so it’s a good day for the fridge clean out. Fridays work for meal planning because I already review my upcoming weekly calendar on Fridays, so it makes sense to plug in meals. During my Thursday fridge clean out, I can jot down anything we have that needs to be used up ASAP and prioritize that while planning on Friday. And then on Saturday, the fridge is already all cleaned out and ready for the new food, the list is already made…. I just have to go! (Or, Ivan. Groceries are historically more under my domain in our household tasks split, but he shops sometimes, too.) We don’t tend to cook much on Fridays/ Saturdays, so it also makes more sense to like, NOT get fresh groceries on Thursday, for example.
Something else I am LOVING about this? It’s so much quicker and easier to shop, knowing I’ll definitely be back next Saturday. I know this probably sounds super obvious, but seriously! It’s a lot less pressure to only be buying for the upcoming week, versus the “stock up and let’s see how long I can make all this stuff last” mindset I had before.
How I’ll Track:
I made a row for Meal Plan and Grocery Shop on my Habit Tracker. Will keep an eye to see Xs on Fridays and Saturdays!
P.S. I know people are going to say: USE GROCERY PICK UP! I know, I know. We just didn’t love it the times we tried it, but maybe will try again.
2. Get my photo project caught up to real time.
I’ve been slowly working through weeding out photos and videos from Amazon Photos (my cloud backup). I also want to get my older photos (so pre-2016, from before we had Amazon photos) uploaded into the cloud. I want all my digital photos in one place!
Then, I also want to implement and stick to a monthly routine of weeding out the previous month’s photos. (i.e. Around the 1st of each month, go in to the previous month and delete random screenshots, duplicates, make sure videos are worthy of paying to store, etc!).
I envision this being a really seamless process, once I can get the backlog somewhat up to date!
How I’ll Track:
I have a spot to check off “Photo Project Work”, along with a running list in Google Keep of my backlog. As I do the reviews and get everything uploaded, I can note it there. The main issue here is that it’s really easy to just…. ignore this. I do have a recurring Task on my calendar to remind me to do the previous month photo clean out. But it’s the backlog part that’s hard. I think I’m going to just “assign” myself certain months to work on each month.
3. Wear all of my clothes and keep track of what I wear.
Okay, I might start to lose some people here as I begin to sound insane, but hang on.
So, I have a LOT OF CLOTHES. Soooo many clothes. And yet, shockingly, I often feel unsatisfied with my wardrobe choices, or even feel lacking! Argh. Yet, I also struggle with getting rid of things, and am unclear what items I need to procure to fill in any gaps.
I could go on and on about this (I guess if anyone wants a deeper dive, let me know, but I already wrote like 600 words about my grocery shopping habits above, LOL, so I should probably try and keep this part brief.)
In short, I want to:
a) go through all of my clothes and categorize them by if I Love them, Really like them, Like, or just feel “Meh” about them. (i.e. identify the absolute yeses)
b) keep track of what I wear every day! I REALLY want to know which of my clothes I’m literally never touching. Also, which things legitimately do need replacing/ upgrading. And which things just need to go.
c) actually WEAR more of my nice clothes/ more variety.
My end goal is to have a closet full of only things that I really like or love, that fit well and are in good condition.
How I’ll Track:
Well, this is the crazy part…. I made a spreadsheet. hahaha.
I made tabs for each category of clothing (Sweaters, Shoes, Sweatshirts/Hoodies, etc.) and am slowly going through each section of my wardrobe and adding them, like a digital closet. (*I’ve tried out a few closet apps in the past but like my own method better.)
So far I’ve gone through the shelves in my closet, the top hanging section, and all my shoes. Still need to do bottom hanging + my dresser drawers.
These are the headers I’m filling out:
Sorry, kind of small. It goes: Description, Category, Photo, Brand, Length, Closet (i.e. Main or overflow Basement), Rank (like, love, etc.), Condition (Like New, Good, etc.), any comments, and should I consider replacing/upgrading this Y or N?
Yes, I’m photographing everything and just inserting a little pic into the cell!
Then off to the right, I’m listing the date if I wore it (and will total Monthly and Yearly wears).
Does this sound insane? Probably. Does this still excite me? Yep. 😅
I loooove the ability to filter the columns and categories!
I can hear you. “Omg. Doesn’t this take forever? Do you just spend your entire day tracking stuff?” I swear, no! I already update my time log/ habit tracker every morning, so I just spend an extra 60 seconds adding my outfit. I promise, even with ALL the tracking of different things I do, I spend about 5-7 minutes a day TOTAL. It’s quick!
Anyway the end goal here is to have a “digital closet”. Obviously there’s a bunch of upfront work to load everything in, but it’s not like I buy new clothes daily! It should be easy to maintain once it’s done.
Kyria, Elisabeth…. please just avert your eyes. HAHA!! My 2 most minimalist friends… the idea of needing a wardrobe spreadsheet will horrify them. 🤣
Anyone want a copy of my spreadsheet template?! No? 😅😅
4. Clean out my storage room.
A repeat goal since, oh, 2020. But THIS IS THE YEAR. It has slowly accumulated lots of stuff and there is no good way to organize it all without basically getting rid of a lot and then re-organizing everything.
Not too much to say about this besides IT’S HAPPENING.
How I’ll Track:
Basically just in my Google Tasks goals list! I do need to look ahead and identify probably like, an entire weekend to devote to this.
5. Look into other finance tracking methods.
I haven’t prioritized this area as much as I should, apparently because I’m too busy tracking how often I wear my black leggings. 😂😂😂😂
But our current $$ tracking system is, you guessed it, a spreadsheet, which is fine, but I’m interested in some of the other, easier money management systems out there. I’ve been wanting to check out both Monarch and YNAB again (dabbled once in this years ago on the old desktop version….liked it! But I know would be a big learning curve.)
Anyway, I just would like to get the tracking aspect a bit more streamlined and consistent, ideally without needing quite so much manual manipulation (which often gets away from us….).
How I’ll Track:
Well, I have a line for “budget update” on my habit tracker. But I haven’t really figured out or explored any new method yet, so that part is still up in the air. TBD!
And those are my Household goals! I guess the Wardrobe one is maybe more of a Personal goal, but it impacts my Household space (closet) and is in the “decluttering” realm, so I just put it here.
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for getting a car wash yesterday. When I came out of the grocery store, I realized my white van was GROSS. No joke, it almost looked like a grey van, all covered in salt and slush and just filthy. So on the way home I ran it through the gas station car wash! The interior could use a little attention too, but brr. Too cold, not doing that right now. I’ll have Ivan take it to the fancier car wash one of these days.
GRATEFUL KAE 
I for one am intrigued by the wardrobe spreadsheet as you know! Pretty sure mine will be a lot shorter plus as i create it I will probably compulsively find things to donate / let go of, bc even though I don’t have many clothes I have plenty of stuff i dont’t EVER wear and it needs to go.
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Jumping on here to say we only do delivery and curbside pick up for groceries now, and it is SO AWESOME. Such a timesaver. I do Costco and Whole foods delivery and Metro Market pick up– it is a game changer!
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Another HUGE grocery pick up fan! We do Target pick up. The time savings is so worth maybe not getting the freshest strawberries sometimes or whatever. Cannot recommend highly enough, especially stores that offer it at no extra cost.
Also trying to restart financial tracking after Mint went away. I tried YNAB but didn’t like the assigned budget approach since I don’t want a budget, just the tracking aspect to look at. After more research, I’m going to try Quicken Simplifi.
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Oh, thanks for the idea! I will add that to the list of options to check out!
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Ahh I always hear this!! I think since I haven’t done it much, the initial “learning curve” turns me off a little. I remember the few times we tried it during the pandemic and I recall being like, I don’t know how many pounds of jalapenos I want!! I just want like, 10 peppers!! lol. How many pounds is that?!
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I purged my closet very heavily in 2023, but strangely I still have a ton of clothes that I don’t/can’t wear. So I will join you in the digital wardrobe project.
After a lifetime of not being able to come up with anything better to track my finances than my own Excel sheet, I started using a free product called Empower Personal Capital because all of the cool FIRE kids were using it. It was really simple to set up, and I like so much that I would pay for it if wasn’t free.
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Oh wow! That sounds great! Will also check that out!
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Your meal planning and shopping process now mirrors ours! We have a shared iPhone note grocery list so we can both add to it. We use the checklist approach so we can check and uncheck things from the list. We have standard things we get every week and others that we get depending on our meal plan. At the top we put the 3ish meals we will have that week. Phil doesn’t like grocery delivery. We tried it after we had Paul and he didn’t like the produce so he does all of our shopping on sat am.
I have purged my closet so much over the last few years so almost am approaching a sort of capsule wardrobe. I need to further cull things that are old, especially sweaters. I finally bought a few new sweaters from Banana during a sale so am slowly re-building things/updating thing.
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That’s my next step in the goal- to better automate the list! I like the idea of having a standard checklist for some of the things we always get, or like an inventory list I can run through. Currently I just stand there with a notepad, but obviously it can be easy to miss certain random things this way. I do try to add items to my “Grocery/Household” google tasks list throughout the week as I notice random things (like, I noted last night we need some new kitchen sponges. That’s the type of thing I would likely miss if I waited until grocery list day!). But otherwise I make the main list on paper right now. I tried making a shared Note for the boys and Ivan so they could add stuff, but no one ever seems to…. yet then they complain that I didn’t get xyz from the store…. me: “was it on the list???” 😑
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The cloth project does sound very time consuming but makes sense if you really want to find out what clothes need to be get rid off. The groceries shopping planning always sound wonderful as you know you have two visits per week for anything and plan meals around it. On clothes from I have a goal this year to update my work attire as I have bought since 2016/7? I’ve using the same things for so long except some Indonesia batiks. They still fit well just look a bit wear off so I want to get some new basic ones. The only problem is that I don’t like buying office cloths. Well.. will put it in my goal list (25 for 2025!).
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Yes, we just don’t have great stores right by our house, so “shopping” always involves usually going somewhere else farther away, so it’s a big turn off for me. Or of course ordering online, which has its own issues (often then needing to ship returns back, sizing, etc.). This is why I end up with items that I’d like to replace or upgrade, but then, don’t…. which is how I end up with a bunch of stuff I might not love anymore, but I haven’t had a chance or desire to really go out and replace it.
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I like your plan for groceries! We used to make a menu every week, and do our shopping on Saturday or Sunday, and it worked really well for us to have all of our ingredients ready when we came home for work. We did that for ages, and eventually it wore me out and I cannot even any more. The shopping is the easy part, even without curbside pickup. It’s the menu planning that I couldn’t take any more. So now I go to the store practically every day of the week, on my lunch hour. This is ridiculous and would not work for most people, but right now it works for me. Do I still have to figure out what the hell to cook? Yes. Do I end up having to figure it out on the daily? Yes. I pretend that I’m European and getting things fresh daily is the way to go. I guess my point is that we can and should modify our lives to fit where we are at different periods in our life. If I worked in an office or were so busy that I couldn’t get out of the house daily, I would go back to the planned meal way of living.
I’ve done the grocery pick up a couple of times, mostly when we’re sick and I don’t want to risk getting people in the store sick, and I LOVE IT. Not enough to do it regularly, but when we do it it’s great. Maybe if I could get them to use my bags that I bring from home, I would do it.
I should totally organize my closet and get rid of a ton of things, but it’s so overwhelming that I just DON’T. Sigh.
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Haha, yes, I WISH I had a fresh little market just around the corner from my house and could go every 1-2 days and just pick up whatever I need! That would be such a relief! We aren’t far from any stores, but it’s at least like a 5-7 minute drive away basically, not to mention the big parking lots and stores that make it all take a long time to go in and out. So, going daily does not sound fun to me at all! But if I had a store super super close, I could absolutely see the benefit and appeal to doing it this way. I’m always envious of my MIL in Mexico how she can just walk and go get fresh meat for that day’s meal, at the neighborhood meat market around the corner.
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I have things to say, I have things to say! Haha. And surprisingly, they are not about your clothing spreadsheet, although as I was reading that part, I did wonder why you didn’t just do the hanger trick? Have you heard of this? You turn them all backwards and when you wear them, you put them back forwards. After a month, or six months or whatever your time period is, you get rid of the things that are still backwards. But girl, you know I am a big fan of the spreadsheet.
I have my money post coming out today, but I use Fidelity Full View for tracking. You do have to have a Fidelity account, but they have a Cash Management Account, which is really just a high yield savings account, so if you moved a couple thousand dollars over there, potentially you could use the Full View for free. I have only been using it since March, since we were required to keep all financial accounts with the firm we were working for, but so far, I like it. I only added all of my credit cards, and I export that to Excel and still manage that a little, and then add manually (export to Excel too) my bank spending, which at this point is very little (I used to have my mortgage come straight from checking, but now I don’t really have anything that I pay from my bank account). I like to have subcategories and then use pivot tables to look at the data in different ways. Happy to answer any questions about this if you have them.
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I have heard of the hanger trick, but I opted not to do that, for a few reasons. Mostly because a lot of my clothes are actually folded in a dresser or on a closet shelf. Also, I wanted to see how MANY times I’m wearing certain things, too. So the spreadsheet let’s me get more nitty gritty about it all!
I have a Fidelity investment account, but I haven’t checked out the Full View option! Will look into it!
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I love wardrobe spreadsheet! I’ve been really interested in the idea of cataloguing everything that is in a room or space so I think this is so cool. And your photos inserted into cells is amazing too.
As you know this was my goal last year, and it went *pretty* well but I was so close postpartum last year (I mean, winter was 2 months postpartum) that I don’t feel I really purged everything I needed and I can tell I haven’t replaced or purchased everything I need either.
I’ve found the seasonal fluctuations in wardrobe really interesting and I reckon you will capture that in your “date worn” section. I have a tendancy to want to get rid of things and then I realize that while I *mostly* don’t wear heavy jumpers I do *sometimes* need heavy jumpers and I can’t just get rid of them because I don’t wear them 95% of the time. I would be super interested where your pieces fall – whether you have pieces you only wear for a short time or whether you have pieces you just never wear?
Also why don’t you love Excel for budgeting? I am only laughing a bit because you use excel for so many things and budgeting seems like the most basic use… and the thing you don’t want to use it for 🙂
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Oh, yes the seasonal stuff makes my wardrobe even more complicated! I actually store my sweaters/ heavy clothes and boots in the basement during the summer to make room for more summer clothes and sandals and vice versa. I definitely have pieces that I ONLY wear in summer or winter, and then some clothes that are more versatile and I keep in my room year round.
And re: the budgeting, well, I just feel like for spending tracking, there’s SO many expenses between us, returns, credits, payments, etc… it’s so much to do all manually! The spreadsheet I use currently doesn’t break down every expense, just ins and outs and bills and the credit card totals and some of the bigger categories like mortgage, electricity, etc. But I want an easy way to track ALL of our expenses on a monthly basis, like even the $1.89 convenience store charge.
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For awhile I had a virtual closet and I liked it. I used one of the apps the time to get it set up was not insignificant. Ultimately, I gave up. I have a TON of clothes (I love clothes!), but what I realized is I do wear them all and if I am not wearing them I am not precious about getting rid of them so…Its all fine.
You might like the book the curated closet. One of the things you do is track what you wear for 2 weeks. But it also give you some ideas about how to find holes in your wardrobe etc.
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Thanks for the book rec! I will definitely check that out!
And yes, I know I WANT to have more clothes than I think some people do. I don’t actually desire to have a super minimalist closet and wear the same handful of things only over and over. I understand the simplicity in this, but it just doesn’t appeal to me, either. I don’t think I’d feel excited to dress up for an event if I had to wear the same couple of dresses every time, for example. Or for travel, I’d feel “blah” if I was wearing the same sweater in every family photo for years on end! haha. So I’m really okay having quite a lot of clothing, but I just would like it to all be better curated I think. I feel like currently I have a LOT, and a lot of it is good/nice, but there are random gaps, and it annoys me to have soo many things and then still not have exactly what I want!!! And, of course, there are certainly things that I’m hanging onto that should probably just go.
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I love the nerdy tracking! I did a big sort of the closet and drawers yesterday (I’ve got half a closet and 2 drawers, and things were feeling a bit pinched). I put away things that are too light for the season and put 20 things into the donations/recycling piles. Also convinced my husband to wear through his work clothes to see what is getting a bit scruffy. Not sure someone in the office 1x a week (and dressed down July/August) really needs 25 button up shirts?
Now that our schedule seems a bit more stable, I’m working on a low-key meal planning. I do the planning while T is at swim lessons, and after we go to coffee, we go to the green grocer, and pick up most of the bits we need, and then Aldi while he’s at cycle training. Our fridge tends to be empty by then. I’ll be away Monday nights and back very late Tuesdays so the plan is to make a big dinner on Sunday so my husband and son have leftovers (they eat at Scouts on Mondays so it needs to be made/portable).
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I love that you have a nice built-in time for the meal planning! That sounds PERFECT! I don’t have something like that, exactly, but for me just identifying that Thursday as the fridge clean out has seemed to “get the ball rolling” for me. Once I’ve done that, I guess it’s like the whole habit stacking idea- it seems easier to move on to the next step in the process then, with a nice cleared out fridge.
And lol about your husband and the shirts. Well, maybe he likes variety! 😉
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I like your grocery system! I’m sure I sound like a broken record because I complain about this so much, but I’m so tired of cooking I feel like I’m going to kill someone. Grocery shopping is also low on my list of fun activities. I go on Sundays, arg. But I agree- once you get over the fact that it’s going to be crowded, it’s not so bad. I definitely have to get back into a meal planning routine, because right now when I do my Sunday shop I’m basically buying all the staples we need for breakfast/lunch, and like two dinners worth of ingredients. So by Tuesday I have to stop by the store again after work… arg.
I’m laughing at your wardrobe spreadsheet… but it’s a good idea! I think I need to go through my closet and donate 90% of the items… I seriously think I’m wearing about 10% of my clothes right now. Maybe I’ll find a few more things I can still wear that I forgot about? Sigh.
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Yes, the crowded store thing…. I mean, yes, it IS crowded, but I also built it up in my head to be this “big deal”. But if I just sort of go about my business, it’s not really that bad. Would I prefer to have like, 1/4 of the people there? Sure. But all in all, I’m still able to move through the store just fine and it doesn’t even take much longer than when it’s less crowded. Yeah, I have to work around people sometimes, but it’s just not the big deal that I was making it. And yep, the parking lot is more crowded, but hey- more steps! haha.
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My jaw hit the ground when I read you were choosing to give up Saturday mornings to go to the grocery store. We have been going on Monday nights and it sort of sucks, but Mondays sort of suck anyway and the store is usually pretty dead on Monday nights. Sheesh. I think of weekends in quarters: Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon/evening, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon/evening. There is no way I’d give up a whole quarter at the grocery store! The crowds actually ARE a big deal in our world because it’s more chance for illness and stupid people blocking the aisles. *sigh* I can’t believe how worked up I am getting over the idea of going to Woodman’s on a Saturday.
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Haha, it’s okay- deep breath Engie!! lol!! I can try to explain…. For me, our weeknights are currently often occupied at least a few nights a week. Typically I’ll have something 1-2 nights related to the boys, and often 1 night a week Ivan and I will go out to dinner. The opposite 2-3 nights I work usually til after 5, and then those are nights I cook and/or go to the gym. So, I already have pretty fully weeknights. If I DO have a free night, then I really prefer to just have a couple low key evenings at home. Currently the boys’ activities have shifted more to weeknights versus previous when everything was on weekends with club sports. So, my weekends are actually not as busy right now. I have found I actually don’t mind the weekend thing, so long as I’m going regularly and don’t need like 1,456 things! Example, this past weekend I was able to shop, drive home, and have everything put away in about an hour! (Helped I had already cleaned out fridge on Thursday, per my new plan.) With my old method, I would have probably needed way more items (tended to try to “stock up” more) and the whole thing would take forever.
I hear what you’re saying, and I get how for you a weeknight makes way more sense! But with the state of my current weeknights, it’s worse to add grocery shopping on there too.
Oh, and Saturday also works better with our tendency to not really cook much on Fridays and Saturdays. It means I’m getting fresh stuff RIGHT when I’m about to kick off my “cooking days” (typically Sunday-Thursday).
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Amazon fresh has never let me down; I don’t like grocery pick up or instacart because they often don’t have an item and you don’t know until it’s too late and it defeats the whole purpose if you don’t have the ingredient you need!! Amazon fresh if it shows available it is; worth it every time
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