Menu planners: A terrific tool to help you save time and money.

They help you remember which items to buy at the grocery store and which coupons to bring with you.  For many families, groceries are one of the largest monthly expenses.   Creating a weekly menu can help you save on your monthly budget because you are less likely to rely on last minute and more expensive options like eating out or delivery.   You are also less likely to buy on impulse once at the store.

The kind of weekly menu planner that you decide to keep can be as simple as a writing your planned meals on your grocery list, using an online menu planner that will save your grocery lists from week to week, or you can try one of our free templates [Word format - PDF format].   Remember to check back often for new templates!

The start of the year is a great time to get rid of the paper clutter around the house.

Perhaps you want to be able to see the office floor again or simply not have piles of paper that come back week after week. When I do get around to purging paper around the home, I find myself sometimes wondering which records to keep or toss.

There are some documents that you want to permanently keep in a safe place - birth/death certificates, marriage license, deed to your house, and Wills. Documents like investment statements, bank statements and even tax returns do not need to be kept permanently. Credit card statements can be tossed once you have verified the changes. The guidelines below from Good Housekeeping can help you determine which records to keep and how long to keep them.

Once you have determined which documents to toss, remember to shred! A personal story…..my parents were the victims of identity theft. Resolving the incident involved countless hours dedicated to writing letters, filing reports with credit bureaus and making many many phone calls.

Unfortunately, identity theft is on the rise, affecting almost 10 million victims in 2008 (a 22% increase from 2007). It’s a situation that you do not want to find yourself in and that you can help avoid. To reduce your risk of becoming an identity theft victim make sure that you always shred all documents containing your social security, financial information, birthdates or passwords.

Yes, even those letters that come in the mail informing you you’ve been preapproved for such and such offer (especially if it’s for a credit card) should go in the shredder. Local office supply stores carry good quality paper shredders or you can bring your confidential waste paper to free shred events across the country. Click here to find a local event near you!

Do you feel like you're losing the bedtime battle?

You can find a great deal of research by sleep experts on how establishing a good night time routine with young children is important to their overall well being.

Kids know what the next step is and what the result will be – sleep! Establishing a routine requires consistency and allows for your child to have some choices. For example, the adult must establish the bedtime and how much sleep the child needs. The child may choose their pajamas or bedtime stuffed animal, if they sleep with one.

The National Sleep Foundation has some very helpful guidelines on how much sleep your child should be getting and other helpful sleep resources here.

Try using one of our Going to Bed Checklists to help your child practice establishing a night time routine.

Print the document once a week for each child and place in a location where your child can see it as they get ready for bed, like near their bed or bedroom door. Feel free to personalize it, like by adding a picture of your child brushing their teeth in the bottom right hand corner.” As extra motivation, you may consider giving your child a sticker next to each day that they complete all the tasks.

Word format files:

[BLUE Checklist-DOC] [PINK Checklist-DOC]  [Boy/Girl Checklist-DOC]

PDF format files:

[BLUE Checklist-PDF] [PINK Checklist-PDF]  [Boy/Girl Checklist-PDF]

We all have a hard time remembering special days – who can keep track of all the birthdays, anniversaries, etc?

Our handy calendar can help with this often daunting task. Type in all those dates that you want to remember and place in a location where you will see it. Using the Word format version, you can type directly into the template and then print it; or print the PDF version and write in the dates by hand.