Organizing With Binders, A Kitchen Binder

A kitchen binder is a tailor made notebook just for you, your kitchen, your family, your lifestyle and your preferences. The best way by far to build one is with a plain old 3 ring binder. Don't worry, we'll get into that.

You want one if:

*You're tired of being disorganized in the kitchen.

*You don't know where your coupons are and most of them expire before you can use them.

*You have favorite recipes, recipes to try out, and want to add more but the ones you have are everywhere, including the junk drawer.

*You can never find your grocery list and/or a pen, especially at the same time.

I bet you get the idea and can add a bunch more reasons by now, eh?

The contents of your Kitchen Binder are uniquely up to you, but here some ideas for what to keep in your Kitchen Notebook:

Meal planner forms

Grocery lists

Once A Month cooking recipes & ideas

Information sheets like substitutions, measurements, storage time limits, etc.

Price comparison book (pages); I shop at Sam's Club, Wal-Mart, dollar stores, Big Lots, Sun Harvest and my local grocery store. I compare the price at the warehouse club, Wal-Mart, my grocery store and Walgreens, which are the places I shop with coupons most often. It had a few surprises! If you do this, be careful to compare price per ounce or pound.

Favorite Homemade recipes; homemade bisquick, shake-n-bake, hot chocolate, etc

Favorite Homemade concoction recipes (LOL); beauty, cleaning, gardening, laundry, pet, etc. Lots of natural homemade cleaners, bug treatments and such are made with stuff from the kitchen, so I keep my 'recipes' in my kitchen notebook.

Favorite recipes & family recipes, naturally.

Let's start by making a list of supplies that are handy but not mandatory.

1. Binder of the size desired; I'm using a 3 ring, 2 inch capacity binder. I picked one of those with the clear plastic covers in front so I could put some artwork in the front and back. I'll also put a label in the spine. Now I think I want to take the recipes out and put them in their own binder.

2. Hole Punch for your pages if you're not using sheet protectors. I would recommend using the sheet protectors though.

3. Sheet Protectors; I recommend these to protect your pages from stains in the kitchen!

4. Legal pad, steno pad or other paper for jotting notes on, especially during the time you're setting it up. Or, just some plain lined 3 hole paper in the front of the binder.

5. Pen, pencil, markers, stickers; your preference

6. A pencil pouch; OR a clear zip close pouch that has the holes for the binder. I happened to have one of these already. You can find them at the office supply if you'd rather have one of these. They're usually pretty cheap.

7. A coupon pouch; I keep mine here so I can plan my meals & make my grocery lists.

8. Paper. You can use any kind of paper you want. Swipe some of your kids' school paper; use colored paper to print the final versions...it's all up to you. It's YOUR binder.