WFMW: Putting away laundry

For this week's Works for Me Wednesday, I thought I'd write about one of my biggest organizational challenges: my laundry.

I always seem to be behind in my laundry. We have a lovely tri-sorter hamper which is almost always overflowing (for just two of us!). For the past year, I've tried to develop a laundry routine to alleviate that. On days when I work, the first thing I do - theoretically - when I walk in the door from school is to start a load of laundry. On Saturdays I wake up and strip my bed to wash my sheets. On Sundays I wash my towels.

It's a great system, and I am mostly able to keep up with them. I'm usually even able to remember when it's time to move the clothes to the dryer. My problem, and my bottleneck, occurs when it's time to fold and put away. I always have clothes in a basket on top of my dryer and I usually also have clothes sitting in my dryer. They get wrinkly, I can't find anything, and the task of going through them all becomes more and more daunting and overwhelming.

In the past week or so, I've been trying a little laundry hack that seems to be making a difference, if only psychologically.

I went through my closet and grabbed all my empty hangers and put them in my laundry basket. Then, when the clothes finished in the dryer, instead of putting them into the basket, I pulled out everything that needed to be hung up and immediately put it on a hanger and hung it over the doorknob. Then the only things that ever even went into my basket were t-shirts, pajamas, and underwear. As I walked out of my laundry room, I grabbed the hung clothes and took them immediately to my closet.

Then in the evening, all I had to do was spend 5 minutes in my bedroom folding the few stray items and putting them directly into drawers. I could wait a few hours, and nothing in the basket would wrinkle. There was no frightening mountain of clothes to dig through. I didn't need to find a place to lay things flat or run back and forth to my closet for hangers.

It may seem like a small thing, but it Works for me

Supermarket savings course

Crystal at Biblical Womanhood has a discount this week on her Supermarket Savings e-course. The price is temporarily discounted to $8.97, and when you buy a course for yourself, you get a free course for a friend.

I purchased this course about a month ago. It includes audio recordings, with accompanying workbook pages, access to a message board, and several e-books that help with recipes and menu planning. Since I've been couponing and discount shopping for a while, I already knew some of what she teaches, but it was good to hear it again and there was enough new info to make it worth the cost. If you're brand new to coupon shopping, though, this course will revolutionize the way you look at grocery stores.

(Disclosure: The link to the course above is my affiliate link and I will get a small commission if you buy through it. Feel free to surf directly to Crystal's site and sorth through her products if that makes you more comfortable.)

Financial frustrations

My husband and I have done a lot of great things this year, as far as our finances go. For the first time, I started putting money in my 405(b) at work and have managed to consistently max out my match. We opened a brokerage account and have been dutifully investing $100 every month into a good value mutual fund which we intend to keep for at least 5 years (probably more). I set up a direct draft from my checking account into my ING account - which is my emergency/summer fund - of $150 a month.

I know all this. I know I have money stashed and money automatically going to fund my goals and needs. I know that we're doing a lot better than we were doing last year. So why do I feel like we can't make any progress?

For the past few months, I've been working my butt off. I was working my second job, I was doing surveys and dealbarbie offers, I was unplugging small appliances throughout my house. I've been making my own bread, cooking more and more meals from scratch, clipping coupons and matching deals. Every month, I think to myself "Look at all the extra money I will have at the end of the month to put toward our debt!" And then every month, we get to the end of the month and. . . I don't.

This month, I got my last part time job check for a while, and it was a big one. At least, I thought to myself, this money can go straight to our loans. (I never include the extra checks in our normal budget, so they are a bonus when they come.) Then my husband came home from work and set, nervously, that he really thinks his car needs new tires. I sighed and handed him the check. Oh well.

I know that this is silly. If he needed new tires and I hadn't worked extra, we would have had to tap into savings. I know that by working hard, I am helping our financial situation. It just seems like . . . we never get anywhere. But maybe until hubby finishes school, I have to be content with treading water and maybe occasionally taking small strokes forward. Sigh.

"You can't save them all"

If we've just met, I'm a teacher. I'm many other things, but in most (if not all) of those things, I'm also a teacher.

Yesterday I was venting to one of my colleagues about a specific high schooler in my care, and how I couldn't figure out how to motivate this kid to turn stuff in and pass my class. There was a block there, and I needed to break it, and I couldn't figure out how.

"Story," said my colleague, "You can't save them all. You're young, but you'll learn. You can't save them all."

That's a lesson I don't ever want to learn.

Maybe, in truth, I know that I can't save them all, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to give up on this one, or on any of them. Maybe I can see that in the grand scheme of things, some of them will make the wrong choices and I can't stop them, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to accept that a child at the ripe old age of 15 is just lost and beyond my help. And even if this person is going to continue to make the wrong choices, shouldn't he see me trying to save him? Shouldn't he see that I care enough to try, that someone does? Because even if I don't see it now, mightn't that make a difference at some point down the line?

The truth is, in teaching as in many other things I'm sure, that we often don't get to see who we saved. The ones that we thought hung on our every word are sometimes the ones who slip away while the ones who appear not to care can come back a year later gushy and teary with thanks. Even ten years after I graduated high school, I still look back gratefully at things my teachers gave me, and it's not the things I thought I'd look back on. I wonder if they know that. I hope they do.

So, maybe you can't save them all. But you need to try to save them all. Otherwise, what's the point?

Taxes and such

A few weeks ago, I read an article about the proposed tax stimulus package. Apparently, my husband must have read the same article because he came home that day and said "Hey, did you know we're getting $1200?"

"Yeah," I answered, "What are we going to spend it on??!?"

"Uh," he said (because I've brainwashed him so well), "I figured it would just go into savings...."

"But.... I thought we were supposed to stimulate the economy...."

At which point we both started laughing hysterically.


****

Then there's my regular taxes. As it turns out, we actually owe some money this year, a sizable chunk. Job #2 picked up a ton this year, and I didn't think to adjust my withholdings at job #1.

Well, the check is written and in the mail because we had the money in savings. And in some ways, I know cognitively that it's better to owe a little than to get a huge refund, but it's just . . . a let down. We're not as far ahead as I thought we were. I know it will be okay, and knowing that $1200 is coming helps, but it's just time to reshuffle again.