No, not Public Display of Affection, actually closer to Personal Digital Assistant, but I call mine The Parade of Daily Adventures!
It works just like the digital PDA, only you don’t need to blow your budget to get one! I use a spiral bound notebook (which costs 10 cents if you buy them just before school starts up), and break down my activities into lists.
You will need 8 pages per week. The first page we will label “PDA: Week of x/xx,” (stands for the date) and continue on the following pages with “PDA: Monday,” “PDA: Tuesday,” and so on. I have done this a couple of different ways...
One way is to write down the time of day along the left side of the page, just before the margin, much like an hourly planner. Another way is to just write down your activities in the order that you think of them, with reminders of the times they are at if they are scheduled. The reason I have used the two different methods directly relates to what life looks like at the time; sometimes it is essential that a slew of things gets completed before a deadline, other times it is only imperative that I make my appointments, and whatever else I get to is just a bonus. That being said, choose the style that fits best with your current lifestyle needs. Remember, you can always change methods if one is not working out for you!
Now, go through each day and write down all of your scheduled appointments and activities. If you are using the hourly method, insert them into the proper hour slot, if you are using the freeform method, just write all of your appointments at the top of the page. Always leave room for more to be added later! After that, take a look at each day and jot down all of the chores that need to be done. Hourly method users will do this by inserting the chores into the schedule around their appointments, free-form users will put a list a few lines below their appointments. This is day specific. I do all of my laundry on Monday and all of my ironing on Tuesday, so I schedule those chores on their respective days only.
At this point, any chore or activity that does not need to be done on a particular day needs to be written down on your first page, the “PDA: Week of …” page. For some, all of their chores will be listed on this page, for others, only things like taking packages to the post office will be written. On the right hand side, there should be enough space for a grocery list. I just use the margin to write down things as I see they are running low. I am a once-a-month shopper, so I take all of these mini-lists and transfer them to a master list later, but there are always things like milk and lettuce that need to be replaced before the month is out. Your list is up to your discretion!
Now it’s time to sprinkle in those Adventures!! There are things we do bi-weekly, like going to Nana’s house, or lunch with Grammy, and playtime during open gym at Gymagine, so we spritz those into place. But then there are things like Craft Day on Thursdays, or the “Oscillating Wednesday!” Wednesdays are “hump” days right? So why not spruce them up a bit? Then you are halfway to your weekend in no time! What I mean is that I have activities, such as “Car Care Wednesday” and “Coupon Clipping Wednesday” that aren’t daily activities or chores, they only happen once a month, which adds variety to my week.
The first Wednesday of the month is reserved for grocery shopping (pretty self-explanatory). The second Wednesday is baking day, which is filled with pizza pockets, chocolate sauce, nut butters, cookies, and hummus! Wednesday #3 is Car Care Wednesday, where we wash the car, schedule an oil change, or any other necessary maintenance, and make sure Dad’s car is in good condition too! Then we come to the fourth Wednesday, where we clip coupons from the paper (although, I also clip the paper ones as they come in if they don’t expire for a while) and find the rest online. Coupon clipping day means I have created my grocery list for the next month, and my meal plan as well, so I am completely prepared to look for and clip only what I need. Finally, I fasten all of the coupons with a paperclip to the next week’s Wednesday PDA (first Wednesday grocery day!), while Kaylee strews the rest of the paper across the house!
Then on to “Field Trip Friday,” which could mean playtime with our meetup group, free storytime at the University Bookstore, a trip to the pool, and if it’s raining, a nice outing to the Children’s Museum! Keep in mind, this does not mean that it is the only time we get out to play during the week, it is just the day reserved for special field trips that may take longer than most of our other outings. You can choose to do something similar, or find what works best for you, based on the activities available!
Your new PDA has now saved you money! It allows you to stick to your budget more easily, and finds activities to do ahead of time, which usually means you can find more free activities and work them into your schedule! You can take it one step further and write down what meal is planned for each day, when you need to take meat out to thaw, or put ingredients in a crockpot! This simple addition will also save you money with it’s reminders! How likely are you to stick to your meals if you forget to take the meat out of the freezer (or get beans boiled at our house) in time? Not likely! Which means a quickie meal, that was not planned for and budgeted for. If you budget for and plan to go out once a week, that’s perfectly okay! It’s the unplanned that can get you into trouble, budget-wise, quickly!
It may not be direct income, but I have found it to be a SIGNIFICANT aid to stretching my dollars!!
You can choose to write your PDA as I have shown, or you are more than welcome to print the digital versions I have made! Just follow the links below. These digital versions are intended to be more consolidated than what I typically produce on paper. They are also easier to read for the purpose of putting into pocket protectors, as I have done when I have a schedule that’s going to stick around for awhile (as in each new quarter of school my hubby ventures off to, leaving me to hold the fort down), and then I just use a dry erase marker to check off things on my PDA, and add side notes.
Just a wonderful tidbit: The Whimsical version of the PDA is designed with the font: Lora, how lovely that they would have a font with my mom’s name all over it!
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