Documents

I am so pleased with myself. After a few comments about my job chart, I got to thinking about how best to share the information. Of course I could tell you the book name (The Complete Idiot's Guide to Organizing Your Life) but then I would have to make several follow-up statements such as: I didn't read the rest of the book so I can't vouch for the entire books usefulness, there's not a "job chart" in the book-I created one from the lists that she gave, and I've heard that subsequent editions (after #3) don't have the same information. BUT, I decided that heck, I already went to all the work to make up the job chart so why not share it? So for the past 30 minutes, I have been sitting here in front of the computer (Jackson is asleep and Jonathan stayed late at a BBQ to play music with friends) figuring out Google Documents. And I've done it! At least I think I have. I created a section on the left of the page called "It Works For Us!" Let me know if you click on a link and it doesn't work. Or if you want the original document to make changes to it. I am also excited to share our budget template with you (might as well, since I've already got the job chart there). So let me discuss each document briefly. My apologies for the boring post for those of you who have your act together.

The job chart. I've been doing it for two weeks. Which means I haven't done any of the monthly/quarterly/semi-annual or annual stuff yet. Some days I don't get to my jobs so I just do them the next day. "Vacuum HTA" means vacuum high-traffic areas. "Business" is paying bills and the like. My sister-in-law has it broken down even more for each day and has stuff like exercise, read scriptures, take vitamin and so on and so forth on her job chart. I don't need all that but now you can't say that I was holding back information from you.

The budget template. Yay. You could pretty much say it's essential to our marriage. Don't judge me on the amounts listed (how much do you spend on food?). I've left out any "sensitive" financial information. So the way it works is that when we get home from the store, we write the amount we spent on a white line and then subtotal in the gray line. I like to separate the household (deodorant, light bulbs, toilet paper, dish soap) from the food budget because I feel like it means more food money. And I like food. With our gifts, we try to set aside a certain amount of money and just keep deducting whatever we spend. It doesn't include immediate family birthdays or Christmas. The fun money is our "allowance." Really truly, this is so important to us. We have money each month that we don't have to be accountable to the other person for. Freedom is so important. Jonathan is better about saving his up. I normally spend mine by the third of each month. I already bought a new running shirt this month. Yellie, is that it? Did I forget anything? Do you still use it?

I also included a link to the training plan that I am currently using for the Baltimore Half-Marathon. I love it because I only run three days a week. Otherwise, training would take over my life. FYI, I also like the training plans on the Runner's World website that were created by Doug Rennie. He did a beginner/intermediate/advanced plan for each of the distances. I am going to do the intermediate or advanced plan for the Drumstick Dash (a local 5K on Thanksgiving morning). It works for me!