Does anyone have a list / menu planner / rota for jobs?

[BirdFromDaNorf]

DH has been a SAHD for last 3 years and he's run a very ad hoc ship re menu planning, budgeting, organising and getting the house clean and tidy. I've been literally working day and night on the business which has been our income.

He's now got a job as they boys are both at school, and it's week one - 6am to 2pm, week two - 2pm - 10pm. I need to get us onto a menu planner, cleaning schedule, and generally a feeling of being organised and on top of things.

DH will do the school run at one end of the day, and me the other. He's accepting that if I'm to be able to do this, we need a schedule and a plan.

So what do you do, how does it work in your house, what's the best way to get on top of things? We won't be having a cleaner as the idea is to squirrel away as much as we can to put a deposit down on a buy to let second house for our pension.

Hope I'm posting in the right place? Wasn't sure of the category :)
Thank you in advance!

What phone do you have? I ask because there are lots of apps for this - I use HomeRoutines on iPhone which is pretty good.

For a less high-tech route, could you look at one of those diaries, think they're called busy mum diaries or something like that and they're used to organise households?

Yup. On an iPhone. Will have a look at that. Could be good if DH and I can share the account? To see what's been done!!

Do you meal plan Vatta? How does it work for you? I'm looking on MN now for other people's menu planners....

Look at the Priorities app too. I switched from Home Routines (though also good) to that one. I breakdown each room into lots of little jobs that need to be done weekly /daily/monthly so even if I just have 10 minutes spare I can knock off a few things. I sometimes often clean the bathroom while DS is in the bath.

We meal plan, which really helps - I aim twice a week to cook something easy to double up so we can freeze half of it.

Get your food shopping delivered.

Morning!

I do meal plan (a bit) but don't use an app for that so far. Would be interested to hear any suggestions for apps which help with that, I run my whole life from my phone.

Can't recall the site but google Beth Dargis, her site has an annual calendar of small activities each day to keep on top of clutter/cleaning. You can download paper copy or to you iPhone/Pad calendar...

There are apps for this? Faints.

I tried a meal plan, but 'certain people' would say 'looks good' then announce at lunchtime 'I don't really fancy that for dinner tonight'... It lasted 3 weeks! It was a lovely excel sheet too. We buy way too much food and I hate to waste it (hence soups and jams in abundance!).

I do everything, all the cooking and laundry, and flick a duster around once in a blue moon (of we are having guests). Every so anf often I have a tidy up blitz when the squalor gets too much for me (mess really stresses me out).

I have recently got DS to tidy his room (which he does to the best of his ability at 9!).

It's the dust that gets me! We are in central London and you can dust in the morning and need to do it again by lunchtime. I really need a house troll/elf/pixie.

I have an Excel spreadsheet on the computer and I print one and note when I do a task. When there are no more boxes I print a fresh one. It lists the main cleaning tasks - vacuuming/washing floors and each toilet, wash basin and bath. Plus a note of when towels and sheets are changed. I use it to try to keep a reasonable standard with those things. Everything else like washing, kitchen surfaces and washing up just gets done anyway or it's less important like dusting and windows and gets done as and when.

I like marking things off a list and get some satisfaction from that which makes household tasks a little pleasanter.

I'm not organised at all for meals but sometimes I'll plan to cook a particular meal and check the recipe to make sure the ingredients are in the house or added to the shopping list.