My Happy Planner

The beginning of a new year always makes me want to start some good habits. One of those is being more organized! I have always been a calendar and list girl. I use my wall calendar to keep track of family stuff, and then I have various lists around the house. One for my groceries. Another for my daily to-do's. Yet another to keep track of our finances. And a few more for random stuff. So it's pretty surprising that I've never jumped on the planner bandwagon. Planners have been SO popular the past few years. Until recently I didn't think I needed one. But then I started misplacing all my random lists and the lists themselves were making me feel less organized! Receipts were getting lost, lists were being scribbled on by the kids, and I realized I needed ONE central space to dump my thoughts into and help keep me organized. Something just for me.

So I bought a Happy Planner!

Can I just say this happy planner makes me so happy? They come in a variety of patterns and colors, but I loved the style of this one. And that quote on the front is great. Mine is the "big" size, but you can also find them in classic and mini. I definitely could have gone with the classic size, but they were all out when I bought mine.

Sure you could use plain paper to make your to-do lists, but this just makes it so much more fun!

This particular planner comes with both a vertical and a horizontal calendar layout. Here is the vertical. I plan on using the top row for my daily life reminders. Baseball practice, MOPS, grocery shopping, doctors appointments and any general to-do's. In the second row I will list any cleaning tasks I want to get done each day. The third row is to be determined. What would you use it for?

For the horizontal month-at-a-glance pages, I am using it for meal planning! Happy Planner actually sells a meal planner insert but it was out of stock. So for now I've kind of created my own meal planning method. I'm writing down what we're having for dinner each night of the month/week. I had these little grocery shopping lists laying around, so I punched holes in them and attached 4 to each month. Now I can plan out my meals, write down my list for the store, and then simply tear it out when it's time to go grocery shopping. I also think it will be fun to look back at the end of the year and see what we ate every night.

 At the end of each month there is a page to recap some general info.

 Everything is so pretty! I love all the quotes throughout the planner.

 I purchased a separate budget planner to insert into my planner.

 It includes a month-at-a-glance page where I will add up all our income and expenses.

 I am excited to use the expense tracker to keep better track of where our money is going!

It also came with some stickers and a folder where I plan on storing all our receipts. No more missing receipts!

 Doesn't this page just make saving money sound fun??

So tell me....have you ever used a happy planner? Or have you tried a different brand? The one I chose can be purchased through the amazon links in this post, as well as Michaels or directly through the "me and my BIG ideas" website. Most items are on sale right now!

Happy planning!

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