Organizing With Binders, A Kitchen Binder

You might need a kitchen binder if opening a cabinet in your  kitchen requires a hard hat.

If you have too many of this or you’re constantly running out of that, you may need a kitchen binder.

And those ‘science experiments’ in the back of the fridge? Ewwww!

If you’ve been dealing with all these problems, it’s time to organize your kitchen.  You need a kitchen binder.

What’s A Kitchen Notebook…and why do I want one?

A kitchen binder is a custom made notebook just for you, your kitchen, your family, your lifestyle and your preferences. The best way to build one is with just a plain old 3 ring binder.

Are you:

• tired of being disorganized in the kitchen?
• not sure where your coupons are and most of them expire before you can use them anyway?
• a keeper of favorite recipes, recipes to try out, and want to add more but the ones you have are everywhere, including the junk drawer?
• frustrated because you can never find your grocery list and/or a pen, especially at the same time?
• buying items again because you don’t remember if you have some or not and you can’t find your grocery list?

I bet you get the idea and can add a bunch more reasons of your own by now? The household management notebook I made just gave me all sorts of ideas for other binders. I have quite a few now and I love them. They are huge time savers and stress reducers.

I Love My Kitchen Binder

Coupon Saver Binder Bundle, Blue with Free Bonus Sleeve

My kitchen binder is so helpful to me that I eventually split it into separate notebook binders.

Now I have an actual kitchen notebook and a recipe binder. At one point I even had a takeout/delivery menu binder, too! LOL I use my smartphone apps for that now.

Don’t panic ~ I’m not saying you should have that many.  That’s just to show you how much in control you are. You decide what you want to organize with binders and how you want to set them up.

Coupon Saver Zipper Binder Bundle with Free Bonus Pouch (Silver)

Taking my cue from my household management notebook, I researched kitchen binders and made notes for how I wanted to set mine up. One of my best tools that resulted from all that work was My Kitchen Notebook! I love that thing!

I keep a household management notebook with a calendar, lists, address book and all the trimmings. I also use binders to organize different areas of our lives.

Yes, I probably have upwards of 15 home organization notebooks all over my house.  They are so handy, you can’t have just one!  LOL

After my household notebook, my kitchen binder is my favorite. Let me tell you about it…

Not Just For Recipes

When you hear about kitchen notebooks, the assumption is that it’s a recipe binder. Well, sure that’s part of what you can do with it.

The kitchen binder I’m talking about does extra duty…

What Do You Put In A Kitchen Notebook?

The great thing about making your own kitchen binder is that the contents of your Kitchen Binder are totally up to you. Here are some suggestions for what to keep in yours based on what I keep in mine:

• Meal planner forms (you can use fancy pre-printed forms available on the internet or office supply stores, or just make a list of meals for the week)
• Grocery lists (pre-printed or plain paper; I use an Evernote note that I just print out)
• Once A Month cooking recipes & ideas
• Information and reference sheets like substitutions, measurements, storage time limits, etc.
• Price comparison book (pages); I shop at Wal-Mart and my local grocery store. I compare the prices at these stores, which are the places I shop with coupons most often. Then I can plan ahead when to stop at which store to take advantage of sales and prices.
• Favorite Homemade recipes; homemade bisquick, shake-n-bake, hot chocolate, cake mix, crackers, pancake syrup, etc.
• Favorite Homemade household recipes; beauty, cleaning, gardening, laundry, pet, etc. Lots of natural homemade cleaners, bug treatments and such are made with stuff from the kitchen, so I keep my ‘recipes’ in my kitchen notebook.
• Favorite recipes & family recipes, naturally.
• Restaurant menus, take-out menus and delivery menus.

Getting Organized: Making a Kitchen Binder

This is pretty much how I organized all those appliance manuals & directions. Easy, peasy ~ and so much neater. No more losing those little booklets!

Supplies You’ll Need To Set Up Your Kitchen Binder

Let’s make a list of supplies that are handy for making your kitchen binder.

• Binder (or other notebook) of the size desired.
• Sheet Protectors; I recommend these to protect your pages from stains in the kitchen!
• Legal pad, steno pad or other paper for jotting notes on, especially during the time you’re setting it up. Or, just some good old plain lined 3 hole paper in the front of the binder.
• Pen, pencil, markers, stickers; your preference
• A pencil pouch; OR a clear zip close pouch that has the holes for the binder. I happened to have one of these already. You can find them at the office supply if you’d rather have one of these. They’re usually pretty cheap.
• A coupon pouch; I kept mine here so I could plan my meals & make my grocery lists.

4 Pack 2’’ 3-Ring Binders, 4 Binder Assorted PackBazic 804 3 Ring Pencil Pouch with Mesh Window, 6 pcsAvery Heavyweight Diamond Clear Sheet Protectors, Acid-Free, 200ctAvery Extrawide Ready Index Dividers, Assorted, 10 Tabs, 1 Set

Recipe Organizer: How to Organize Recipes in a Binder

Here’s a great example of organizing your recipes in a kitchen binder. I love Alejandra.tv videos! You’re going to want to subscribe ~ she’s great!

More About Organizing With Binders

You can see more of the binders I use for organizing all the different parts of our lives. Yes, I’m binder-crazy. I wouldn’t change that though. Everytime my household binder threatened to explode, I made another one so I could thin it down.  This gave me some really good tools for keeping my marbles.  Check these out.

• A Household Notebook Keep lists, addresses, calendars, party planning and more – all together in one place. Mine is my second brain!
• A Medical Information Notebook Organize medical information for yourself and your family to avoid the additional stress of searching for it during an emergency.
• A Babysitter Notebook  Keeping important information about your baby in a babysitter notebook will give you peace of mind.  And your babysitter will have a useful resource while they babysit your child.
• A Christmas Planner A Christmas Planner is a valuable tool for creating a holiday full of great family memories. Organize your holiday information in one handy binder for easy reference year after year.
• More to come!

Tell Me About Your Kitchen Binder In The Comments

eBay Has Notebook Binders