How to Make a Medical Folder

I have filed all of my paperwork you saw HERE away!

You read that correctly! I have filed all of the random piles of paperwork, including the heaping basket full, away. It's unbelievable and feels great to know I don't have some looming task that I wouldn't otherwise know about because it's buried somewhere. I found a few of those tasks, and took care of them!

This post is mainly, though, to show you how I made a medical folder (see pics below) with all medical, dental and vision info, EOBs and bills.

I've also made an insurance folder with our auto & home insurance information & coverage (pics to come).

For the Medical Folder, here's what I did:

3-hole punched everything to fit into my 3-ring binder
Put it all in, according to medical or dental and arranged by clinic for medical, and date (newest in front)
Dental is all in one category with no other dividers by clinic, I may change that down the road (?)
All insurance booklets & general coverage brochures are in the front and back inner pockets of the binder
Label sections with a sharpie or pen

How I made dividers:

I didn't have dividers laying around and didn't want to spend money on them or go to the store in yesterday's nasty weather. So below, I have outlined how I solved that problem with what I had available. You could also make dividers from larger construction paper (you want to be sure it's bigger than a regular sized piece of paper so you can have a tab sticking out to see your sections), pocket/peechee folders, etc. Be creative!

Cut a regular manila file folder in half, up the folded seam
Cut about an inch or so off the bottom (because it wouldn't fit in my 3-hole punch)
There are 3 types of file folders in a box that you buy from the store-
Tab at the top, tab at the middle, and tab at the bottom
You want to make sure that's the order that you make dividers from them so you can easily see your sections
Label sections with a sharpie or pen

Whalla! 

I also labeled the outside of my folder so when it's on the shelf, I know which folder it is. 

This label I am showing is only temporary because I want to get more creative with it. I will be printing something off of the computer for the spine of the binder and the front. I will post pics here once I have done that.

This is a great way to have all of your medical information laid out in front of you, organized by clinic and by date. For me, I like to have all of my bills available to look at and I just can't do that when they're lying around in a pile or in a folder unorganized.

Once a bill is paid, I will keep only the last statement and/or reciept of last payment.

If you have tons of medical information (I purge every year unless I still owe for some reason), use a bigger binder or use more than one! They make huge binders and they have a good selection at Walmart (cheapest retail prices I have found during non-sale times) and I have a liquidation store in my area that sells binders and other office supplies for up to 75% off the retail prices. Check out what you might have in your area!

FINALLY Gave the Dog a Bath!

This has been needed for about 2 weeks now. I finally found some good dog shampoo at one of the liquidation stores here so I paid $2.99 for some good stuff. My dog has very sensitive skin (she is a golden retriever and that's common) so I can't buy her just anything. Plus, she's on Frontline so I don't want to wash her with flea medicated shampoo. The stuff I found for her today actually... smells... really good! Like cherries. I smelled it and then kept smelling it because it smelled so yummy! Now, I can cuddle with my dog and instead of smelling like fish in a water cooler after a long day of fishing, she will smell delicious!

Menu Planning

I usually plan my menus on Sunday because I shop for what's on sale with a coupon for items that I can get for free or super cheap on Sundays and I plan our meals around that for as long as I can.

This weeks dinner menu:

Tuesday (last night): Grilled cheese & Tomato soup (one of my husband's favorites!)
Wednesday: Hamburger gravy & Rice
Thursday: Tater-tot casserole
Friday: Crockpot chili & Cornbread 
Saturday: Spaghetti
Sunday: Breakfast for dinner- Omelets
Monday: Meatballs & Gravy
Tuesday: Corn Chowder
Wednesday: Spaghetti


That's as far as I have gotten. I could probably squeeze a few more meals out of the items that we have on hand without going shopping for any extra ingredients, although I will still go shopping every Sunday. I have everything needed for all of these recipes EXCEPT for a few things that the corn chowder recipe calls for. Menu planning saves so much money and time! I have a monthly calendar wipe-off board with the menu filled in- I will have to take a pic and post it! It's nice because if we have Spaghetti written down one night and that night comes and we feel more like chili, I can quickly erase it and change the board accordingly.

Work day 1 of 2 this week

I am working Wednesday & Thursday now, so just very part time. It is my goal to be a full time SAHM by February 2010 and it's looking good! If I could sell my car, I could stay home now but I don't think selling my car is going to happen just yet. Here are the main 2 reasons why:

1. I am not actively posting it. I did post on Craigslist once and put a flyer up @ my husband's job. But other than that, I haven't been too motivated because of the next reason.

2. I owe too damn much! When I financed the car I have now, I traded in another car in that I owed more than it was worth, so I had to roll my leftover loan from that car onto my new loan. DON'T EVER DO THAT! I would owe $3,000 less if I hadn't done that (although I wouldn't have been able to get the car!) Oh, and I don't have any money saved to put towards the car so I can sell it for less, so I have to sell it for what I owe, or really close to it.

Anyway, today is going to to pretty quickly, I think. I work from 8:30am to 1:30pm. I am supposed to be working 7 hours a day. I wanted to work Monday/Tuesday but my boss needs me on Thursdays to help with childcare @ a live-in drug & alcohol recovery center. Since I don't want to work split days, my only other option would be Wednesday & Thursday because I will not work Fridays- I haven't worked a Friday in 2 years and I love it that way. The reason why I can't work 7 hours today (or any Wednesday) is because my flexible job allows me not to use childcare so I only work when my daughter is in school. And at her new school, she gets out early every Wednesday.

I have to admit, I am a little bit worried that I'm not bringing in enough money. I am selling quite a bit on ebay but I have only sold $7 worth of items on Craigslist. I need to repost my Craigslist items and keep on top of it because it's my goal to go shopping at Goodwill outlet 1x per week. I figure if I can do that, I should be able to sell enough to bring in a sufficient amount of money. But in order to do that, I need to sell what I'm buying!

On way way to organized paperwork!

Remember the overflowing basket and random piles of paperwork I shared HERE?
Well, I really got into an organizing groove today and I'm about 1/2 way done. I have filed some, but while I was filing away in my filing cabinet, I decided I am going to make notebooks for certain categories. I am going to 3-hole punch and put into a 3 ring binder the following categories:

Medical
Dental
Insurance- Auto, Home, Life coverage & monthly statements

I am also thinking about doing a financial binder, but I'm not yet sure what it would look like and exactly what purpose it would serve. That's a thought in progress.


Pics of my paperwork progress (including binders) to come!

Cleaning day was pretty much a bust!

I got the kitchen clean yesterday! And only the kitchen. Although, it was VERY clean. Did you see my pics in the last post? 1/2 on the living room was cleaned, too... better than none if it! I'll be updating pics HERE as I finish them.

What went wrong, you ask? Well, I definitely do not want to get into specifics because having to deal with it is enough let alone talking about it. But I will say that I did a mystery shop where I had to call 2 specific auto insurance companies and get quotes. I was in the market for new insurance anyway, so I was like "Cool, I'm getting paid $30 to do something I would already be doing anyway!" Turns out, one of the companies could save me $50 a month on auto and over $200 on home insurance! So, of course, I switched. Long story short, it has taken me 2 weeks to make sure hat all of my policies with my old company have been canceled. We had 2 auto, 1 motorcycle, home and life. So, I spent a good chunk of time yesterday calling around and getting that taken care of.

Also, I sold my iphone and thought I broke it because I shut it off while it was clearing all data (stupid!) and then it didn't want to turn back on... There went almost 2 hours of my time with Apple phone support. But, I can't really use that as an excuse because that was BEFORE I was supposed to start cleaning..

Wish me luck because today is Cleaning Day, take 2!

iphone crash! *OH NO!*

Well, it's partly (id not mostly) my fault that my iphone crashed. I was erasing all content and resetting all settings (to sell it because we no longer need cell service) and I decided to turn the phone off because it was going to take too long and I needed to take it to the AT&T store for them to take the SIM card out... long story short my phone wouldnt do anything for 2 hours and thank goodness apple aupport helped me by phone because someone already paid for it on ebay!!!