For the whole family:

Cozi is a free and attractive online web service that provides a family calendar. You can track your shopping and to-do lists, organize chores, addresses, photos, and more. There’s even a family journal plus Cozi is mobile ready. For the basic Cozi family calendar there’s no download required.

If you’re looking for a family calendar you can carry with you, try the BusyBodyBook Personal & Family GRID Organizer.

For a hanging style there’s the handy grid style Whomi 2009 Family Wall Calendar.

If you like small:

Try the newer Filofax mini organizer

If you need a lot of scheduling help:

2008 – 2009 Mom Agenda Portfolio Planners

2009 Date Book

8 Days-A-Week Planner

If you like ultra pretty and green:

Try an Eco-Friendly Agenda Planner by ecojot or the very cool Sustainable Wood Desktop Calendar. (see below)

If you’re too hip for your own good:

Paper Source 2009 Wall Art Calendar

Paper Source 2009 Letterpress Desk Calender

SusyJack* 2009 Wall Calendar

If you hate shopping for new calendars:

Take a look at some Unique Perpetual Calendars

Post from: Blisstree

Great 2009 Calendars for All Sorts of Folks

This blackboard clock from eco-artware is made of Pennsylvania black slate and comes with a piece of chalk that fits in a holder on the bottom. There’s no eraser included, but it’s handy to the max. You can jot down grocery lists, tasks, and more, while keeping track of the time. Very fun.

[Image via eco-artware]

Post from: Blisstree

Blackboard Wall Clock

You can easily create a master grocery list, keep it on your computer, and print it out when you need it. Take a hour, and go through your pantry and fridge, jotting down items you normally keep around. Sort items by bold headed food groups like dairy, natural, baking, frozen, beverages, produce, canned items, and so on. If you like, you can add a household category with items like toilet paper and foil.

After each category, leave a couple of spare lines for new or special items, like frosting for a cake, or shrimp; you know, stuff you don’t buy each week. Each week, instead of writing a whole new list, you can simply check off items you’re out of.

An eco-friendly, saves paper way, to write a master list, is to create your list, print it out, and keep it in one of those plastic page protector holders. When you need an item, check it off with an erasable pen (or write in items on free lines).

Do you keep a master grocery list? 

Post from: Blisstree

Save time with a master grocery list

If you need a crash course reminder about this useful home inventory service read:

• Anywhere Vault – One Home Inventory Solution
• AnywhereVault – Digital Home Inventory Tips
• AnywhereVault Review

New features and specials at AnywhereVault:

• Quicker and easier home inventory creation, including backing up your important documents.
• Currently the only online home inventory system that creates your inventory for you. “By using just a few photos of each location you’ve uploaded to your vault, our system tags and lists your belongings for you.” End result – you get a handy itemized list of all the key belongings in your home. This is a $149 service BUT if you take advantage of it before December 15th 2008 it’s FREE.
• Scanning services for those piles of receipts and documents that need to be backed up. This is a $99 solution, BUT is also FREE if you sign on before December 15th.
• Report enhancements which make submitting a claim, sharing a list of your belongings with family, or printing off a hard copy for your records easy.
• Unlimited online home inventory storage for only $49/year (just $4/month).

To learn how to get these services free until December 15th, visit the AnywhereVault website.

[image via AnywhereVault]

Post from: Blisstree

AnywhereVault Home Inventory One-Year Anniversary Special

I found this calendar shown below recently and I think I’m a little in love:

This is the Classic Calendar from Mrs. John L Strong. Featuring 12 classic images from Mrs. John L. Strong’s archive of famous dies stamped in gold, and sold with a 19th century based brass table easel, this calendar will look amazing on any desk – fancy; but not overly fussy at all. Refills for this calendar are available as well.

Look for more calendar features here at Declutter It, as the holiday season approaches.

Post from: Blisstree

Choose Your Calendar Early

Guess what happened three days ago? My Internet experience failed to go smoothly. My modem died. No warning, no seemingly awkward pauses in service; it just flat out died. NO INTERNET. That’s nightmare inducing for me. My lovely Internet service provider folks wanted to send me a new modem super quick; like in a week or two. WHAT? Um, no.

Three days, three trips to the modem store, and countless calls with customer service later, here I am, back online. While I’m happy to be back online, the process could have gone smoother.

1. I could have known more about modems: I’m computer savvy, but only when everything is all nicely working and hooked up. Point; get to know your modem. Know what kind you use (say, wireless or cable), type if you have a preference, and make sure you take your Internet account number into the darn modem store. Seriously, the clerks at the store claimed that they could do nothing without that number – a fact I seriously doubt, since on day two, a clerk easily looked up my account with my name. However, save yourself some trouble and take the account number in.

2. I should have a back up modem: I don’t think this is a serious consideration for everyone, but if you need to be online, a backup is an ok plan.

Other ways to organize your Internet experience:

Have two computers; just in case one goes all funky. You don’t need to buy a second – unless you are a dead serious Internet user, but the next time you buy a new computer, don’t give the old one away or sell it, save it for back up.

Keep all your Internet stuff together. During service calls, I’ve found that it’s easier to simply have everything known to man associated with my Internet account within easy reach. Why? Because some customer service clerk will need some obscure bit of info. I file most of my bills, warranties, and so on, but I keep all my Internet info in the modem box and then I can just pull it out.

Watch your bill. I don’t pay too close attention to my Internet bill. It’s always the same; why bother? I just pay it. This weekend when I went in to find a new modem, the clerk looked up my account and it turns out my service provider was charging me monthly for a modem I outright paid for years ago. Lord. So, pay attention.

Do you have any tips that can streamline your Internet experience?

Post from: Blisstree

Make sure your Internet experience is organized

Pros of digital storage:

• Well, no paper.
• Easy to carry with you – if you have a small digital solution.
• Easy to transfer to a new solution.

Cons:

I had over 200 phone numbers on my last cell phone. My cellphone died. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get the old memory card to work on my new cell phone. Problem – my new phone is missing many, many phone numbers. As people call me, saying, “Where the flip have you been girl?!” I’ve been adding them, but obviously that’s a lame solution. Before I had my numbers hooked up with Outlook too, but around the same time my cell phone broke, I had to reboot my computer and lost all sorts of info.

Final decision: Keep a hard copy of phone numbers (like an Outlook print out) just in case your cell and laptop die at the same time. Odds are they won’t; but in my case it happened, so…

Do you think paper address books are a thing of the past, or do you still have a little black book?  

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Are Address Books Obsolete?

If you’re thinking that AnywhereVault sounds like a great solution then you may be interested in some tips that can help you to maximize the service and make it even more useful for your home inventory needs. Bobbi, from AnywhereVault sent me the following cool tips. These are extra nice because they also give you a good idea of how this digital home inventory service works:

Create a video home inventory:

“A great way to quickly document your belongings is to create a video inventory. AnywhereVault makes it easy to create and have your video inventory stored somewhere safe within 30 minutes. Just stand in the middle of each room and span the entire room, don’t forget to walk over and open closets and drawers and span the video over the contents inside. Upload each short video and you have taken a giant first step!”

Create a detailed inventory:

“If you take the time to do a detailed inventory with AnywhereVault, you’ll instantly have reports of the total value of your belongings. This will help you determine the correct amount of insurance to buy to be properly protected. You will also have customizable reports at your fingertips, so you’ll be able to sort your belongings by category or location and will be able to quickly create a PDF you can email or print.”

Store your inventory somewhere safe:

Back to me – now, creating a video or even a detailed inventory is all peaches and cream, but it’s not very useful if you don’t store it somewhere safe. If you’re comfortable with digital storage, then AnywhereVault is a good solution (hence the giveaway). With AnywhereVault, you’re not storing stuff at your house, where a fire or other issue might damage it, you’re storing your inventory in a place that’s easy to access 24/7. Should something happen at your home or office, your personal home inventory is still saved and safe.

Learn more about AnywhereVault and enter to win a year’s subscription of this service.

[image via AnywhereVault]

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AnywhereVault – Digital Home Inventory Tips

Unless you’re decently tech-minded, a website inventory might be more stress inducing than useful; unless, someone else can handle the online inventory for you… That’s where Anywhere Vault comes into play. This company offers one great solution for your home inventory list.

Some basics:

Anywhere Vault offers a safe place for you to store insurance-related information. Your itemized lists can include photos, scanned receipts, documents, and other important information that families need to keep track of.

How they roll…

Anywhere Vault explains the storage info so much better than I could, so here’s what they note on their company information page: “Your information is stored on a dedicated server housed in a state-of-the-art secure data center with backup power, backup air conditioning and multiple Internet connections. Since your information is stored on our server and not on your computer, even if your computer crashes or is stolen, you still retain all of your information. In addition, backups of the data are taken to a completely separate data center. The process is completely automatic, encrypted, and takes a fraction of a second.”

Because Anywhere Vault is up and running 24/7, even on holidays, you’re information is accessible when and how you need it. If you’re online, you’re connected to your inventory information, and when you’re not online, you can feel safe knowing your inventory is safely stored.

Is it safe?

Security is a big deal to Anywhere Vault. Besides a dedicated server behind a dedicated firewall, any traffic between your web browser and the Anywhere Vault server is encrypted. Of course, all billing and credit card information uses secure HTTP protocol and is not stored with your personal vault.  The company notes, “We are committed to continually reviewing and testing our security, by using third-party security testing and certification organizations.”

Now, this is just a quick intro. We’re actually going to be looking at this company a little closer over the next few weeks. Why? Well, Anywhere Vault has been nice enough to offer Declutter It readers a very special offer that I’ll be posting about next. You won’t want to miss it.

Stay tuned for the surprise offer, a review of Anywhere Vault, more info related to storage sizes available, guides to how this whole system works, and more.

Post from: Blisstree

Anywhere Vault – One Home Inventory Solution

The cute little Piazza (in Venetian Red):

And an interior shot (in Sunflower):

Other colors include Citrus Green, Crimson, Black, and Violet.

Features include: 3 1/2″ X 4 1/2″ with five 1/2″ rings, two cut edge credit card pockets, full length pocket, one full length zipper pocket, and pen loop.

Includes the following:

• Ruled notepaper, cotton cream
• Name, address & telephone, cotton cream
• Plain notepaper, cotton cream
• To do, cotton cream
• A-Z index, 3 letter tabs, cotton cream
• A 2008 diary

Of course Filofax is the king of refill availability so you can stock this mini organizer with anything you see fit including new calender diaries.

Post from: Blisstree

New Mini Organizer – Day Planner