Now that I’m living alone I’ve had to change the way I’m doing a lot of things. These are some of the things I’ve done to try a streamline my life. When you suddenly lose the person that is doing half (or more) of the work and errands, you have to prioritize and organize!
- Household chores – I have a whiteboard on my refrigerator where I keep a list of things that need to be done, and how often. I write the date last completed next to the item so I can see quickly what needs to be done. Saturday is about my only day to do these big jobs, so I try to only do one or two big jobs each week.
- Menus: I joined E-meals, which is a service that gives me new recipes every week. Every two weeks I sit down and make out menus for my mom and I. E-meals has great, easy recipes, and once you choose your recipes, it gives you a shopping list that can be directly imported into your grocery shopping app. I use Walmart pickup so I can get both my order and my mom’s. We try to cook every other day, and eat leftovers on the in-between days. There are also a number of meal services that send you recipes and the food if that works better for you.
- Yard: When I bought my place, the yard was a mess. The lady that lived there hadn’t been able to work out in the yard for a long time, and it was badly overgrown. With me working, I knew I had to make it so that it would look nice, but also not take a lot of time. So after weeding all the flower beds, I put down weed fabric and covered it with rubber mulch. I put stepping stones on top of that, and then put potted plants on them. I do have to do some weeding, but it would be much worse without the mulch.
Other Stuff
I don’t want my children to be left with a mess when it’s time for me to move on and join my husband. Here are some things I have done to prepare.
- My son has a list of all my accounts and passwords in case he needs to access anything
- Made sure all my accounts have beneficiaries
- Did my will and Power of Attorney’s and made sure my son has a copy.
- Got a life insurance policy with a rider that covers long-term care. If I need long-term care, the money will be available. If I don’t need it, my kids will get the payout.