Homemaking is HARD work, regardless of what our culture might believe! Running a household, raising children, cooking and cleaning can be all consuming!
But there are some ways you can simplify homemaking to bring more peace and joy to your home.
SIMPLIFY COOKING
As a homemaker you may feel like you’re supposed to spend hours in the kitchen every day creating fancy homecooked meals. Maybe that’s your passion, or maybe you’re in a season where you have time for that which is great! But if you feel you’re spending way too much time in your kitchen, it may be time to simplify cooking!
MEAL PREP
There are dozens of different ways to meal prep, so play around with them and see if this can be something that’s helpful for your family!
- Prepare several recipes on Sunday for the following weeks. Maybe you make a soup for lunches, a few batches of muffins or banana bread for snacks, and even prepare some meat for dinners.
- Spend one day making a dozen freezer meals to pull out as you need them! This is a smart idea before entering a busy season (back to school!), before having a baby, or before a job transition.
- While cooking dinner, prepare breakfast and lunch for the following day.
DOUBLE RECIPES
One of my favourite mom hacks is doubling recipes and then freezing half! I do this with bread, cookies, soups, and dinners. This way you spend the time in your kitchen once but get to eat from it twice!
MAKE SIMPLE RECIPES
Having a handful of go-to, quick meals is a life changer for a busy homemaker! It’s possible to cook healthy, nourishing meals without slaving in the kitchen all day. Utilize your crockpot or instant pot. Make lots of one-pot, or sheet pan meals. Grocery shop with simple meals in mind!
THEME MEAL NIGHTS
For me, the hardest part of cooking every day is deciding what to make! To help with that process, assign themes to nights of the week. Maybe you just do “taco Tuesday” and “Pizza Friday”, or maybe you want to assign a theme to each night of the week.
Doing this should be helpful, so if it just feels like another stressor maybe it won’t work for your family!
SIMPLIFY CLEANING
So much of a homemaker’s day is spent tidying and cleaning the house! Do you feel like you can never stay on top of chores and you’re always playing catch up?
A good cleaning routine can really help you manage your home well – and I have some tips on how to do that here!
A few key habits can help you stay on top of your home!
- Always clean up after meals. Wash the dishes, put away leftovers, wipe the counter + table.
- Tidy up before bed. At the end of every day put away stray items throughout your home, straighten the couch, etc.
LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Part of simplifying your cleaning routine might actually be to lower your expectations!
If you have young children at home, it’s unrealistic to expect your home to look like a show home at all times! Decide on your non-negotiables and then be satisfied when those are done for the day!
SIMPLIFY YOUR HOME
An important step in simplifying your life as a homemaker is to physically simplify your home!
Less things = less time cleaning.
When you have more clothes, there’s more laundry to do. When you have more furniture, there’s more to dust. When you have more toys, activities, movies, electronics, books, etc, there’s more to put away!
Decluttering your home can make homemaking so much more manageable!
Decluttering doesn’t mean you have to become a full-blown minimalist! Just choosing to be intentional that the items that stay in your home serve a purpose, are used regularly or bring you joy!
SIMPLIFY YOUR SCHEDULE
Most families these days live busy lifestyles. Kids are in sports, gymnastics, music lessons, clubs, and more. They’re running from one activity to the next, often eating on the go, seeing each other in passing.
Maybe you live this lifestyle and are thriving – great!
But maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed, tired, and like something needs to change. In that case take a good hard look at your schedule. What can you give up? How can you free up a few evenings a week?
At first this might feel uncomfortable. You might not know how to use all this extra time. Your kids might whine that they’re bored.
But eventually you’ll treasure this time! Creativity in kids blossoms when they have time to be bored. You’ll have time to eat meals as a family, get enough sleep and even spend time learning new hobbies!
LEARN TO SAY NO
An important part of simplifying your schedule is learning to say no!
Many people struggle with this, overcommit, and then either find themselves burnt out or not showing up to the activities they’ve committed to!
Create boundaries around your time. Decide what’s important and then have the courage to say no to what isn’t.
SIMPLIFY YOUR CALENDAR
After you’ve simplified your schedule – aka the actual things you do every day/week/month – it’s time to simplify how you keep track of that information!
Often I get out of the habit of keeping a physical calendar and I try to keep track of everything in my head. This just adds unnecessary stress and sets my family up for failure!
It doesn’t make a difference whether you like to have a digital calendar, paper calendar, dry erase calendar. Commit to ONE calendar and make sure that you keep it updated so your family can see plans at a quick glance.
SIMPLIFY YOUR FINANCES
Finances look vastly different for each family.
Do you have one, two or several different income streams?
Does one person control the finances or is it a team effort?
Do you have debt? Savings?
Do you get paid weekly? Bi-weekly? Monthly?
Regardless of your income, goals and situations – simplifying your finances may be helpful!
STREAMLINE YOUR BILLS
Do you have a system for paying your bills every month. Choose a few days to sit down and pay your bills, look over your finances. Maybe that’s once a week, or maybe just once a month.
There are apps that can help you streamline your bills. You can use an old-fashioned spreadsheet. Or even just a notebook and pen!
CREATE A BUDGET
Many families are resistant to creating a budget because they fear it will feel restrictive. But in my experience a budget can actually bring peace and security around money!
Again, there are a million ways to budget but find a method that works for you.
CONSOLIDATE / ELIMINATE CREDIT
Eliminating credit will reduce so much stress in your life. This will be easier for some families than it will be for others!
If eliminating your debt isn’t a possibility, maybe consolidating it will help simplify your budget.
UTILIZE MODERN TECHNOLOGY
As a homemaker you may feel like you’re cheating by taking the “easy”, modern way out. Maybe you feel like you shouldn’t use your dishwasher everyday. Maybe you’ve chosen cloth diapers, but you’re in a season where they feel overwhelming. Maybe you feel the need to grow, process and prepare ALL of your family’s food.
But just because you’ve chosen to be a homemaker, doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of some modern day technologies.
You don’t need to feel shame switching to disposable diapers, using your dishwasher, throwing the laundry in the dryer instead of hanging it to dry, or buying premade food!
Homemaking doesn’t have to be all or nothing, and treating it so is a great way to burn yourself out!
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