Bujo Supply Scavenger Hunt List

Bujo Supply Scavenger Hunt

To save money on supplies, take a few minutes to walk around your home and see if you have any of these items.  If you have kids and they aren't using them, ask if you can have them.

• Pencils
• Pens
• Highlighters
• Markers 
• Color Pencils
• Stickers
• Paper
• Binder
• Composition book
• Spiral notebook
• Washi tape
• Stencils
• Stamps
• Scrapbook paper
• Wrapping paper
• Scotch tape 
• Scissors
• Glue

4. Supplies

Supplies

Now we've got all the hard work done.  We know:

• What our journal needs to do 
• How many pages we need and for what 
• We've decided on a layout

If you missed any of that, please click here to go back to earlier posts.

Now it's time to get our supplies together.

First thing's first

Being on disability, we are about saving money here at Generic Soda Money.  Before we spend one dime on any supplies, let's do an inventory of our home and see what we already have that we can use.  A lot of people think you need an expensive binder full of paper and fancy stickers with the word PLANNER stamped on the front.  Not true.  Below is a list of the most essential things you need to bullet journal.

1. Pencil or pen
2. Paper

The end.

Not what you expected?  Well it's true.  You need something to write on and something to write with.  If you have several sheets of paper and a binder to keep them in or even a folder, you're already there.  Here are a few other ideas:

• A spiral notebook
• A composition book
• Loose leaf paper and a binder
• Colored paper
• Graph paper

For writing you can use:

• Ballpoint pen
• Pencil wooden school or mechanical
• Glitter pen
• Gel pen
• Fine liner pen 
• Crayola marker
• Micron fine pen
• Color pencil

A ruler of some kind is good but not necessary.  You can use anything with a straight edge like:

• A cereal box
• The edge of a book
• The edge of a dvd
• A plastic card
• A piece of cardboard

Don't laugh.  I'm just saying.  If your kid has made off with the ruler and you don't feel like tearing their room apart to find it, you can use alternatives in the mean time.

Here you'll find a list of other items you can use for bullet journaling.  I want you to take this list and go on a scavenger hunt around your house to see if you already have them BEFORE we go out to buy anything.  Remember, we're doing bujo for the broke, busy, and artistically challenged.  Inexpensive, easy, and quick is the name of the game.  Hightlight the list and print it or screen shot it for easier finding.

Good luck and keep moving forward!

Next edition:  Buying options from ZERO to Twenty dollars.

2. What the heck is bullet journaling?

Welcome to my second post in the "BuJo for The Brok, Busy, and Artiscally Challenged." series.  To see what this series is all about, you can read the first post here.  My Pinterest feed has been filled with bullet journal this, bujo that.  The sales flyers and online ads for many stores I shop at have planners and journals galore on sale.  But for the beginner, what the heck is this all about?

What is it?

To put it simply, bullet journaling is a way to keep track of just about anything you need to keep track of.  It combines to-do lists, goals, budgets, wish lists, mood trackers, etcetera into one neat and tidy book.  It reduces clutter since you have everything in one tidy place and can help you stay organized.  It also helps with time management since you can visually see where all your time is going and how much time you have left.

Why do it?  

If you are looking for ways to keep track of things like your savings or moods.  Or if you have a chronic illness like me and need to keep track of your symptoms from week to week or month to month.  If you feel like you have no time and need to find it somewhere in your hectic life.  These are just some of the reasons to bullet journal.

Who is it for? 

Anyone.  Everyone.  If you want to reduce clutter physically, visually, and mentally, this is for you.  It reduces the need for a calendar, a planner, and random lists posted on your walls or in a diary somewhere.  If you want to better manage your time, this is for you.  If you want to keep track of this or that in your life, this is for you.  Busy parents juggling multiple schedules, business folk, small business owners, at home bosses, students of all ages - this is for you.  The broke and artistically challenged (meaning you are a pro at stick figures and crazy squiggles) this is for you.

Read on to the next post to find out HOW to bullet journal.

Thanks for reading and keep moving forward!
Kelli

3. How To Get Started Bullet Journaling

Welcome to part three in the series on bullet journaling.  So now we know the what, the who, and the why we need to get into the how.  How do we do it?

Simple, get a sheet of paper and a pen or pencil.  Boom!  Done.

Wait.  What?

I know, not what you expected.

But before we can do the how we need to plan.  Yes, you need to plan your planner otherwise you will fail at this.  Over the years I wasted time and money because I had no clue what I wanted or needed my planner to do.  I would waste pages writing stuff on it then crossing it out or even tearing sheets out.  I'm not one for messy planners and eventually I would stop using it.  The last thing we want is to waste time and money on something we're going to get frustrated with and stop using.  So let's take five minutes to plan.

1-What do you want to keep track of?

Some ideas

• Menu planning
• Weight loss
• Birthdays
• Moods
• Monthly money flows
• Budget
• Schedules
• Pain
• Medications
• Passwords

  and on and on.  For an idea of lists you may want to include, check out the links below.

Crystal at Bullet Journal Addict has a nice list of 15.

 Joanna Rahier has a decent list of 20 pages for your journal.  

Whitney at Life By Whitney has an incredible 379 item list you can print or watch the video.

However, to keep from being overwhelmed before we even begin, I recommend sticking with one of the first two links.  Also, this is YOUR journal.  Just because someone else says these are 'must haves', 'essential,' or 'the best' doesn't mean you have to have them in yours.  What works for one, doesn't necessarily mean it works for all.

2-Decide if you are going to do a monthly, weekly, or daily spread (layout).  

You don't have to do one or another.  You can do a combo.  Many people do a monthly calendar as a divider and then have weekly or daily spreads after.  Weekly spreads help you see your entire week all at once.  A daily you only see one day at a time and it uses more paper.  This means you'll run out of pages faster and might need another journal/planner before the year is out.  This means more money out the window.

Pinterest is a fabulous resource on different spreads.  You could spend all day lost in a sea of journal pins.  For the purposes of this series, we are only using the most basic, fuss-free layouts possible.  Check out the links below.

This link to Nikola Kosterman's website has 10 basic journal layouts.

Need more inspiration?  Claudia at The Fab 20s has 35 layouts including trackers.

3-Decide how you want it to look.  

Do you want art?  Do you want color?  Do you want a specific theme like comics or mid-century atomic?  Do you want flowers or cutesy?

Here's a secret: you don't have to choose just one thing.  I constantly switch themes in mine.  I've seen many bujo masters change their themes weekly or monthly so don't feel you have to be stuck with one thing forever.  It's YOUR journal.  Do with it what you feel.  If you want nothing one week and want to do unicorns or Harry Potter the next week, then rock on!  There are no limits here.

Notice how we still haven't spent a dime yet.  Now that we've got an idea on what our planner needs to do and how to set it up, we need to gather materials and set up the first pages.  That'll be discussed in the next post.

What are some of your thoughts so far?  

Thanks for reading!  As always, Keep Moving Forward!
Kelli

Minimalism is HARD!

After years of being physically unable to do the type of things I used to, I felt my house was beginning to look like something from Hoarders.

After the move from Connecticut, I felt suffocated by the stuff around me.  I was so fed up of bumping into this tote or that I finally snapped.  I told everyone around me, "Don't be surprised when this place starts  looking like some Japanese house with nothing in it."

But trying to go minimalist is HARD.  There are some serious choices you have to make about what goes  and what stays.  In addition, you have to rope your children into it too.  They are not always willing to part with their things no matter how much reason or bribery exists.

I told myself I needed this.  I needed to simplify my life as much as I could. Dealing with a chronic illness is hard.  Dealing with a chronic illness, teens, tweens, and too much stuff is harder.  I want to live smarter not harder for longer.

The first thing I had to tell myself was to go slow.  It took me 20+ years to accumulate this stuff so i needed to be patient and give myself time to go through it all.  I decided to do one room at  time.  Go through every single item in that room and make a split second decision on everything.  Then go through again and fine tune.  I made myself open every single thing.  Drawers, totes, trunks, bins, bags, boxes - EVERYTHING. 

I came up with the following criteria for getting rid of things.
1-Is it broken or torn?
2-Is it outdated or unfashionable?
3-Does it fit right now or has it fit in the last year?
4-Have I used it in 6mos to a year?
5-Do I really like it?

I managed to donate  six large totes to the Veteran's Thrift store by using this method.  I never realized how much useless and outdated things we had.  I still have a ways to go but the end is in sight.  Thanks to some useful information I gathered from other Pinterest pinners  and the links below, it won't be long until the makeover is complete!

http://laurenjadelately.com/how-to-live-with-less/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/1011777-50-things-throw-out-now-and-dispose-them/?reload=1
http://www.simplyfiercely.com/struggling-with-minimalism/
https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/into-mind-3305163/30-day-minimalism-challenge-4009933387
http://www.popsugar.com/smart-living/Questions-Ask-Declutter-34352100

Have you gone or are you thinking about going minimalist?  What are your tips or tricks?