Counting the Cents in an Organised Way

Kinetica’s Katy MacPherson suggests ways to save money by being organised and counting every cent spent:

Are you fed up hearing of doom and gloom … of the tough economic climate? Why not turn the thought around and think positive? Positive-thinking is far healthier for the soul. How about starting with how you can save money? Being more organised is one way. But how?

Being organised saves you money and looking after those cents certainly helps the dollars look after themselves. The purchase of a new fridge of say $1200 requires thought, time and investigation but when you go to the supermarket and spend a third of the amount, do you give that task a third thinking time … NO and that’s where the saving can be made. Not so much on the larger outgoings, as we give them more thought, but on the smaller costs – $15 for lunch here and $20 for the trip out there.

We all need help and support to move forward in life and Katy Macpherson from organising solutions company, Kinetica, is able to give just that. Twenty years in the UK corporate world of pharmaceuticals along with an inherent love of organisation, lead Katy to take a new career direction in Professional Organisation, once arriving in New Zealand five years ago.

Here are Kinetica’s top ten organising tips to retain those notes in your wallet:-

1. Plan your week. Now you might be thinking how does that save money? Well think about how many trips you have to make into town – if you diary the date/time to go to town and list all the things needed to be done, you can maximise your time and reduce the petrol costs and have that business meeting whilst you are there. Car pool where you can. Organise rosters for taking children to after-school activities.

2. Plan your meals. Similarly planning what you have to eat over the week means less trips to the supermarket (reducing petrol costs and saving time), less wastage and more economical meals. Put thinking time into your grocery shopping – it’s a huge expense.

3. Check your bills. Careful checking of an invoice can reveal miscalculations and errors. Check your power bill, especially at rate-change times. Or read the meter, because the power company may not, and waiting until the bill eventually arrives may cost you tens of dollars.

4. Use both sides of paper. If you don’t want to print both sides, then tear up into quarters and staple for use as a notepad by the telephone. Use every piece of paper and recycle when done.

5. Think multipurpose. If you need to purchase a new item, think how else it could be used. Be creative with your ideas so you can save space, time and money.

6. Make your own lunch. How much does it cost you to buy that prepared sandwich in the plastic non-recyclable wrapping from the deli? How much healthier and more delicious would lunch be if the sandwich was home-made at a fraction of the cost and the re-useable sectioned lunch box also contained scrummy home-baking (made in the time you saved by planning your week) and yummy fruit (bought at your weekly supermarket trip)? Start tomorrow.

7. On-sell unused goods. Declutter your home and sell all the items you no longer use. Today there are so many outlets online, through local fundraising groups and local businesses. Take every opportunity you can and strike the best deal. Recycle the rest.

8. Make your own gift cards. Re-use cards sent for special occasions and birthdays, Cut out the graphic and spend your winter evenings sticking to blank card. Make sure the size stays within the dimensions of the lowest postal rate!

9. Get creative in the kitchen. Dig out three tins of food that have been in the pantry for too long – and get creative in the kitchen.

10. Use your diary. Your diary is your key to organisation, whether on paper or electronic. Use it for reminders to save you money. For example, order firewood early, send overseas Christmas cards using economic rate and read the power metre on the rate change day.

Now that is all so easy to keep some of those well earned dollars in your wallet – it’s just like a pay rise! Visit the Health in Harmony website for more details.

Kinetica offers bespoke packages to suit clients’ individual organisational needs whether at home or in the office, offering flexibility for everyone’s budget. Free help and support is available outside the organising sessions by monthly email organising tips. Sign up today by visiting www.kinetica.co.nz

To help you keep those dollars in the wallet, Kinetica is offering a 22% discount on a Needs Assessment. A representative will visit your home or office for a one hour organisation assessment. The visit will be followed by an action plan and six weekly telephone calls as you work through the organisation process. All for $140+gst. Offer is valid for August & September 2009 and for Wanaka area residents only. Show this page to qualify for the discount.

Keep counting those cents.

Author:Katy Macpherson runs office and home organising consultancy Kinetica. She’s available to help you get your paper in order with a personalised consultation. Contact Katy today: 03 443 6224, 021 154 5511, katy@kinetica.co.nz or check out www.kinetica.co.nz

Organising Cold Temperature Tips

You may even save yourself some money from our friend Katy Mcpherson of Kinetica organising yourself through the cooler months:

Welcome to the April organising tip from Kinetica, on this chilly Wednesday morning.

With the definite signs of winter here in Wanaka today, my thoughts turn to preparing for those colder months.

Being organised and prepared for winter can help keep you warm and look after those precious cents. Remember the dollars then look after themselves … apparently!

My tip this month is to put together a list of five things you are going to do over the long weekend to help prepare you for winter and then at the bottom put a note of how you are going to treat yourself when all five tasks are completed. That coffee (and muffin!) meeting with a friend you keep meaning to catch up with or time out on the settee with your favourite book (how often do the Mums of this world do that during the day!) or whatever takes your fancy.

Here are a few ideas for tasks on your list …

• Order in the firewood; having good quality dry firewood that burns well and a long time is more value for money than wet heavy wood that gives out limited heat
• Take the outside shade sails down, so that the little sun that we have, on the shorter winter days, can heat up the house
• Spend some time in the garden preparing for the winter months, time spent now, saves hours in the spring
• Put up the winter thicker curtains and any extra curtains you have across doors and large windows. Keep that precious heat in
• Wasn’t the Earth Hour such a success for those here in Wanaka – well done to all involved – but don’t just turn off the power for an hour, look carefully at your electrical items around the house. Can you turn more off rather than leave on standby. Encourage everyone in the house to conserve power. Especially with the huge charges imposed by the electricity supply companies during the times we most need it!
• Check your doors and windows for seals – do any need replacing?
• Dig out your winter sports gear and check it fits. If it doesn’t clean it up and sell through Trade me or give to the Op Shop. If you need replacements, buy them now – you may be getting last season’s but they’ll be a great deal cheaper than they will in July!

Have a good weekend and don’t forget to have some time out for YOU.

Author:Katy Macpherson runs office and home organising consultancy Kinetica. She’s available to help you get your paper in order with a personalised consultation. Contact Katy today: 03 443 6224, 021 154 5511, katy@kinetica.co.nz or check out www.kinetica.co.nz

Organise Your February: Get the Filing Sorted

Kinetica’s Katy McPherson suggests a bit of filing may be required to keep yourself organised:

Filing cabinet bursting at the seams? Piles of paid bills shoved in the cupboard? Now is the time to get that paper sorted!

February is a good time to go through all the paperwork from the previous year. As you do this, think ‘Will I need to refer to this again? What is the worst that can happen if this is lost?’

Recycle/shred what you don’t need to keep and file the rest.

You don’t need to spend hours and hours filing, just put in a logical, chronological order, strap it together and put it safely out of sight but accessible.

File like with like. Bank statements together. Regular bills together. One-off bills that you may need to refer to (Who did that roof mend back in 2007?) in another stack and so on.

You’ll soon have a clear space to collate the files for 2009.

Author:Katy Macpherson runs office and home organising consultancy Kinetica. She’s available to help you get your paper in order with a personalised consultation. Contact Katy today: 03 443 6224, 021 154 5511, katy@kinetica.co.nz or check out www.kinetica.co.nz

Organised for a Stress-free Xmas?

Kinetica’s Katy Macpherson offers organising tips for a stress-free Christmas:

Do you want to be more organised this Christmas?

Make Christmas lists!

Make a present list now and keep it in your purse/wallet so you have it to hand whenever you are in town. Remember the current local campaign – Shop Local. Shopping local keeps the money in town for the town, to employ people so they can remain in town. Shopping local makes sense.

Start planning your meals for the festive season now. Consider meals that are quick yet interesting and can be a joint effort, so you have more time to enjoy with friends and relatives. Make a list of the meals and then allocate the meals to actual dates. Don’t you get tired of thinking what to have for tea? Well, having all the meals planned in advance makes this busy time of year so much more enjoyable.

Thirdly, make grocery lists, one for each store. Be careful, it’s so easy to over indulge at this time of year, so only buy what you need with perhaps a few extra treats! Grocery lists cut the cost of your shopping bill, so get in the habit of only shopping with a list. Start to get the basics in now and avoid the last minute crowds!

You can even start by making a list of the lists you have to prepare!!!

Author – Contact Katy Macpherson today to see how Kinetica can help you organise your office and home: 03 443 6224, 021 154 5511 or get organising tips directly into your emailbox, just email katy@kinetica.co.nz

Improve Your Organisation Skills and Find the Time To Enjoy Life

Kinetica’s Katy Macpherson offers some tips for better organisation and time management:

‘I want more hours in the day and less dollars going out the door’ is the request of many of Kinetica’s clients.

Creating organisation in your life, using knowledge effectively and making decisions fast can simplify your life, reduce stress and has an indirect effect of freeing up time and money.

Living in the 21st century with a myriad of technology, umpteen choices and wealth of information is all very well. It empowers us with knowledge but it can make life overwhelming and stressful. Knowledge is not much use if you don’t use it correctly.

So how can you free time and money? Kinetica has a whole wealth of useful techniques and tips for getting organised. Here are three of our most valuable tips.

• Handle a piece of paper only once. This is not always possible but it’s a target to aim for to ensure you handle each piece of paper the minimum number of times. For example, as soon as you empty the mailbox, do one of three things, either action the communication, recycle it or file it. An action may be just reading the letter from a friend or responding to an invitation or flicking through the junk mail to extract the vouchers. But do it now! Don’t put it down to do later, as this creates clutter and believe it or not, adds to the stress.
• Recycle as much as you can. This not only reduces the landfill amount but also saves money by creating less rubbish for those expensive blue rubbish bags! Open each envelope, recycle it along with the paper junk mail and you’ll soon have less paper around the place. Filing a piece of paper could mean putting the bill that needs paying in the ‘pay bills’ tray or placing the insurance confirmation in your filing cabinet or it could mean putting away that treasured letter from a friend into your treasures box. But put it away now. Out of sight, out of mind. Then you’ll know where to find it when you need it.
• Clear your desk or kitchen bench at the end of the day. Working in the corporate pharmaceutical world for 20 years we had a ‘clear-desk’ policy. At the end of the day your desk had to be clear of all paper. This policy was implemented for security reasons but in reality it’s a great organising tip. Arriving at work with a clear desk really focuses your mind on what needs to be done and gives you so much energy to get started. Pull out the ‘To Do’ list from your top drawer and away you go. Transfer this policy to your home and clear the kitchen workbench every night. It’s amazing how much better you feel when you walk into the kitchen in the morning.

Bonus: Organisation Skills For Groceries Savings

In this current economic climate we need to be able to save money wherever we can. With food and petrol prices the way they are, what better place to start saving than looking at our groceries.

We all have to eat so we can’t just cut out the shopping but we can be more organised with what we need and plan our meals to reduce waste. Save money on your grocery bill by organising your food shopping:

• Keep a permanent list on your fridge and add to the list whenever you open the last tin of a favourite ingredient, or when you open the last healthy spread.
• Plan what you’ll eat for a week and purchase all the items needed for those meals.
• Add the basics to the list each time, so when you enter the shop you have a complete list of what you need.
• Don’t be tempted by the special offers of the buy two get third free. Do you really need three packets? Think about each offer and calculate whether the special is truly a special or a ploy to make you spend more money.
• Only food shop once a week, keeping petrol costs down.

And, my final advice on this matter: never shop when you are hungry!!! You know why.

A few tips to help you on a way to an organised life freeing up time, money and reducing stress in this modern society.

Bonus 2: Organise Downtime to Relieve Stress

It’s not always that straight forward though. Even the most organised of us, still struggle with some tasks.

Take this morning as an example, I woke with a dull headache, knowing that today was the day to put pen to paper and write this article. I’m an organiser, not a copywriter, so I had put this task off all week, but allowing enough time before the deadline. Being organised I had set aside this morning to get the article done.

Just as I sat in front of my computer a friend called and suggested a walk. It’s a beautiful spring morning, clear and crisp, and the friend is recovering from an operation needing regular exercise.

A few years ago, I would have said no to the walk, knowing I had a task to complete. However, I now live in paradise and have the time to appreciate life so much more. I know I have plenty of time to complete the copywriting task and a walk will ease the headache and help me focus.

Now having returned from the walk refreshed, the words are flowing and the headache has gone.

The headache was purely stress, knowing I had to do something I did not really like doing. Getting organised and completing a task relieves the stress. But going for the walk relieved the headache enough to get me focused and I returned to my computer to work far more efficiently.

The balance between work and play is crucial to modern living.

Common Sense? Maybe But…

So yes, I hear you saying, that’s just common sense. But in reality how many of us practise common sense? Not many! We get confused with all the choices in this world and forget about the simple things in life.

So simplify your life, get organised, make decisions fast and free up your time and money for those things that are important to you.

Author – Katy Macpherson worked in the UK pharmaceutical industry for 20 years and managed to fit in lots of voluntary work before moving to Wanaka, New Zealand in 2004. She is now involved in a number of local businesses including professional organising company, Kinetica, which she founded in October 2008.

Kinetica (www.kinetica.co.nz) is a brand new company helping people organise their offices and homes. Unfortunately the company has not yet worked out how to expand time or make bank notes! However, what they can offer their clients is guidance for organising their life so they can free up time and money, allowing more hours for the important things in life.

The professional organisers look in-depth at ways to get the best from your office, home and holiday house, providing practical answers and helping you to declutter to find space, time and efficiency.