My schedule has not changed much since I posted it 2 1/2 years ago, but I have made some small changes. I also have a nursing baby now. I can count on him waking every morning at close to the same time (Can I just say “hooray!” that it’s usually around 5:30 a.m.? My poor mother; I woke every day at 4 a.m.!)
I usually have 4 loads of laundry a day to wash Monday – Saturday. My goal is to get them done early in the morning.
On Saturdays, we have a bit of a relaxed schedule, and we sleep in just a little. We don’t have school on Saturdays, but chores, laundry, and meals generally follow the same schedule. When it’s cooler, I’ll often spend most of Saturday out in the garden. Sundays I don’t do laundry. We have church and spend a relaxed day together, playing board and card games together.
Schedule
4:45 Wake and prayer
4:50 Move laundry from the washer to the dryer; start a new load in the washer
5:00 Shower and dress
5:30 Nurse baby
6:00 Wake children
6:05 Move laundry to dryer and put another load in the washer. Move laundry that is dry to couches for children to fold.
6:10 Put away large pots and pans. Encourage children with chores.
6:15 Brush girls’ hair. Start breakfast.
6:50 Move laundry from dryer that is dry to couches for children to fold. Move load of laundry to dryer and put another load in the washer.
7:10 Plate breakfast
7:15 Breakfast
7:30 Encourage children with after-breakfast chores
7:45 Move laundry to dryer. Wash pots and pans; tidy kitchen
8:00 School with children
11:00 Start making lunch
11:30 Lunch
12:00 Encourage children with after-lunch chores
12:15 Wash pots and pans; tidy kitchen
12:30 Continue school with children
1:30 Garden, make bread, sew, take photographs, blog (usually one or two of these). Children’s nap time/quiet time in their rooms.
3:00 Household chores
3:30 Snack time
4:00 Wash snack dishes. Start dinner. Children’s playtime.
5:00 Work on dinner. Have children do before-dinner chores
5:30 Liberty piano practice
6:00 Wren piano practice
6:30 Dinner
7:10 Have children do after-dinner chores. Put a load of laundry in and program it to wash in the morning to be done before I get up (using the delay start option).
7:30 Scriptures, songs, and family prayer
7:45 Wash pots and pans; tidy kitchen
8:00-9:00 Work on blog and website; spend time with my husband (talking, playing a game, watching a show on the computer together, etc.)
Bedtime sometime after that, but usually before 9:30 (later if I’m posting on the site, like tonight!)
I’ll sneak in a bit more time in the garden, in the sewing room, or cleaning the house if I have a dinner that takes a bit less time, or if I’m making a more hands’ off meal where the dinner is in the oven instead of on the stove. I’ve been finding myself using the oven and the solar oven a lot more recently; it’s nice to put something in and walk away, giving myself extra time to work on other tasks.
For our homeschool schedule, see here.
Tomorrow I’ll post our current chore schedule.
I have used the crock pot a lot over the years (even when I’m home) for the same reason: It gives the food a chance to cook while I’m not hovering over it so I can do other things. I also like to get as many things ready ahead of time as I can for dinner or any meals that are more involved or where I need to take food with me. I don’t have a solar oven, but marinating meat and having Rob barbecue it makes dinner speedy, too.
For a few years, I made 30 meals at the beginning of each month, froze them, and then just put one in the oven each night. Then I was able to concentrate on the side dishes, or desserts. Rob finally rebelled against 30 pre-frozen meals a month:) He was a good sport for several years, though, when I had a lot of kids I was home-schooling at the same time and our budget was so, so tight– and he will cheerfully eat several frozen meals per month any time I want to make them up ahead of time now. (I was making up the same 30 meals every month over and over, for several years, but it worked for that time of our lives)
You schedule seems very ambitious and well-arranged. Hats off to you! I have 8 children, but they have never all lived at home at the same time, so I can see why you need to be so organized, since all 8 of yours are there all at once! Laundry alone is huge. You seem to have a great system for conquering it.
I love your photos! Such gorgeous flowers and such gorgeous pictures!
I’m also impressed by your schedule. I don’t have a family yet, but am taking notes for the future. I like that you deliberately set aside time to nurture your relationship too.
Thanks for sharing this with us!
question from the UK …how come you dont dry laundry outside , it just seems strange to me because we have terrible weather but still dry outside
You are so disciplined and use ALL of your resources wisely….time, energy and money. 🙂
Why do you choose to get up so early and equally end the day earlier than most?
Hello! Found your blog at Mrs. White’s. I am curious, when do the children have bedtime? I have been waking mine earlier and earlier with the hopes of earlier bed time! Thank you..
God bless
Mrs.O
That would be a LOT of laundry to dry outside every day, and take a long time! I do have two indoor drying racks for delicates loads, but my washer is a very large capacity–it would take about 4 or 5 racks per load at least, and a huge amount of time. Putting them in the dryer takes just a handful of minutes. We have a natural gas dryer, which cuts the cost immensely. I also have natural gas for the stove, oven, central heat, and water heater, and last month my bill for gas was $29. It’s worth it to me to not stand outside when it’s 110º! The time saved is immense, too.
I found long ago when my husband was teaching early morning seminary (and leaving at 5:20 to get there) that getting up before my children (who woke at 5:20 then) was really helpful in actually being able to take a shower, have some quiet moments of peace, and get laundry done and breakfast made. At that time I had to get up at 4:30 to get in the shower before my husband did at 4:45. When I started doing that, the day went so much smoother!
Now my daughter has early morning seminary (a 6:00 a.m. class that is before school; the public school here starts at 7:00 a.m.) and she is up at 5 every day. Being up a little before she needs to be is helpful!
And since I’m up earlier, I need an earlier bedtime!
I’m very curious to read about your chores list. We have certain expectations of our kids, but I’m always wondering how we can improve upon it.
I need to schedule more time for outdoors and exercising in my day. I wish I had a nicer garden, but if I actually scheduled it regularly it wouldn’t be a wish anymore. 🙂
Although I dry most of my laundry outside, I agree that it takes time to hang out and take down. I enjoy doing it, most of the year, and when my kids were home, they did a lot of the hanging and taking down for me, but I can understand why Brandy isn’t doing it. Plus, I have a large yard in the country, with room for more line.
That’s a well organized day, and I like that your priorities are maintained. Since I’ve been married nearly 40 years and my kids are gone, this list made me look back at the changes in my own life, revealed by my organization chart for each season of life. When I was a newlywed, not working outside the home and caring for an older family member, my daily chart looked a lot different from the one I had after having children, than after returning to work, than after the kids got older and involved in sports and outside activities, than when my kids were gone to college and finally left home permanently and my husband was working out of town, back to now, which is just my husband and me at home again, but me still working outside the home. I’m still busy every day, all day long, though, and always have been.
I’m curious what your bedtime routine with the kids is like. I only have 5 but it is pure chaos here! I’d love some pointers! 🙂
Everyone has to choose the frugal ways that make most sense for their families. Line drying easily saves us $125 per year and because it is part of my routine, it doesn’t take much time. We are a family of six and I do one 5 cu ft load of laundry per weekday, plus 2-3 on Saturday (total of 8 or 9 per week, barring illness). We have one large wooden drying rack, one smaller metal one and extra hangers. I also have a $3 piece of rope tied between two trees outside, mostly for bedding. I can dry an entire load inside with the racks/hangers. I love that I am saving money (about 50 cents per load with propane) and it is also gentler on our clothes, making them last longer. I love how good everything smells when line dried!
When we lived in Las Vegas, I found that the lack of humidity plus the heat meant that towels and heavy cottons dried in less time outside than if I’d used a dryer. It was awesome!!
You have motivated me to get up out of bed and make bread. I am very pregnant and like to take the morning while my baby naps to read your blog and be a lazy. Now I feel the need to get up and bake lol! I wish I had the discipline to get up earlier but when I do I wake everyone else in the house, I also am not a morning person and don’t enjoy early mornings. My bigger kids go to public school and are out the door at 7:30 every morning which means 6:30 wake up. I put them to bed at 7 so they get plenty of rest. (My oldest is 6) I am working this year on asking for more structured help from my children, mostly with their own care, like making sure their rooms are tidy and unpacking their own backpacks at the end of the day. They are always willing to help with house chores but we have no regular schedule, I’ll just ask them to do this and that during the day and they are usually glad to help. I like how you say you “encourage” them to do chores, I think that is a much nicer way to say it than nagging although I suspect the act is the same. 🙂
I agree with one of the above comments that my schedule has changed as my four kids have grown up and left the nest. It is just me, now, with a dog and a cat. However, I work between 55 to 70 hours per week so I am not lonely and wish I had more free time at home….lol. I think we all just do the best we can do with the resources we have, given our family situations and conditions.
I should think the savings of yard space is worth dryer usage as well…especially since the back yard is dedicated to fruit and vegetable plots and children’s play spaces and the front yard is food and flowers. I don’t think $29 is a bad price to pay for so many gas appliances/units. I like that you have a balanced approach of priority vs. frugality which is always a delicate balance.
I enjoyed reading your schedule, at the same time feeling somewhat (guiltily) relieved that everyone is grown and gone because life is a whole lot simpler. About the only similarity we have is we eat dinner usually at 6:00pm and we have evening devotions with our dessert at about 8pm.
I am very slow and stiff in the morning so breakfast has fallen to my husband and youngest girl the last several years. ( I can no longer braid and put up my own hair so either husband or daughter has to help me with that.) They either cook something from scratch or heat up/serve what I prepared the night before. I need to leave for work about 7:15am (in good weather, earlier if bad) as I start at 7:30am, my daughter is in college so schedule varies and husband only has to walk down the drive to get to his shop. He opens at 8:00am. I pack my lunch an snacks after dinner and often prepare a plate of leftovers for husband’s lunch. If there are no leftovers he will make his own lunch…sandwiches etc. My daughter takes care of her own lunch too if she will be gone over the lunchtime.
We always cook extra so there are leftovers and also food to put in the freezer for another meal.
One day I’ll be down to only 8 or 9 loads a week. But that will be at least a decade away! I have 20 to 24 loads a week, in one of the largest capacity washers.
Towels do dry faster outside here, but one thing I missed in France was soft towels from the dryer. I do hang up the thick bathmats outside. I also have at least 2 delicate loads a week that I put on racks and hangers inside, and all of the mattress pads get dried outside (over the merry-go-round!)
And I am amazed that you can keep that schedule and stay up so late!! We get up at 5, but head for bed at 8:30ish because we can’t keep our eyes open. And we are childless and only in our 50s. Dh does walk 5 miles every morning before work. Our hyper energetic doggy won’t let him skip lol. I do my chores in the morning and then I do my exercise. My afternoons are spent on things like sewing, repurposing old stuff, etc. We both are very involved at church. And Sunday is a home day with no work. We read the paper, nap, and do the NY Times crossword. Quite a relaxing day.
For us drying our laundry outside wouldn’t work. My son has allergies and everything that is dried outside would have the allergens on it. When laundry is brought in, then all of those allergens are now inside…which isn’t good for either him or me. It would make our breathing worse. As it is we both shower before going to bed just to wash off so that anything that was in our hair or on our skin isn’t transferred to our beds where we would be breathing it in all night.
Our propane is $3.99 a gallon for winter rates. Ramona does not have natural gas electricity or propane. For your price your time is much more valuable somewhere else. I hang everything unless it’s raining. Our electricity went from 4 tier rates to 2. They are trying to recoup all the lost revenue from people going solar. Very expensive
Yes, I am also interested in bedtime routines and what time your kids get to bed. I like to have some time to myself before I go to bed , but with my kids going to bed later (because they are getting older) I find it hard to get time to myself and get to bed at a decent hour !
My husband leaves very early for work too. He leaves here at 4:45am even though he does not have to be on the job till 7:00. He does however use the building’s gym in the morning and do some work before everyone else gets there. (he is the boss) Because we have had the habit our whole marriage long I just get up when he does. It seems natural now. I do not however go to bed near as early as my sweet husband does. I just can not go to sleep like he can. (he can go to sleep, but he wakes very early, around 2:30) I spend time with the grandsons, home work, just being their ‘parent’ is important to me because they have 2 parents that are just useless. (one in prison and one is no one knows where) So I try to be the parent they deserve. I also like to do some sewing and night is the only time I can do that. I worked on doll clothes, I made lots of boy’s boxer shorts, made boy pajamas, and now I am working on making some Christmas gifts for family and friends. It keeps me sane. It is hard to sleep at night when you do not know where your son is. I have not seen or heard from my youngest son in almost a year. That really plays on a mother’s mind. I keep him in prayer. I know the Lord is working on this matter, my job is to watch and wait. This is the 2nd time now he has disappeared from us. The first time he was gone almost 3 years. Learned later he was in prison in another state. I have tried to find him, but I am not going to spend a lot of money to find him, everyone wants a lot of money up front to find him.:(
As a single mom by choice I can speak to bedtime routines. When my girls came home from China at 12mos old I was very dedicated to nap time and bed time. I started baths,reading and singing at 630pm. Light out by 7. This gave me my time every night for a few hours. It was imperative for my sanity. I am not a morning person at all,but my girls were sleeping 12 hrs a night within 2 weeks of being home. They napped for 2-3hrs every afternoon. When I was home on my days off I would also nap with them as it made me a much better mommy to get through the rest of the day. They are now 8&12. My 8 y/o goes to bed at 8 and my 12 y/o around 9 or 10. Some night we are all in bed at 830. I need a lot of sleep and I am blessed to have great sleepers. My kids also know when they are tucked in they do not come out of their rooms unless they need to use the bathroom. Both of my girls go to public schools that start at 8 and 840.
Dear Roxie,
I am with you with your struggle. Being a mother turned out to be a lot harder and painful I ever imagined. The fact that I wanted to help my child didn’t mean I was capable. I have found it very soothing to think that God knows everything. All the questions that begin with ‘why’ or ‘how’ etc are as clear as a sunny day for Him.
I once worked in a cemetery, and one of my tasks was to escort the people who came to bury their loved ones in an urn. One day there was just one middle-aged woman with an urn. I saw she had her arm cast in plaster. I offered to carry the urn for her but she refused. ‘This is my son’, she said, ‘and I’ll carry him to the end.’ This is what we as mothers do. There is no way we can be separated from our children.
Thinking of you.
(sorry others, I wanted to send a private message to Roxie, but couldn’t find out how)
I love this! Ugh, I hate doing laundry and dishes. We’ve started cooking almost exclusively at home, which means doing the dishes has become a monumental feat! But it is still more affordable than buying paper plates or grabbing takeout, so it’s a labor of love. 🙂
Bless your heart, Roxie. You are changing your grandsons’ lives for the better. They are very lucky to have you and your husband.
My mom suffered tremendously with my brother in a similar way. He started with drugs in his early teens and went in and out of jail clear up until she died 3 yrs ago. It broke my heart to see what it did to her.
You also have cheap energy prices compared to us , which explains a lot , there’s no gas supply rurally , oil powers the heating , everything else is electric . If you only have a single electric supply you can’t get any of the good deals on dual fuel from companies, so you pay a much higher rate . We use at least 50 dollars a week in a summer and 70 dollars a week in a winter , this eats about half our weekly budget and we are very cautious with energy usage .
Gas is cheap, but our summer electric bills are different; ours are over $350 and I keep the a/c set at 79. That is also because I watch it like crazy; it could easily be over $600 a month. i have a done a lot to cut usage and lower it. It was over $500 our first summer and we’ve had over 20 rate increases since then. We also have 6 months of running the electric and 5-6 months of temepratures over 90º. Water is high in summer too.
Hello! Thanks for overview!
I would like to know your children´s evening routines – at what time they will got to wash teeth and what time will they go to bed and do they do it by themselves or you have to be part of this process. Thanks!
I always love looking at other people’s daily schedules. You keep quite the busy day and it must be a relief to have the kids be able to help out with the laundry.
Same thing here. And then when there is no allergens in the air…. it’s freezing with snow every where. LOL
Hi Brandy from Australia 🙂 , and I know you are away and hope you are having a good time and a relaxing break.
Just a question on what your power costs per KWH as I understand your electricity costs in the States are a lot higher than ours from speaking to friends over there. I was curious to compare to our own costs here. I know your charges are a lot higher than here and your actual electricity use makes up only a small part of your electricity bill.
From what I have heard from other friends in the States your power bill is extremely low, so well done on keeping your bills so for so long. We too have managed to stave off our power rises here which have gone up on average 13.2% per year from what Mr Google tells me. Our bill ten years ago was $259 and now we are paying $285 over the winter period (we did buy a second freezer) and we have just had another price rise of which only one month was included in the last bill. We have looked at the price rises and it would equate to around an extra $24 over a three month period for our family of two.
Like you we watch our power usage like a hawk and turn off all unused appliances when not in use. Use our washing machine and appliances in cheaper times when possible and cook in bulk where possible. We hang our washing on the clothes line but we do not have children in the home as we are empty nesters and are living on a property twice your property size. I agree that it would take a great deal of time for the amounts of loads of washing you do per week to hang them on the clothes line and bring them back in. Our clothes line holds around 3 – 4 loads of washing in a 6.5kg front loading washing machine.
Gas sounds to me like a much cheaper option for you as well, and also a time saver. With such a large family anything that is cheaper and saves you time is wonderful.
Keep up the fabulous work, your schedule is truly amazing and the amount of things you get done in one day has to be admired 🙂 .
When I was in nursing school, I had to get up at 4 am to get to clinicals on time, and then I got up at 530 to make it to the unit when I worked in the hospital. I loathed that early rising time, and I have been getting up at 7 the past few years. I admire your stamina! I am leaving my part-time job in a couple of months to be home with the kids, and I am taking notes. It will mean a whole new daily routine for us.
They go to bed between 7:30 and 8:00.
We are originally from Las Vegas and when we lived there our home owners association wouldn’t allow anyone in the neighborhood to hang laundry on lines in the backyards.
Well your posting on your schedule turned into a power bill topic! Maybe you need to have one just for that? We are moving to Arizona (dh is already there) and signing up for electricity was interesting.. We had to pick a plan and the one we chose had peak time of 3-6 pm. So now I need to figure out how to keep our bill low during this time when I am usually cooking and eating dinner during that time. Of course we may just move dinner to 7? I am definitely anxious about keeping the power bill low. Do you have any solar at all?
Loyda,
I don’t have peak billing (it is an option, but we don’t have to choose it) as I am home all day. I don’t know about Arizona, but here most ovens and stoves are gas, so you would not be using much electricity during that time if you are cooking on gas. You can make sure your light bulbs are LEDS in the kitchen. I don’t have the lights on while cooking until around now when it is dark at dinner time; most of the year I can go without turning them on.
Your bigger expense during that time will be the air conditioner and ceiling fans. Just make sure to turn off the ceiling fans in a room you’re not in (fans cool people, not rooms) and set our programmable thermostat as high as you feel comfortable in summer (half the year); I have found that the difference between 77 and 79º is over $100 a month, so I keep mine at 79º. Some people I know keep theirs at 80 and even 81º. Dress is cool cottons and linen in summer to keep cooler.