Once you have your annual budget completed, and planned your diary for the year ahead, you can start on your big ‘re-stock’. It is a great time to re-stock, the sales are going strong and you are full of anticipation for the year ahead—use that energy to get as much done as you can.
I tend to re-stock nearly everything, and then do a seasonal re-stock throughout the year. With all things, take the ideas you like, apply them and leave the rest.
1. Greeting Cards: I have a box that I keep all my greeting cards in for the year. This way I never have the mad rush around and always have cards on hand for the unexpected event. I section them according to type rather than month, but either way works. Ensure you have enough birthday cards for each person in your diary, plus a few children/women/men cards for the unexpected. Also make sure you have a few other occasion cards on hand, like new baby/moving home/get well/thank you/ blank cards/teacher cards.
2. Wrapping Paper: Buy a few rolls of wrapping paper, gift bags and tissue paper to keep with your greeting cards. If you are into ribbons (like me) then take advantage of the after Christmas ribbon sales and stock up on those as well.
3. Cleaning Supplies: (I will do a section on cleaning next month, so stay tuned) but for now, make sure you have a full pantry of cleaning supplies on hand. I use this time to make sure I have enough sponges, dusting cloths, cleaning products, loo roll, cleaning agents, et all. Also, have a look at your supply, do you have any one-off products that are running low (for example, silver polish, drain cleaner, de-scaling products and the like), if so make a note of them and replace. Also have a look at your cleaning tools (mops, dusters, brooms, et all) are they in good condition? If not, replace.
4. Household items: Have a look through your pots & pans, laundry baskets, hangers, towels, sheets, any thing and everything that you use daily. Repair the items that can be repaired (for example, if your pans are tarnished, get a polisher), if they are look like they need replacing, make a note of it and replace it when your budget allows. This can be a big project, so start small. Take each room in turn, rather than spending hours on the whole project. You might also find time to discard those items that have been wasting away and should have been tossed ages ago (but more of that later).
5. Dry goods: Not everyone has the benefit of a pantry, but if you do and you have the space, make sure yours is stocked well. I tend to have a look through my dry goods and buy in bulk to replace. This saves me time on my weekly shop and also come in handy when I am ‘cooking on the fly’. For example, I make sure I have a large stock of tinned tomatoes, pasta, rice, flour, biscuits, coffee, tea, sugar, cereal, pulses, condiments and spices ( your spices only stay fresh for a year so always replace your spices at the start of each year).
I know that once I have done a re-stock I feel ready for anything. It also gets me in the mood for my February Deep Clean which I will be speaking about in a few weeks.