Organised Mum Pick and Mix Filofax compatible inserts and 2014 diary

Recently I bought a bunch of the Organised Mum Pick and Mix inserts for my personal size Filofax: the 2014 Family diary, the Shopping and Menu Planning, the Finance and Budget pages, and the Family Schedules, Events and Occasions. (The only packet I didn't get was the Addresses one.) These inserts are all fantastic, great value for the money, and they work extremely well together. Let me show you what I mean.

There are tons of photos in this post, don't forget you can click on them to enlarge. My photos are not the best due to lack of adequate light this time of year. I can assure you the pages look much nicer in person! The paper is pleasantly white, and the grey print is easy on the eyes.

The Diary pages have a Family grid layout so you can see what each person is doing each day. There are 5 boxes for each day to use for each person, home vs work, morning/ afternoon/ evening, exercise/ blogs/ dinner, or any other use you can think of.  Right now Organised Mum isn't sure if they will make these for 2015, so I am on a campaign to try to convince them to! These pages are an excellent layout and very efficient use of space on the personal size pages.

The left page shows the dates, moon phases and UK holidays each day.

At the top of the right page there is a month reference calendar. At the right there is a lined area for Things to do and Next Week.

Here's how I use these pages. The first three squares each day are my morning/ afternoon/ evening. I put my weekly goals at the top of the left page. One square on the right page is for both my kids (they don't really each need their own square yet) and one for my husband. Instead of Next Week I use that space specifically for household cleaning and chores that need to be done that week.

Be sure to see Crazy Life Of J's excellent post with her video on how she uses these Organised Mum diary pages too! I especially like her photos of her weekly pages with everything jumbled together in each day, and her change over to the Organised Mum pages with her days organized into categories for herself and her husband.

These diary inserts come with lots of other pages too, which I will not show because I don't want to give everything away. These include Useful Numbers for quick reference, and Dates To Remember for things like renewing insurance, passports, drivers licenses, boiler service, and any other dates that recur. There's a vehicle maintenance record for four cars, and a back-to-school checklist.

There are also monthly pages, which are extremely useful. The month is on one page with the back of the page lined for things to do that month.

I'll show you in a minute how I use these month pages with other pages spliced between. The only thing I would change about the diary packet is to make the months on two pages with the back sides of the pages lined, so you can still splice things between the months but have larger daily spaces on the month planning pages.

Next, the Personal Finance and Budget pages.This packet is excellent value for the money, and helps you save money too by helping you track your finances. There are pages for each month, which are labeled for the month but not dated so you can start at any time and use them for a full twelve months.

Each month has a page for Things To Do that month and monthly income:

Bills and Direct Debits:

Daily Outgoings on a double-sided page so you can track the totals each day of the month:

Monthly spending totals for your categories:

Savings, repayments, and final monthly totals:

I'll show you in a minute how I use these with the month pages from the diary inserts. But first:

The Personal Family Schedules, Events and Occasions pack is my favorite besides the diary. There are loads of useful pages including Weekly Routines pages to track five people's weekly schedule:

More wonderful pages: Weekly Don't Forget list so you can list all the gear you need to take to each person's scheduled events each week like sports gear, music, dance outfit, water bottles, etc. It's nice to have this to refer to at a glance so I don't forget anything!

More great pages: Holiday/ vacation planning, packing lists, holiday to dos and shopping:

There are also Party Planning pages with guest lists, invitations sent and RSVP, to do and shopping, gifts list and thank-you cards written.

There are also loads of wonderful Christmas planning pages! Pages and pages of Christmas plans, cards...

Here's my favorite: Christmas Countdown pages to plan tasks 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 week before Christmas, and Last Minute:

Menus for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and other holidays:

And here's another wonderful planner: the Summer Holiday Planner so you can see the entire summer on one two-page spread:

So here's how I splice the Financial and Holiday/ events pages into the month pages. This is July, when school ends and we are planning a trip to the US to see family:

Here is the back side of the July monthly page, which I haven't started filling in yet. I put the blue page in, it tells things that happen every year in July, so I can easily move it year to year. I have one of these blue pages for every month's annually recurring events like birthdays and holidays.

 Next I have July's Financial pages:

Next I have the Summer Holiday Planner since that's when the summer break starts:

Then I have the Holiday plans and Packing List to start preparing for our US trip:

I'll start filling in things to do and buy while we are in the US:

So I have all the pages I need to prepare for, and use during, our summer holiday right there in July where I need it and can refer to it easily.

Here's another example: in August the kids go back to school, and we have my child's birthday party.

The Family Diary pages have the Back To School checklist built into August so you can't miss it. I won't show it, but it's extremely useful for making sure you have everything your kids need, ready when school starts.

Next I have the August Financial pages:

Then I have the Party Planning pages (from the Family Events and Occasions pack) for the birthday party with pages for Invitations:

Party To-Do and Shopping, and Gifts and Thank-yous:

Party Plans and Ideas:

So all the back-to-school and party planning pages are already right where I need them in August.

Last but certainly not least, the Personal Shopping and Menu Planning pages. I keep these in their own section for easy reference.

There are weekly menu pages which are printed back to back. These could also be used as undated weekly diary pages, exercise trackers, or lots of other purposes actually:

You could also do 2 or 4 weeks of set menus, then rotate them for simplicity and variety.

The shopping pages are double-sided with categories to organize your lists easily:

There are also Essentials lists, which I really like. These make it much easier to write your weekly shopping lists when you can see what you normally keep stocked so you don't forget any essentials.

So there are the excellent Organised Mum Pick and Mix inserts and 2014 Personal Diary Insert. Organised Mum, please make all these inserts and the diary again for 2015! 

The paper is white, which I prefer, and the print is gray which is easy on the eyes and doesn't interfere with color-coding. I don't know the paper weight, but it is fantastic. Absolutely no bleedthrough and almost no shadowing at all even with my Signo RT gel pens, which bleed through other papers. There is no problem at all using both sides of the pages, which is especially important with the diary pages of course, but also means you can use both sides of all the pages to the fullest, getting the most for your money.

Organised Mum ships internationally!

If you have any questions about these inserts please let me know and I'll be happy to answer!