Today on Mom Autism Money, we learn that Joyce has a cleaning habit. It helps her relieve stress.
But what about the rest of us who maybe aren’t super on top of it? We’re talking to Corinne Schmitt of Wondermom Wannabe to learn her strategies to stay organized. It’s all about hacking your brain to make things easier.
Corinne uses a color-coded organization system to keep herself and her five children organized. This simple system is applicable for everything from your kid’s toy room to your filing cabinet and personal finances. Let’s get organized with Corinne!
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Full Episode Transcript
Brynne: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Mom Autism Money.
Joyce: Our guest today is Corinne Schmitt. She is the blogger behind Wondermom Wannabe where she shares tips and tricks to make home and family life more fun. She’s a published author, podcast hosts and public speaker, but she’s most proud of being mom of five amazing humans.
She’s also a very good friend of mine. Someone that I admire and who have helped me a lot, and I am so grateful that she’s here with us today.
Brynne: Corinne is awesome. Last week, we talked to her about how she teaches her children financial literacy. We also talked a little bit about the abundance and scarcity mindsets when it comes to money.
So that episode was sponsored by ABLE United out of Florida. If you’re a resident of Florida, an open ABLE United account right now, they’ll deposit a free $50 into your account. And that’s a limited time thing. That’s only going on through June 30th. So I wanted to make sure that if you’re in Florida listening today, you’re aware of the offer, too, before it expires.
But today Corinne’s gonna teach us about her color coordinated organization system that she uses, and she uses it to organize everything from her kids’ drinking cups to her own personal finances. It’s a great system. So let’s start getting organized with Corinne.
(whooshing sound)
Brynne: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Mom Autism Money.
Today we are here with Corinne of Wondermom Wannabe. And, Corinne, thank you so much for being here with us today. I’m wondering if you can take a couple minutes here to just introduce yourself and what Wondermom Wannabe is all about.
Corinne: Sure. First of all, thanks for having me. I’m so excited to talk with you two today. So I’m Corinne and I’m a mom of five. I have four biological children, and then we adopted another one when he was 13. I was married to a US Marine for 28 years. So lots of moves from one side of the country, to the other, which is probably the only reason that I have any type of organizational skills, because it certainly wasn’t me naturally.
They were developed over time. Another thing about me, I’m 100% creatively challenged, uh, I’m completely analytical, like puzzles, spreadsheets. That’s my jam, but being creative, not my thing. So just for complete transparency, if anybody’s expecting words of brilliance and magic to come out of here, they won’t. They’re all pretty analytical.
So Wondermom Wannabe I started because my youngest had started school and I needed like some something to fill my days, but I still wanted to be there, like to get my kids on the bus in the morning and to be there when they got home from school, because there’s a 10 year gap between my oldest and youngest.
And the last thing I wanted was my teenage son to get off the bus and then be getting all of his life lessons from other 15 year olds. And there’s just not a lot of jobs that give you that flexibility. So I heard about blogging. I read a book about blogging and then the same day I finished the book. I started Wondermom Wannabe. And it was Wondermom Wannabe, because for the 15 years up to that point, I had been a stay-at-home mom.
So momming is what I knew. So I figured that’s what I would write about. And I chose that name because all of my favorite people are really amazing moms who don’t realize that they are and that’s whose attention I wanted to get. All those moms that felt like they weren’t quite good enough, you know, to kind of show them that they were and to give them maybe some tips and tricks to make them feel like if they had to fake it until they made it.
So that’s, that’s who I am and what I did.
Joyce: Tell us about your color coordinated organization technique, because that’s what I’m interested in.
Corinne: So this is like my favorite parenting hack, mostly cause it was easy, but for like visual people and most of us are, right?
Like 65% of people are visual learners and I’m super visual. So for visual people color coding’s, like, it’s a super powerful, like time-saving shortcut because your eyes see it. And all of a sudden, all this information’s conveyed kind of like it’s so much easier to get an idea across with just a picture or just an image? Like, colors do the same thing.
Like I can instantly spot things without having to think it through. And I assume like with your audience, we’ve got a lot of overwhelm as moms in general, but then particularly if you’ve got any additional challenges thrown in there. So every extra decision we have to make every extra econd you take to process something that builds up.
So this to me, color coding just kind of took all of that away. Everything was a little faster. I didn’t have to think as hard. Much, much easier. So in short, like it just color coordinating, when you’re organizing, just saves us time and it saves us mental energy. And then it’s also pretty, like, it’s just visually appealing.
So if you like that, and I happen to be the type that does, it just generally makes you happier. Like when I have a nice rainbow of colors in front of me, I’m just a happier person. So super fan of color coding, basically anything I can color code.
Joyce: Why did you get started? Like what did you decide it? One day I’m just gonna do colors or what was the hammer when you say, you know, color coordination, it’s going to be the thing for me.
Corinne: Right. So that started with my calendar. Once I had a family calendar and I had, you know, more than one child in an activity, and then I’m trying to manage my husband’s schedule. I’d keep track of when he’s gonna be deployed or in the field, along with my stuff, it just became easier because at a glance I could see my husband because he was…
I don’t know why this was. Because he was in the field a lot, I made him green, right? Like his color was green, so I could easily see on the calendar, ‘Oh, these are the dates he’s gonna be gone. Or he’s got a training exercise.’ So I’d know I was kind of up to bat on those days. And then as I had more than one child to easily distinguish between, okay, I’ve got.
You know, I’ve got my son at an activity and I’ve got my daughter at another activity on this day. Because this is the thing: Once you start to add more children, and I don’t have a special needs child, so I can only imagine how much more complicated it gets when you throw on therapy appointments and you know, all sorts of other things.
This is just managing our day to day, like somebody’s got soccer practice or piano lessons. A lot of times, especially with my husband out in the field, you’d have, you know, one child that had to be at piano lessons and another child that had to be at the soccer field at the exact same time. And if I had them in different colors and I could see that I had two or three colors on the same day, it was just an easy visual cue to go and make sure that I had things lined up.
So I had a carpool lined up or that I know that I had to reschedule something. So it started with the calendar and it, that was just, it made things easier. And to keep the calendar right where I could see it all the time. So on a daily basis, I, I’d start my day knowing exactly what I was up against.
But then the next place that applied, and I wish I had thought of this years sooner. It was the drinking glasses. I don’t know what it is with my kids. They’ll roll all over on top of one another. Like they’re like constantly threatening to spit on one another, no qualms sharing germs, except for when it comes to drinking out of the same glass.
So they’d go get a glass out. And all our drinking glasses were the same. So they’d get a glass out, they’d leave it on the counter. Somebody else would come in. They couldn’t remember if that was their glass or not. So they’d get another glass out. I was literally washing every single glass we owned on a daily basis and it was making me insane.
So I’m like, you know what, we’re gonna bring over their colors from the calendar and I’m gonna get glasses that are the same colors. So, you know, my oldest son was blue. That was his color. So he had a blue glass. So now, like I knew, you know what, they could come in, they get a blue glass, he’d set the blue glass on the counter.
That’s his glass. He knows that this one’s mine and he’d pick up the same glass again, instead of going to get a new glass out of the cabinet. We had a couple extra glasses because they always, you know, one of the reasons we adopted this, and we like having a lot of people around, so we always wanted our place to be the place for kids to hang out.
We had some extra colors too for, for company. The drinking glasses was the next iteration after the calendar. Then I realized it kind of worked for everything. So I got different folders for all the kids, so we could keep track of like their paperwork from school. And then they’d know, like, I, you know, I could go put it in.
And then if you had a field trip form, you knew to go, you know, to the red folder. For example, if you were red. Then it was tote bags for activities so that, you know, if they were, my kids had Sunday school. So when they’d go to Sunday school, instead of like trying to figure out where all their stuff was, they just kept all of their books and things in, you know, in their colored tote bag.
So, you know, one would grab their red bag. One would grab their blue bag. Another one would grab the yellow bag. They just, it was easier. It was faster and easier. Towels. We did not do it with our bath towels, although you could. I don’t like, I liked my towels to match to the bathroom, but we did it with beach towels.
So with beach towels, if we’d go to the beach or go to the pool, then they’d each have their own color. Toothbrushes also super easy for packing up for trips. Bins. We used it for bins. I’m a big fan of baskets and bins, cause it’s just very easy to keep things organized, cause it’s not a lot of maintenance to just throw everything in a bin.
So they’d have colored bins for kind of their loose odds and ends. Started with the calendar, went to the drinking glasses. But it was when we hit the drinking glasses that I realized, oh, this works kind of everywhere.
Joyce: And it works in my house too. And you know, you met my boys. So one is blue. One is red. So you let them pick what, and that’s what they, like.
He likes blue and he likes red. And because they’re visual, that’s what they do. So he, like, if he does his laundry, he picks up his blue shirt or his red shirt. So this is why I wanted to interview you because I use it in my house myself, because of the idea that I saw and I’m like, okay, I’m gonna try this.
And it does work. It works. I mean, it’s…and we, and we have fun too, cause you met my kids. We have fun with it, too. So maybe he’ll change his color again. But so far yellow is his color. Maybe next summer it’ll change to something else, but it’s working. He’s doing what he needs to get done. I just wanted to share that you were the inspiration for this color coordination in my house, so.
Corinne: Oh, good. I’m glad it’s working.
Joyce: Okay. So. What are the benefits?
Corinne: Yeah. We talked about some of them. So save time, save mental energy.
Joyce: Mm-hmm.
Corinne: Just in general color coding, I think in anyone’s life does that. But with specifically with your family, like we just made fewer mistakes. Like I said, you know, like the fifth grader didn’t accidentally show up at CCD with the second grader’s materials, right?
Because they knew their color. So, and there was no swapping between the two. You don’t accidentally send the wrong field trip form in with the wrong student, you know, cause they’ve got their own color. Fewer mistakes, which again, just less stress overall, fewer arguments.
‘But that’s not my glass!’ Right? Like, because I knew like it’s the blue glass. Now I will say, if you’ve got trickier kids, mine for whatever reason, like honesty is a big thing in our house. Like a huge thing. We hammered on that very early about lying. But if you’ve got some little rascals, I suppose whoever’s supposed to have the blue cup might use somebody’s yellow cup, but we didn’t really run into that, that issue.
So there were just fewer arguments. You know exactly who had left their thing out because, or, you know, had not put their bag away or had used too many glasses because it was their color. Like they tattled on themselves. So far fewer arguments. And then probably the biggest benefit is of all the organizational strategies you’re gonna try, this is easy.
Like it’s so easy. Colors are easy. We learn ’em in preschool. You don’t even have to learn how to read. And you know, that’s another thing like it’s, it works for kids of all ages.
Joyce: And you can use it on chore charts, too.
Corinne: Mm-hmm.
Joyce: I printed your printable and it’s picture. So like clean up the cups or something and it’s yellow.
This is your turn. So it does work. I love it. So that’s why I wanted to bring you here. But yeah, it does work, but like chore chart, like the pictures, the PECs, if you put a list and she, you have that in your slide, I printed it out and it’s like the buck, the money award.
Corinne; Oh, yeah, the Mom Bucks!
Joyce: Uh-huh. So then I, but I put the dots on the colors for the chores and then we write it down.
So it’s very useful and helpful. Another question is, can we change the colors? Can kids change the colors? What do you do when they’re like, you know what, Mom, I don’t want yellow. I want pink or something. What do you do?
Corinne: Of course they can change the color. It’s like that’s of course they can. Although I will say I’ve got some recommendations around this.
I would avoid sharing colors. Like they can’t have the same colors cause it kind of defeats the whole purpose. Like everybody should have their own color. And then the other thing is, I wouldn’t let them change colors just whenever they want. Cause again, it can, it kind of defeats the purpose cause the whole point is that it’s a shortcut, right?
So you associate a color with a person. If they’re changing it every week, you don’t really know. But other than that, like if you set up some parameters for that, then you can. You can do it a couple ways. At the start of every year or this school year, or maybe every season, even depending on your family and how often you think they might wanna change, have a set time that it occurs or use it as a prize or a privilege, right?
Like if you do all the things you’re supposed to, then you earn the right to change your color. There are different ways you can do that to make it so that they’re not just changing the color willy nilly when, whenever. We did it, the start of every school year. And then we would do it again at summer.
Like, I don’t know why my kids needed different summer colors, but that was, you know, kind of how we, how we did it.
Brynne: I’m just sitting here thinking about this. I’m noticing I’ve accidentally done this with a few things. Like when I order toothbrushes from Tarrget, they always, I’m still doing curbside. So they always know because they’re great.
They pick the two colors that my kids always use. That way they know whose toothbrush is whose. So I’m really excited to kind of try to implement this across other areas. I guess one of my biggest questions is one thing that I struggle with a lot is just all of the paperwork that comes along with different things like health insurance, IEPs, even long-term financial planning.
We’ve talked a little bit on the podcast about estate planning and all of that. I’m wondering if there’s a way to apply this to paperwork that… I love the idea of using it to organize paperwork that the kids need, that they need to turn in and keep track of. Is there a way to use this system just for me as a mom? As I’m organizing all of the insurance applications and all of the different legal documents that I just have to deal with on a day-to-day basis?
Corinne: Yeah, absolutely. So my whole filing system is color coordinated, cause again, I hate paperwork. I hate administrative work. That is my least favorite thing to do ever. And so I need to be happy when I open it up. So I don’t shut it again and walk away. So I have a color coding system for my files. Now I will say what works for me, it’s different for other people.
So I know some people organize by color by urgency, right? Like how important it is. So red is for the super critical stuff. Like it’s on fire, then orange, then yellow. And then you might go to like a, a blue and a green or a green, a blue, depending on how you associate those colors in your mind. From important or time sensitive to less so.
So that’s one way to do it. So if you’ve got paperwork that is coming in and you wanna have a file system, so that, okay, the stuff that needs to be dealt with immediately is gonna go in the red zone. And then the stuff that I just need to kind of keep on hand, right? Like my taxes from, you know, 2020 that can go in the green zone or the blue zone.
So you can do it that way. I am, again, like I’m kind of a spreadsheet nerd. So mine is more, I like to file everything in smaller buckets. And I don’t think in time like that. And I don’t like to prioritize things for some reason. I know that works for people that doesn’t work for me. It, it annoys me like trying to assign priority that will be consistent over time. Like I that’s, I don’t like, I like one and done.
I don’t wanna come back and revisit, and now it’s a higher priority or a lower priority. So minor, bigger buckets. So I have things like insurance is one bucket. You know, investments is another bucket I’m trying, I’m working through my file cabinet in my brain.
Schoolwork is another one. Medical is a, another. Sadly mental health is different now from our physical. Our medical’s now in two different ones because therapy. And it’s so the different, uh, you know, different buckets like that. And then I assign colors based on how happy that particular topic makes me.
So the reason I do that is because if I have, and I try to have an admin day at least once a month, where I’m gonna go knock out stuff. When I open up either my notebook, where I keep this, where it’s the stuff I have to handle now, or I’m opening up the files because I’ve gotta go add, you know, I’ve gotta go filing or I’ve gotta clean stuff out, depending on my mood and how much energy I have, I can easily identify either an easy topic for me to deal with or a, a difficult one.
Taxes is red for me. Taxes is red taxes. Stress me out. If I open up the filing cabinet and I’m not feeling 100%, I don’t pick up the red folder. Right. I pull out a blue file. But on a day when I’m like, you know what, I feel like I’m on fire.
I’m gonna knock out something big today. Then I pull the red file. So that’s how I do my color coding. But again, that’s, that’s a quirk to me. So there is a way that you can use the colors, but it just depends on how you like to tackle your, your information. So if you like to do it by priority my business partner, Christina, she does it by priority.
She’s always like we have an on fire file that will always be red. And that’s how she, she does it. I know other people that are better with time horizons will do it by time, but my brain doesn’t work in either of those ways.
Brynne: No, I love that because that is such a huge thing is how much can I handle emotionally today?
How much can I actually take on? So that’s really, really smart. Thank you.
Joyce: What do you use for this systems? Do you have like a command center? Do you use a printable binder, but you said you already have a filing cabinet, but to start, what do you recommend?
Corinne: So like for the family, mine was a command center.
Like I really, I always had a command center. I love that whole concept. One, because ours is mounted on the wall, right? Like it’s in a wall, in a prominent place. Because if I don’t see it, I forget about it. Like that’s just me. And I would say, I, I like to blame the children, like breastfeeding them somehow sucked out all my brain cells, but I think this was just a me problem for a very long time.
Like, I don’t have a great memory. I need to see it and have it in front of my face. And again, the colors they make me happy. So I like to have it in a place where I can see it, but also as much as you can have something in a place where the people in your family can help chip in . I’m all for it. So if the command center is where everybody else can see it, it’s all centralized.
Everybody’s gonna walk past this. There’s some accountability that’s spread across the crew and it’s not, not all just on mom. No one can claim, like, I didn’t know that, you know, three of us had to be in different places on that day. Cause I’m all about spreading the blame. And more importantly spreading the responsibility and the accountability.
Right? So like command center works for me. Now for my personal stuff, and for my mom’s stuff, like the stuff that I know I’m on task for, and I have to keep track of, I’ve got a binder and that is with my color-coded tabs so that I can easily flip to things. And that is a couple different ways. That I actually have the kids’ colors in there so that I can flip to their sections.
But then I also have them my easy-to-difficult types of things so that I can get to the information that I need. And then, yeah, the file cabinets. That’s all paperwork. I don’t actually, it’s not like I’m in my file cabinet every day, but yeah, the file cabinet is where I keep… I’m old. Right? Like I’m a dinosaur.
So I know there’s a way to do that digitally. I just don’t. I’m too old. I’m too old to learn how to do that. So I use a physical file cabinet for paperwork.
Joyce: I can’t do the phone or the digital stuff either. I’m like, you have to see it. I have to see it. Like if in the board I have to see it. So I’m like you.
Joyce: Now I will say I have recently, my friend, Christina, and I had talked about like, if something happened to our business, most of my family and friends still don’t even understand how I actually make money.
Right. Like they don’t know what I do. They certainly wouldn’t know where to go find it if something happened to me. Christina and I had built this system so that we could store all of that information because the problem was as much as I’d love to keep that in a binder, my login changes. The things that I interact with change so regularly.
If I had to go dig out that binder every time and update it or heaven forbid, I add it. Like I just went to a conference. You go to a conference, you make new contacts, you sign up for new things. I’m doing that there. I forget to do it when I get back. Cause I’m exhausted. I’m trying to play catch up. That became hard.
So I am slowly transitioning to having all of that information in the cloud somewhere so I can update it on the go. But I still, every chance I get print something off and put it in the file cabinet, cause it’s the hoarder in me. Like I need to be able to pull it out, look at it and touch it. In case the internet explodes one day.
Joyce: I know, right? You never know you never know. How have you seen this system improve your own life and the lives of your kids?
Corinne: So like the biggest thing was it reduced our stress, right? Like it was just, it, it got rid of a lot of issues we were having. And like I said, it was saving time and mental energy.
So I just, for one, I was yelling a lot less,. I think for the kids too, like there’s, you know, there’s some security and knowing that this is mine, right? Like this is where I go to get what I need and they can do it on their own. So they’ve got some independence and some responsibility and accountability, which sounds scary.
But kids actually like that. Right? Like, so my kids had more confidence because they were able to manage some of their things on their own. And like I said, less confusion. We’re not perfect. Like we mess up stuff all the time, but it took out some of those places where we were commonly having issues.
For us, I think it was just, I think in general, made us more peaceful.
Joyce: How does this organization skill carry over in finances?
Corinne: It can. Yeah. And I will say of all the areas, I think it might be the most important area to be organized. Like even if you don’t think you are naturally, like, this would be where to start, actually. Because money is an area where a little bit of sloppiness really adds up over time, right?
Like if you’re carrying a $10 a month fee that you forgot that you signed up for, in a year, you’re talking over a hundred dollars and you have a few of those things and you’ve wasted a thousand dollars, you know, at the end of the year. And that’s just a little bit of sloppiness, like not cleaning stuff up.
And then if you are organized that compounds over time, and I’m sure you guys have talked about that. Like, Hey, I drill my kids about this all the time about compound interest, like save as early as possible because it just is way easier than trying to make a ton more money later in life. It’s the same thing with being organized in finances.
If you can bring some organizational skills to your finances, you can stay on top of that, one, you’ll waste less money, but two, like you, you make so much money, more money over time, which, Joyce, you know, like is always my goal. Like, I feel like it’s a, it’s a game, it’s a fun little game I play to see how much money we can make and grow.
The reality of it though, is I’m not a great organizer. Like, I really, really like to be organized. I’m really, really sucky at it. It’s an ongoing effort because I fail in the maintenance, which I think is where most people struggle. I love to set up a good organized system and then I get lazy. I have bad habits and I don’t maintain it.
So what I found works for me, because I haven’t been able to fix that. Like I have not forced myself to be, I’ve tried the one touch system, like for mail, right? Like they bring in the mail. You only touch it once and then you have to process it right away. But I’m a piler by nature. So every day I’ve got a pile at the end of my desk.
No matter how many times I tell myself I’m gonna do that one touch rule. So what I found works for me since I’m not able to fix that about myself is to schedule resets cause I’m a calendar person. I live and die by the calendar. So I actually put it on the calendar that, you know, every week I have to go through this every month I have to go through this.
And that works really, really well for many. Right. Like, so at the end of every week that you have to file all of your receipts and update whatever, you know, update QuickBooks, I guess that’s business wise, but, you know, update Mint if you’re doing personal finance. To actually put it on your calendar, pick the day that you’re most likely to actually get that done and not blow it off.
And then, you know, monthly, like scheduling that to balance the checkbook and, and do all of that. But it’s on my calendar and it makes me nuts if I can’t check that off or if I have to move it to a different day. That works for me because I can’t get that maintenance right.
So, and I think there are a lot of people that can’t, so if you can’t just know it’s easy to do, you just have to figure out how to trick your brain. So for me, I had to put it on my calendar cause that works for me. So I regularly assess my expenses, like the things I always do. I assess my expenses because Joyce knows, and I get in trouble with Joyce for this a bit.
I spend freely, like I am the first person to try a new thing or to sign up for a service that might make my life a little easier. But I realized I was kind of bad about getting rid of the ones that weren’t working, right? Like, I’ll try it doesn’t work. And then I forget to cancel it. So that’s now part of my system is regularly assessing expenses to make sure that I’m actually using the things I’m paying for. Adjusting my budget, because again, with like lots of kids and I’m in another transition phase where I’ve got kids in college.
I’ve only got one child at, at home now. I’m going through like a, a divorce. So like my finances are all over the map, you know, from month-to-month. So adjusting my budget every month to make sure that I’m not being sloppy with my money. And then staying on top of my savings goals. Like that has always, I think from the time I graduated, that was huge to me, making sure that I’m saving what I’m supposed to and if I’m not adjusting other things to make sure that happens.
Cause I’ve got a little bit of, I think that’s a financial insecurity. Like I feel like I have to have a certain amount in the bank in order to be able to sleep at night. So those are the three things like the expenses adjusting my budget and then like staying on top of my savings goals. Those are the things that are super important to me, that I work into the calendar to make sure that they’re taken care of.
And did that answer your question, Joyce? Like about the, I just feel like a phony, like saying that I have organizational skills. I mean, not really.
Joyce: But, but that’s the thing, like we don’t want, like, I, I don’t repeat the same thing over, like everybody else does, like, we all have faults and then that’s what you see us struggling because some guru’s saying, ‘No, you have to have X, Y, and Z.’
But I don’t think like that. I am a visual person. Everything is automated. Like it, like I have like five accounts and then this is for this, and this is for that. And I do cry when I part with my money. I am emotionally attached to my money. You saw with my roof, I was like, ‘I pay $5,500’ as I wrote the check, you know, I do.
Corinne: The check is tear-stained.
Joycye: And then I sob when it, it goes through the bank and it clears, I’m like, oh, you know, because
Corinne: I know it’s like, it’s like getting hit and then getting punched again. Like you gotta write the check and then the money leaves your account. It’s a whole other
Joyce: I’m trying to get up. And somebody kicks me in the rib and I fall down, you know, so I feal you, but we’re not perfect.
And if we were all perfect with organization and, and in finances we wouldn’t be in debt or we wouldn’t be where we are. So, yeah, I, I do agree.
Corinne: Well, to me, that’s inspiring. Like I don’t wanna hear from, you know, like we have a friend, that’s an organizer, she’s a professional organizer and I love her.
But for her to tell me that organizing is easy. It’s not true. She is naturally organized. It’s just how her brain works and God bless her for it, but I can’t do what she does. So, yeah. I don’t have those skills, but you can, you can hack your brain. Like you, you know, we find tips and tricks to, to make things work.
Joyce: And also like one thing that I do, but that you might not know, I clean.
Corinne: I know. You clean.
Joyce: I clean, I clean. And it doesn’t mean like, I don’t like, or like if you go to your house, you’re mess. I don’t, if that’s not what it does, I do it because it soothes me. So it’s a control thing. So when I like yesterday, my house was clean.
I was so annoyed that I was cleaning. Like it cleans. I’m not saying that my house is sparkling clean. But to me, I can say, well, cleaning is easy, but I enjoy cleaning. Like I enjoy budgeting, but for me to say to someone, Hey, it’s so easy. If you do X, Y, and Z, because it is not really true. And my system is completely different than your system of budgeting or organizing or, you know, cleaning.
Brynne: Especially after like we’ve been living in a pandemic for two years, no end in sight, that executive functioning part of our brain does start to shut down a little bit. So I love learning about these hacks because it can be really super overwhelming and it can get to a point where it feels like I just, I am not good at this.
I can’t do this. There’s too much going on. I’m too far behind. So for those of us who don’t stress clean like Joyce…
Corinne: And I always know, like, I’m always worried when she says that she’s cleaning. Like if she’s mentioned more than two things that she’s cleaned that day. I’m like, oh, what happened to Joyce? Because I, it is her stress relief.
I wish that was mine. It’s not, but I know it’s like it soothes Joyce. It’s fascinating.
Joyce: I mean, I wish it was working out. Like if I would I’m stressed and I’m working out that would’ve, I would’ve been like, woo. But to me, I’m like, I am gonna destroy this closet. And then I’m gonna take a toothbrush and it’s, it’s control.
Like it’s so soothing for me to do it and that’s how I deal with stuff. But as far as clean, I don’t have a lot, so my house always stays clean. But as the kids either, it’s not fair for me to say less toys to make me happy. So I use containers. Put it in containers. And, and that’s how you do it. Like as moms, we are so like hard on ourselves, because cleaning is supposed to be our thing or having a home straight or, you know, meals or cooking.
And some, sometimes as mom, we can’t cook. The thing is that we’re so hard on ourselves because we’re putting like cleaning to identify us. And that’s not right. For me, put it in the container, your blue container and put it on your yellow container because that’s, I mean, it might not be cleaning to you, but it’s cleaning to me.
The house is organized. We’re going to bed. Goodbye.
Corinne, where can we find you?
Corinne: So Super Fun Family Card Games, it’s all different card games to either play as a family, or it’s broken into group games, games for two players and then individual games. It was written for children to be able to read my target audience was like, nine-year-olds there.
So, because that was about the age that I started playing card games and tried to learn magic tricks and things like that, which probably makes me sound like an uber nerd. But. It’s me. And then I have one on Super Tricky Riddles for Kids, brain teasers and things, but yeah, you can find me at Wondermom Wannabe, that’s my main site.
And I’ve got, like Brynne said, I’ve got some posts there about teaching your kids about money. I actually just did a sponsored post for Navy Federal that actually walked through all the things they talked about today with, you know, guiding them through income and then, you know, bills and things. So, and then I’ve got some printables.
I have lots of printables, actually, over 200, I think at last count. Many of them designed to help you just be more organized either at home or like fun activities for kids. If you subscribe on really any post on my site, you get access to the whole library. And then I do have some for sale in my Shopify store, which again, if you’re on my site, you just go to shop and then you can see everything I have for sale there.
I don’t know, go check out the free stuff first. Like there’s plenty of free things you can grab off of my site before you try to go spend money anywhere.
(whooshing sound)
Brynne: Thank you so much to Corinne and thank you all so much for listening today. Next week, we’ll be back with our season finale, including an ABLE account update with Paul Curley of the 529 Conference.
We’ll be asking Paul your ABLE account questions, which you can submit in the next 24 hours. So that’s by the end of day by tomorrow, Wednesday, that’s the 22nd. You can submit your questions in our Facebook group, and we are going to link to that group. Anytime you guys submit a question, we never say your name on the podcast, unless you explicitly ask us to.
So asking in that private Facebook group can be a great place to do it. Also, don’t forget to sign up for email updates about the podcast at MomAutismMoney.com . All right, we’ll see you guys next week.
Corinne: So Super Fun Family Card Games, it’s all different card games to either play as a family, or it’s broken into group games, games for two players and then individual games. It was written for children to be able to read my target audience was like, nine-year-olds there.
So, because that was about the age that I started playing card games and tried to learn magic tricks and things like that, which probably makes me sound like an uber nerd. But. It’s me. And then I have one on Super Tricky Riddles for Kids, brain teasers and things, but yeah, you can find me at Wondermom Wannabe, that’s my main site.
And I’ve got, like Brynne said, I’ve got some posts there about teaching your kids about money. I actually just did a sponsored post for Navy Federal that actually walked through all the things they talked about today with, you know, guiding them through income and then, you know, bills and things. So, and then I’ve got some printables.
I have lots of printables, actually, over 200, I think at last count. Many of them designed to help you just be more organized either at home or like fun activities for kids. If you subscribe on really any post on my site, you get access to the whole library. And then I do have some for sale in my Shopify store, which again, if you’re on my site, you just go to shop and then you can see everything I have for sale there.
I don’t know, go check out the free stuff first. Like there’s plenty of free things you can grab off of my site before you try to go spend money anywhere.
(whooshing sound)
Joyce: Bye.