As the family finishes settling into a regular routine and starts to think about the holidays I like to use the excuse of busting out all of the decorations as a chance to get the house another thorough cleaning. And with that comes a check up on our in-home assets. We’ve had a couple of small garage sales, and I did not have time to properly inventory for one of them because it was kind of spur of the moment. We’ve also gotten a couple of new electronics and appliances since the last inventory. While some of the basic information is in PIMYU, I want to make sure to save details so I won’t be scrounging for things like the warranty papers later.
First I have to enlist the family because I no longer have to clean the whole house on my own. To make sure they were all available, I scheduled this time a couple of weeks ago, and this coming weekend was the first time when we all had most of the day at home and no big projects (either my kids for school or myself for work).
We tend to do better when we work on rooms as a group instead of splitting up and going over the house independently. Taking inventory was one of the planned chores, and we do have a system for it. Of course, my kids jumped on that since it is easier than doing things like cleaning the baseboards and dusting the fans. It isn’t the only chore they have for each room, but it is one of the primary ones. Honestly, I was more than happy to let them do it because it gives them experience taking care of that part of their finances and they think that it is a break from “real work.” Sure, that works for me.
They get to work as a team. My son went into my account and showed my daughter how to pull an inventory report and print it. Next they bring the pages into the room. While my husband and I get to the heavy cleaning (moving furniture, polishing it, vacuuming under where it usually sits, all that fun stuff), our kids go around the room checking items off, taking pictures and notes, scratching out anything that is gone, and adding anything new in the room. My son has a tablet that he uses to do basic entry for new items, but they aren’t allowed to delete anything until we’ve been through the whole house and see that the asset hasn’t simply been moved to a different room. My son also adds pictures to the items that are missing them to make this even easier in the future.
By the time we finish all of the rooms, all of the basics of our inventory are done. Now the fun starts as my kids start dragging out the Halloween decorations and plan where to put things this year.