5 Tips to Make Your Life More Sane as Busy Student

Here's a quick list of tips that I found kept my life sane as a busy back-to-school mom:

1. Tame your laundry--Buy everyone in the household (well, maybe you and your spouse can share) two laundry baskets. Don't spend a lot of money on these; dollar store ones will work fine. Make sure one is white, and the other some kind of color. Put these laundry baskets in the respective closets of their owners and teach them when they take off their clothes at night to put their light colored and white clothing in the white basket, and darker colored clothing in the colored laundry basket. This way whenever you see a full basket, you can throw it into the wash already pre-sorted. I'm not a fan of waiting and doing massive amounts of laundry at one time, as many people seem to just give up and buy more clothes if they are faced with mountains of dirty clothes. You can get by with a lot less clothes if they are washed and ready to go. If you grab the clothes as soon as the dryer quits and fold them, you'll have a lot less nasty wrinkles. If you're like me, you'll look upon the iron as a curse from hell.
2. Invest in a slow cooker--Nothing beats coming home to a dinner that is already made. Slow cookers are very energy efficient, and are a great time saver. Take a few minutes, throw together some ingredients and you'll have a great dinner to feed the starving multitudes when they come hurling through the door. You can make mega pots of things like stew, spaghetti sauce and soups so that you'll have leftovers to freeze for another meal. Another benefit is that you'll spend less money eating out, and can control the amount of sodium and saturated fat your family is consuming.
3. Electric Grills are Great--I use a George Foreman grill, but there are other good brands out there as well. The beauty of these grills is that they cook both sides of your food at once, so you can have dinner on the table much faster. Using my grill, I can have dinner on the table in mere minutes. Although these grills have a non-stick coating, I find that clean-up is much quicker and easier if I give a quick blast of non-stick spray to both sides of the grill before adding the food. Afterwards, I unplug the grill, wet an old cloth or paper towel and lay on the grill and close the lid. Voila, any stuck on food gets a steam treatment and wipes out quickly afterwards.
4. Don't Use Your Dishwasher as a China Cabinet--When your dishwasher finishes its load, take a few minutes and put the dishes away. This way, you'll have room for dirty dishes as your family creates them, and you won't be faced with staring at an overflowing sink full of dirty dishes. Just a quick rinse and into the dishwasher they go right after meals or snacks. Doing this also prevents being down to your last fork or plate just when you need one.
5. Stock Your Pantry--It's hard to make quick and healthy meals if you don't have anything on hand to create them with. Stock up on items such as chicken broth, tomato sauce, canned tomatoes and beans, as well as a selection of commonly used spices such as chili, garlic and onion powder and Italian seasoning. Keep your freezer stocked with frozen chicken breasts, lean hamburger and fish. Keep commonly used ingredients such as onions, garlic, celery and green peppers in your fridge. With these, you'll have the basics to keep you out of fast food joints, keeping you and your family slimmer and saving money too. Believe me, starving students need to save money!

For some more great tips for busy moms (and dads too!)check out Rhonda Unruh's post "Homekeeping and the Working Mother" at typeamom. net.

Have more great tips to share? Let's hear from you.