Making A File Calendar: You NEED One

I used to have this file calendar. I don’t remember WHERE I got it from but it saved my bill paying life.

I hung it in the kitchen. It has files on each month, ones where you can rip out the file at the end of the month to store. As bills or whatnots came in, I slipped them into the folder to be gone through at the end of the week. It made life much, much easier.

When I went to go buy one for this year, there were none to be had. Even online, they were either really expensive or on backorder. Sonofabitch. So, I did what I do: I devised a plan to make my own.

First, let me tell you, this isn’t an all in one 12 month calendar. You’ll have to switch them out at the end of the month, HOWEVER, the file should be going into the filing cabinet anyway, so that’s not a big deal for me.

Here’s what I did:

I bought a pack of pretty color file folders. Actually, I sent the Texan out to do this. There were just a couple bucks.

There’s kind of a problem with these. They’ve got lines on the front. Where I planned on putting the actual calendar.

That’s ok. I’ll use the back. Crisis averted.

Now punch a hole in the top back (or in this case the front) where you are going to want to hang it from.

Now, staple the CRAP out of the sides of it. This will make sure the pocket stays closed so you can slip your bills in it.

On the blank side, take a ruler and draw in pencil the calendar. I do it in pencil and then go over it in marker, that way I can erase if I mess up.

Now, that should be the end of it. But it wasn’t.

First, I didn’t liked the way it looked.

Second, doing all that was too much of a pain in the butt to do for all twelve months.

Third, I’d put the staples on the wrong side, the sharp end was facing out. Duh.

Fourth, I realize that little hole I punched was just going to rip from the weight of everything that was going to be in there. So, take two.

This time, I printed out calendars from the internet. Printable2012calendars.com had exactly what I wanted.

I cut the edges off and the month’s name so it would fit the front of the calendar AND cover up those lines.

I then reinforced where I was going to punch the hole. I did this by putting some electrical tape where the hole would be THEN punching a hole through that. It’s not the most perfect reinforcement, but it works.

Do it to the other side too

NOW punch the hole

Now I could have glued the calendar on. But I didn’t wanna. I saw the pretty colored electrical tape, which I’d bought because they were out of black. Glad they were! I decided to use that to secure my calendar onto the folder.

Staple it up the sides again, label it with the month and you’ve got yourself a file folder calendar.

You can get REAL creative with this, using pretty paper or different tape, stamps, whatever. To me, I wanted to have a little fun but functionality was key. Here are some more I made.

Use whatever you have on hand. I just happened not to have any file folders so I had to buy some, but regular office manilla ones will do fine.

It just makes the mail clutter SO SO much easier for me. Receipts and bills don’t get lost. Yes, I know, I could do online statements, and I do for a lot of them. But I’m absent minded and sometimes they don’t send out those bill reminders via email the way they should, so this ends up SO much easier for me.

Plus, it lets you flex your creative muscles a little bit. See what you’ve got around the house. I almost tried to do this with paper plates. I’ve made mail hangers with paper plates before. But being such as I have no children living in the house, I couldn’t really pass that off as a school art project and make the paper plate wall hangings look appropriate in my otherwise pretty obviously adult centered living room.