I was talking to a friend the other day, and she was talking about how she hated to come home to all the housework, laundry( not just from the trip), having to go the grocery store right away as there is nothing to eat, and doing all this while trying to go back to work in the next day or so...and extra cash that you put out when you get back...
So I shared with her what I do to get ready for before a trip... so that when we get back its not a chaos and we can enjoy the vacation bubble a little bit longer, and not break the bank...
Please post your tips
Here's my list in short form with my reasoning behind it... my real list is very detail as its curved to our life.
Clean the house - when I was working I would do one task every night so that I could get everything done, and not try to kill myself on the night before we would heading out.
Laundry - all of it needs to be done before we leave...except for the towels for showering the day we leave... and they are hung up to dry... When my kids were at home, and I worked outside of the house, I would do laundry every night a week or so before we would be leaving.
*** Go through the house room by room looking for stray laundry... towels hanging out by the pool, in the guest bathroom, the pile in the teenagers room who said everything is clean( this will help with another point)
Change the sheets the night before we leave so that clean sheets are on the bed when you return... I make the bed the morning we leave.... there is just something about coming home to all the beds being made that just makes you feel good...
Drop off and pick up any dry cleaning... so that you don't have to when you return.
Clothing....A couple of months/weeks before figure out what you are taking... go through the kids clothing, checking out what fits, everything is working order all the buttons, zippers that zip....even when they are teenagers... really especially if they are teenager... our youngest ( she was 13) once thought 9 shirts and 1 pair of shorts was enough for the whole trip... and asked her why only 1 pair of shorts she said those were the only one that still fit her...her mom had not bought her any shorts yet...and her Dad and I had repeated asked her and her mom if there was anything that she might need... so I was at Wal-mart at midnight buying some shorts...Thank goodness she's wasn't as picky as oldest DD... This will save you a lot of aggravation and late night trips to the store, and extra cost that you weren't expecting and you haven't even left the house yet...
Clean the kitchen the night before, run the dishwasher, put everything away....using paper products, as the dish washer had been emptied and we are not turning it on again... or you can wash and dry the dishes and put them away....
Meals before you hit the road.... what are you doing for dinner the night before... and breakfast on the day you leave... For us Chinese take out for dinner, and breakfast... a bowl of cereal, finish up the milk, muffins and fruit to finishing up the bananas...coffee, and finish up the juice. - When you return will you need lunch or dinner, the next day, breakfast, lunch, dinner.... Normally we get back home after the dinner hour... I will have some snack stuff, unopened chips & crackers, dip, pop corn.... then I will take out the frozen bagel for breakfast the next day, also take out the frozen red sauce for dinner the next day...put in the frig to thaw and your good to go... make sure to have unopened coffee creamer, cream cheese,
If you are heading back to work and school the next day... lay out your clothes, kids clothes with socks and shoes... backpacks ready to go... I would make the kids clean out their backpacks the night or so before we would leave and repack them, this way if they needed anything we weren't running around at 7:00 am hunting all over for it... Also any kind of sports bag, gym bag...clean them out... I was always surprised by the stuff I would find in them... gross and stinky..... For our kids the school backpack was for school then we had travel backpacks for traveling( cheaper version)... for the just in case, something got left behind or stolen it wasn't the school backpack( the expensive version)
While some of this seems like I can do it when we get back.. Any time you travel you could have a flight delay, miss a connections, someone gets to sick to travel, flat tire, god forbid some type of accident... You just never know.
Please share your tips...