Sahms with Last Child Starting School?

I am my most productive first thing in the day, so I try to tackle any big cleaning issues or projects first thing. That leaves me plenty of time to enjoy being out and about if I have any errands. If I go to the gym I have to go as soon as I get out of bed, or else I will find 100 reason to put it off and keep putting it off, lol.

Me? I go back to bed, first. ;)

I'm not precisely a SAHM, but I know what you mean. (I homeschool my kids, and help my husband run our business, but I'm at home doing those things, and I know how the day can get away from you!)

Currently, here's what I'm doing and it's working well for me:
6:15am - 7:15am: work out
7:15-7:45: shower, dress, drink coffee
7:45: wake kids up, wonder why I just did that
8:30: kids do their school stuff (handwriting, journaling, stuff that doesn't need to involve me), I pay bills, check today's schedule, clean up the kitchen, start a load of laundry
9:00: kids do harder school stuff, I sit in the school room and help them as needed/ work on whatever small tasks I have (filing, folding laundry, dusting)
12:00: school is over (usually), we eat lunch, kids go out to play
1:00: kids come inside, we all clean the house together (only takes half an hour or so)
1:30: free time for everyone (run errands, grocery shop, walk the dog, etc)
3:30: off to ballet lessons

I should note that I do have cleaning help (every other week, I have my ladies come in and do the things I don't like to do ;), and gardening help (once per week, mow and blow), as well as an intern who comes once per week (technically she does billing for our business, but she will pretty much do whatever I need her to with the kids, too). So... that's why I have free time. Not that I'm so organized, but that I have help, and lots of it. :)

I personally like to exercise first, clean the house, and then shower. Errands come after I am ready.

I think it may depend on if you have to leave the house to get your child to school.

I've always been a "non-structure" kind of person for the most part LOL The only solid thing we had when my kids were little was bedtime LOL

I never scheduled anything ... I did what I felt like doing at the time I felt like it.

Unless I was chaperoning a school field trip.

We both work. We have one DS (3 yo) who goes to pre-school. My parents do school drop offs and pick ups.

I get up early to exercise, and hit the gym at lunch too.

We automate the housecleaning (roomba + scooba), we clean as we go along and we tackle one extra cleaning job a day. when our energy was low, and we felt like spending the funds we also outsourced housecleaning through groupon.

What kind of errands are you running? Hubs does a week worth of laundry, picks up and drops off the dry cleaning does the weekly food shopping, ironing, and manages to cook a thing, juice up fruit and veg, and also sit on the sofa, watch some mindless tv and scratch (as men are entitled to do every so often), all while DS and I are gone for a morning outing say from 9 to 2ish on a saturday.

Best,
F. B.

Going back to school is a good thing. You can get a degree and start helping save money for retirement, college for the kids, a vacation home, for a backup plan if something happened to hubby, and more.

I know a lot of women who've faced this stage of life and decided to improve themselves and find something they want to do. For themselves if not for the family.

One lady became a RN then followed that by becoming a nursing professor at a local college. Well, actually 2 of my friends did that.

3 more friends got their teaching degree so they could be home on school breaks with the kids, one did special ed, one did elementary school level, and the other one got her teaching degree then got her masters and is now teaching at a local Jr. College. She is set for life simply based on her own income. Once she got tenure she has a better retirement plan than her hubby.

Another finished her college degree and used her double car garage to have a home gym where she took on clients and made personal work out plans for them and helped them with nutrition to be healthier.

One of my other friends learned sign language and works through the local school district to sign for deaf students in their classroom.

Not many have chosen to stay at home without doing more. I can't think of a single friend that isn't out doing volunteer work at the kids schools, helping out at the local hospital, doing more to be active in the community and have personal growth.

I've been a stay at home for the past few years and I've never really made a schedule, I just do everything that needs to be done around my kids scheduled activities. I've tried schedules and they don't work for me, even though I loved them in my previous job. I have a chalkboard as a to-do list for the day and I just cross things off as I get them done.
After my kids are off to school, I usually exercise and then shower and get ready for the day. Cleaning the house feels like it's constant for me, the washing machine is always running and there are always clothes to be folded. The dog always needs to be walked, floors vacuumed, kitchen and bathrooms cleaned daily. When I'm not inside cleaning I'm outside working in the backyard garden or something else that needs cleaning outside. When my kids are home it's usually playing outside or them having a play date. I feel like every time I head out I need to stop at the grocery store or pharmacy store for something, no matter how well I think I've planned ahead. I'm probably telling you how not to do it because at times I feel like I never stop but at least everything gets done! I'll be reading your answers for some advice myself!

Sit down and write out a routine. When do you have energy? How long does it take you to do x, y, z? When do you want to leave the house for errands in am or pm? Do you want to meet anyone for lunch?

When I stopped working and had to figure out what to do daily I made up a schedule and broke it down to tasks in am and pm including lunch and nap time. So figure out what you can do daily and it will begin to become a plan that can be worked.

If you do it right, you could take a class or join friends for a hobby and still have things done at home.

the other S.

every day is didferent... but I volunteer at school any time there is an opportunity.. I tend to run errands as soon as I drop off kids.. the grocery store is fully stocked.. and not too crowded..

After I got the kids off to school I liked to do my housework before my shower. After my shower I ran errands. I like to exercise in the evening with my kids at the Y.