Keep a Spreadsheet for Light Bulbs and Batteries

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, I’ll tell you why I keep a spreadsheet for batteries and light bulbs. 

I used to be terrible about changing out lightbulbs that burnt out in my house.  I’d have to haul out the ladder and, let’s be honest, chances are, I’d probably not have the right bulb in stock. So, I’m going get all the way up on the ladder, unscrew the fixture and find that i don’t have that particular bulb on hand.  So, then I either have to screw the fixture back in, put the ladder away, and wait until I go shopping to get the right bulb, OR the more likely option is that I’d just leave the whole thing undone with the ladder there for a week or two before I get the right bulb. Well, NO MORE. 

NOW I have a light bulb spreadsheet.  I started this spreadsheet the day I had to change out something like 7 light bulbs — which shows you how I procrastinate!  I brought out my stock of lightbulbs, which was this random hodgepodge, and set about changing bulbs. By the time I got the the THIRD bulb that I couldn’t change since I didn’t have the right materials, I was done with this old “system” of mine.  My spreadsheet is simple and looks like this.  My columns are as follows, floor of the house, room, fixture, number of bulbs, type, dimmer required, watt, voltage, description, and a link to the website where I can order them.  Let’s take an example, I need to change one of the recessed lightbulbs in my kitchen.  It’s on the first floor of my house, in the kitchen, I put recessed lights under fixture (in this case, I’m lumping all of them into one fixture), there are 8 bulbs, the type is indoor flood, they have to work on a dimmer switch, they are 65 watt, 120 volts, and here is the link to the amazon page where I buy these in bulk. I have found that I can buy them from Amazon prime, have them delivered in a couple of days and they aren’t any more expensive than from the local hardware store if I buy them in bulk.  So, I didn’t have practically any of the bulbs I needed that first day, but I put them on my spreadsheet, ordered more than I needed, and a couple of days later, I had the project done.  

Now, I suppose if you were super motivated, you could go around your house and fill in the spreadsheet with every light fixture in every room, but I don’t really think that is necessary.   I just add them as they burn out, but always get more bulbs than i need, so that I have a supply built up. I have some odd ball lightbulbs, but the vast majority are normal bulbs and indoor floods. So, now, almost every time I have a burnt out bulb, I have one to replace it. And the bonus is that i can consult my spreadsheet and be ready with the bulbs BEFORE I climb up on the ladder to replace it. 

The second tab on my spreadsheet is for batteries. I only record the odd ball batteries on this.  I keep large supplies of AA and AAA batteries from Costco. If the device takes either of those batteries, I don’t write it down here since i always have these in stock. If it requires something different, I record it and get a couple extra for my battery box, so i will have them on hand the next time i need to replace them. 

And that’s it!  Let me know what you think. Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!