Recollections Family Planner Review (18 month weekly planner)
There are many Recollections Planners but one I’ve yet to review is the family planner!
Quick Facts
- Size: 9″ x 11″
- 18 Month duration
- Dates at a glance
- Important dates
- Contacts
- Monthly notes page
- Lined notes pages
- Graph notes pages
- Black notes pages
- 4 sheets of planner stickers
- Double sided pocket folder
- Clear pencil case
- Colorful
- 2 page monthly calendar, starting Sunday
- 2 page family layout weekly planner, starting Monday
Let’s take a closer look!
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The Cover
The usual laminate cover that most of the Recollections planners have.
1″ thick combined with it’s 18 month duration makes this planner really heavy – you wouldn’t be able to carry it with you. I think it would be suited to a teacher who can leave it at their desk at work, or a mom that leaves the planner at home.
Important Dates
Monthly Calendar
The Sunday start on the monthly calendar is unfortunately not consistent with weekly spread that starts Monday.
USA planner so USA holidays pre-printed.
Yet another Recollections planner with split boxes on the monthly calendar 🙁
Weekly
There’s lots of room with 6 boxes for each day plus they’re in different colors so if you want to color code it’s already done for you! While the planner says ‘name’ you could use the categories for cleaning, meal planning, project, due, reminders, little things, school assignments, work hours etc.
Related: 50 Category Ideas for Color Coding Your Planner
US holidays printed on the monthly calendar and weekly spread.
Important Contacts
Not sure why some planners still include these but it could be re-purposed into a password log
Notes
Can’t choose between lined, unlined and graph? You get all 3 in this planner
Dividers
There are different for each month. While it’s called a family planner there aren’t many references to family apart from some of the dividers so anyone could use this planner
Double sided pocket folder plus a clear plastic pocket. There isn’t much room on the coil for expansion so I don’t think you could put a bunch of pens, highlighters etc in the plastic pocket especially if you use stickers in your planner.
Planner Stickers
Love these colors <3
Pen Test
The paper is the same for all the Recollections planners, so here is the results of the pen test I did for the vertical weekly.
I tried various ballpoint, gel, fine tip and marker tip pens. The 3 marker pens (Uni Pis, Pure Color-F and Muji Hexa Pen) had some light ghosting but there was no ghosting for any of the other pens. And no bleed through for any! ?
I also did some highlighter and stamp swatches – no ghosting either.
However, as always, the MAMBI stamps bled through the page ?
Overall, one of the best pen test results of the 50+ planners I’ve reviewed! ?
Pros of the Recollections Family Planner
- The colors are coordinated throughout – monthly tabs, divider pages and the stickers
- 4 pages of planner stickers (plus most are functional)
- No pre-printed categories on the weekly spread – use however you please
- Good value for an 18 month planner
- Bright white paper
- Color printing is bright / good quality
- Monthly notes page
- Double sided pocket folder
- Big, easy to find tabs
Cons of the Recollections Family Planner
- Very heavy – one of the heaviest planners I’ve come across
- Bulky page size
Would I use this planner?
No, it’s too heavy and the page size is too big for me. It’s good value for money but it’s a planner that would probably need to always stay at home.
More planner reviews
- Creating a custom recipe book with Plum Paper
- Agendio Review (custom, personalised weekly planner)
- Blue Sky Teacher Planner
Planning tips
- 5 Planner supplies you should never skimp on
- How to make planner printables using Microsoft Word: An Introduction
- Arcing my Plum Paper Planner – everything you need to know if you’d like to try it yourself!
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I used one of these planners for part of last year. One thing I would suggest to lighten the load would be to tear out pages, hole-punch them, and put them in a binder. This might make it slightly more portable, especially if you only put a few months in rather than the whole planner.