Let's start a thread of just random advise / hacks

When buying a box dye in a shop, close your eyes and randomly select a colour as they never come out like the colour on the box that you spend four hours in the aisle choosing and then a week of crying because it looks nothing like the colour you chose and is either black or ginger. Or a gingery black.

By selecting a random colour your hair may turn out ok.

Leave harvest men, the spindly long legged light brown spiders alone as they prefer to stay up high most of the time and they kill proper big spiders.

I didn't believe this at first but overcame my fear of them knowing that kill proper spiders.

Toothpaste gets washable paint off the bath (because washable paint is not all that washable)

Even if you're not very good at cooking, learn to cook a couple of things that can feed a group of people and be able to bake one type of cake fairly reliably...because people remember those things and you don't have to do as much of the washing up. Nobody gives a shit about the person doing the washing up. If it's a weekend away, offer to be one of the cooks on the first night then a) you've done a chunk of your share of the work at the start and b) nobody else can use "your" dish that you can confidently make on the first night leaving you scrabbling to come up with an idea.

As an aside- if you see a nice looking chap quietly getting on with the clearing up and washing up- rather than expecting a big prize for doing it or holding forth over a glass of port whilst women clear up around him- then you should probably marry him.

Still harbour feelings for your ex?

Leave the house looking bloody awful and it's guaranteed you will bump into him. With his new bird on his arm, dressed to the nines.

If you bleed on something, spit on it to get the stain out. Saliva has enzymes that break down the red bit in blood.

Don't pick blackberries in the wild that are lower than three/four feet.

I had to tell a woman today who was picking them at ground level.

@WhiteArsenic im going to apply your tip to my life 😁 sound advice for everyone

Brilliant! Why haven't I thought of this already?

@Inmybirthdaysuit and after checking towel check the shower curtain! She says after having a tarantula drop on her head from the shower rail.

If you batch cook, squish the freezer bags flat. They fit better into the freezer and defrost more quickly.

Also, if it's bolognese ragù you can use the flat portions from frozen in any baked pasta dish.

For white sauces, make them in a much larger saucepan and use a whisk. The pan gives more surface area which means quicker thickening.

Both of those mean you can turn out lasagne in under an hour.

Make the sauce, layer it all up with your frozen bolognese ragù, put it in the oven for 35-40 minutes. The meat will defrost while it's all cooking.

Trust me!

😹😹😹😹 My kind of advise

Wrap an elastic band (a thick one) around a jar lid to help you grip it.

And @NoImnotcalledIgglePiggle

Don’t judge a parent based on the briefest snapshot of their lives (it’s usually mothers that are judged so harshly).

Just bang the jar on the floor….that way you’ll have an intact lid….

On a self catering/air bnb holiday, get a Chinese takeaway the first night and voila! Tupperware/lunchboxes for the whole holiday (and to take opened food home)

Before you shut the door ensure that you have the key(s) for the door in your hand.

Clean windows, induction hobs, tv's, anything shiny really with deionised water decanted into spray bottle. Use sparingly and with a good glass microfibre cloth.

Ok a little bit un-PC one but if you want to snag a man, send yourself bouquet of flowers (red roses) and mention how a Posh one is calling u at night madly in love with u, and Love Island-ish cekebrity is begging u to go out and ur mortified.

It will increase your value

Also don't sleep with him on first date if ur keen. Say ur waiting to be wed, if he sticjs it out, zing zing zing you have a winner

Never accept being his OW obv

Don't feel bad about doomscrolling /mumsnetting /whatsapping/ chatting on the phone when feeding a baby or pushing a child in a forward facing pushchair, especially if they don't sleep much. It might be the only time you get to yourself and to keep in touch with friends, so grab it with both hands. Well, one hand.

Don't use biological washing powder to try to get a little stain out of a wool carpet, as the much bigger pale yellow-green stains in my darker green carpet attest.

Try not to let your pet be fat. Not only does it cost more in food bills, it costs more in vet bills- body fat is a pro-inflammatory substance, kind of the opposite of omega 3 oils, and obesity increases the risk of many expensive medical conditions in pets. If your pet is hungry and begs a lot, it will still do it whether it is fat or slim. So it might as well be slim and annoying as fat and annoying.

If you post a comment and it gives you a self satisfied smirky feeling, delete it. You are never superior when you feel you are.

Can you not engage with your child whilst feeding her instead of typing random chat on mumsnet?

What a silly comment. You've no idea of the age of OP's child. I doubt she's spooning yoghurt with one hand and typing on Mumsnet with the other. More likely she's breastfeeding. And I certainly didn't spend every moment breastfeeding engaging with my two, they weren't interested in my nonsense while they fed.