Life hacks, day to day time saving tips, common sense to you but not to others?

[Namechange8123]

I've had a search and can only find (years) old threads along these lines, so I've started a fresh one.

What are your day to day life hacks that make things easier? Could be common sense to you, but others could benefit?

My contributions are freezing lemons and limes to double up with your ice in your gin, layer the cot sheets in DC cot with another sheet and bed mat so if they have an accident, you whip the top layer off and don't have to remake the bed, tin foil behind the radiators...

What do you have?

@StealthPolarBear every time you eat you stick the fork with the forks etc, it takes seconds. Then when you unload you just grab them all together. If you do it the other way you have to separate them all out and it takes longer

@StealthPolarBear I think it depends more on whether you have a cutlery drawer or cutlery basket. If you have a drawer, you have to put the cutlery into each slot individually (so sorting as you go along takes no extra time) but when you take them out you can scoop them out in one go if they are already sorted.

The downside of pre-sorting your cutlery for the dishwasher is that the spoons tend to, well, spoon each other so they don't clean so well.

I make a cheese sandwich pop it in the microwave for 1 minute and then toast on each side. Its lovely

I got fed up of losing birthday cards Id bought and put somewhere safe. I got hold of an old A4 file and popped them into a pocket so that I can now see what cards I have really easily. For extra efficiency I section them into adults /children /special . I suppose the next step is to actually write and address them .
I also buy the folded wrapping paper and have started putting the spare sheets in the file too. Keeps them flat and easily located.

We have hard floors throughout downstairs and I have tried many different mops to deal with cleaning them. I hate having the floors wet as the dog just trots through it and then jumps on the settee.
So I bought a window cleaning set that has a long handle and a crosspiece (forming a T with the handle) with a microfibre cover that pops over the crosspiece. This acts both as a brush and a mop and I can do the whole downstairs in minutes - with no wet paw prints on things as the microfibre leaves the floors almost dry.

Clean the bathroom or pluck your eyebrows when the dc are in the bath.

"My favorite hack is to straight after washing and drying store the set of bedding in one of the pillow cases. A King duvet cover, bottom sheet and pillow cases all fit if folded up and it saves hunting round to find bits from the set."

Beat me to it, this is mine too

Double lining cots and toddler beds ✅
Bed sets stored in one pillowcase ✅
Keep a roll of bin liners inside the bottom of each bin so when you change the bin you can reline it quickly ✅
Never leave a room empty handed you can keep tidying down to a minimum
Have two hoovers - upstairs and downstairs
Cleaning stuff in each bathroom
Colour code your cleaning cloths eg red for toilet blue for bathroom
Put bleach down your toilets/ sink before bed
Spray glass shower screens with vikal and leave post shower wash/wipe down in the evening

I keep the bedding for each bed in its relevant bedroom. I also double sheets/mattress protectors so any night changes are quick and easy. Whilst DS2 was night training I kept the spare bed duvet in his room in a cover. When he wet the bed, I just took off top sheet & mattress protector and gave him the dry duvet (his single one fits in the washing machine luckily).

I wear black socks (mainly), DS1 has grey socks and DS2 navy socks. Makes pairing the right sizes mich easier. DH deals with his own socks.

The washing baskets are in the corridor in front of the washing machine (works in our flat). One is for lights, one is for darks. Everyone puts their washing in the right basket (actually a kalax box) and I do the washing when a box is full.

We meal plan and have a master shopping list that we gradually highlight the things we need on then just before a shop I run my eye down the list of everything we could possibly want to double check.

I also have master lists of things to take on holiday, depending on destination and season. Then when its, say October and we're visiting family in the UK I know what to pack without thinking. I update it after the holiday if I got anything wrong.

Love all of these!
Wish I'd thought of the essentials ina sick bucket under toddler bed when mine were little -genius
Scissors is one of the best things I ever got of MN. I use scissors for sandwiches and lots of other things that world typically be knife jobs. Basically my default is scissors unless proven otherwise.

cutting pizza with scissors only works for wobbly take away pizza.
doesn't work for proper italian style with crispy base

You need new kitchen scissors!

I made a list of all the items that I buy most of the time in my fortnightly big shop(tomato sauce, bread coffee etc) and also store cupboard essentials like stock cubes and spices then laminated it. I go through it when I'm making my list and it's lead to far fewer shop trips for the forgotten pack of stock cubes or cornflakes!(has also saved me money because I always bought more than I went i for!)

The dishwasher cutlery things quicker because if your loading it you have to put them in anyway, makes sense to do it tidily so you aren’t sorting cutlery early morning.

Lisa but in what way are scissors better than a pizza slicer

The dc socks go in delicates bags before being washed and get hung out in pairs on the ikea octopus.

Foil trays for the oven at christmas.

Photos instead of to from labels for small dc at xmas and birthdays.

I buy all the cards for the year at christmas from whistlefish.

Frozen filled rolls. If you have any plain cheese/ham/chicken rolls to make them do them in a big batch, wrap in cling film and freeze. A roll taken out in the morning is defrosted by lunchtime. Advantages - saves time in morning, rolls and meat are really fresh (make them the same day you buy rolls), in warm weather the rolls aren't too warm and keep the things in your lunchbox cold too.

YY to frozen peeled bananas - also good for making muffins. You can freeze home-made muffins and also take them out freezer night before, fresh home made baking on weekdays!

Freeze homemade pizza dough - make the dough but freeze before it proves. Only takes a few hours to defrost and prove. Ditto mozarella chopped and frozen in slices ready to top pizza.

Only real disadvantage is it doesn't work if you also want salad in it!

If youre jobhunting then put all your details into a wordpad document - it doesnt format. Then you can copy paste into any online or word or whatever document.

We weigh our pasta, rice, and potatoes before cooking. So we cook more or less depending on how hungry we are and it avoids waste.

Pop one sock inside the other before they go in the basket and put in the machine like that. Means you can hang them together when they come out and no random odd socks.

Batch freeze rolls with meat and spread. Take out freezer in the morning they defrost by lunch and taste the exact same (even tastier if chucked in microwave for a few seconds).

Give bath v quick wipe while in it, prevents fake tan line I’m so good at leaving...

Save old racks from ovens, cutlery baskets from dishwashers, etc. If they're not compatible with new ones, fine, bin them - but they might come in handy.
Also, I need an extra long drain hose from my dishwasher..... so I tied a piece of string on the end of the old one, put the extension hose on the new one and pulled it back through. I could never have threaded it through otherwise. It's a useful tip even with a standard length hose.

And.... if you have a plethora of chargers for different things, use a label maker and wrap a label around the cable.

I buy powered custard. I didn't realise, I've been buying ready made.

Different duvet sets with extra pillows cases all in intermingling colours.

I wear dh socks, cheap asda... All black.

@LifeAdvice
I agree with having a separate account for bills , in fact I have several one each for bills ,
pets - vets / extra toys
general stuff - food shopping , gen household stuff
and luxarys , clothes towards hoildats.
It stops a lot money worries and if there a emergency I can transfer some / all of it into what ever is the most appropriate account.

@APurpleSquirrel
I do the same , I then use the oil to fry the meat / veg .

If there are several of you in a household wash one person's clothes in one load. Reduces sorting. But only works if they have a pretty decent selection of clothes. Also buy as much school uniform as you can afford. The dc have 6 trousers and 6 polo shirts so everything can be watched at the end of the week in one go.