If you could share one household tip/life hack, what would it be?

[Dandelion78]

Mine would definitely be that drying clothes in sunlight gets rid of tomato/sauce stains. Am weaning my second child and it's a bloody lifesaver. No more soaking things for hours that still come out with orange marks on them.

What other gems are there that I need to know?

@MrsBobDylan

Don't have dogs, especially don't have three dogs. Or children. Or live with a partner.

Haha yes.

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion would the yellow spray called elbow grease work on white deodorant stains on dark blue shirts ? Have tried so many different things/stain removers on my sons work shirts and I can’t do them on a higher wash than 40 as they fade! Drives me mad! Thank you.

@iminaglasscaseofemotion

Found them thanks. They look great.

@Si1ver omg. This drives me mad. It literally takes soooooo long to ease the bag out without making it split 👍👍👍👍 off to find the drill.

@Shosha1

Everyone has a basket in main room ( we have whicker ones) anything left lying around at night is slung in. Emptied after breakfast each day.

I tried this but no one ever emptied it, just got bigger & bigger basket.

2 linen baskets, one for lights and one for darks. Saves so much time separating laundry.

I put a sock on my hand & use it to wipe the bannisters on my way down the stairs in the morning.

Want to keep your new blue jeans blue and your new black jeans black - or really any coloured jeans their pretty original colour?

When brand new, soak jeans in cold water and about 7.5 ounces (713 grams) (US 1 cup) SALT for about 45 minutes to an hour. Rinse well, then wash and dry as usual.
The colour will last much, much longer.

@AWhistlingWoman it's great stuff. The mint and eucalyptus bathroom cleaner is great too. And if you have amazon prim you can usually get them slightly cheaper than in the shops and delivered to your door.

When I'm having a long phone conversation at home, I go round the house dusting the skirting boards with my sock covered foot while I'm gabbing.

If you need to remove biro from a surface, particularly wood, put a bit of toothpaste on it and rub gently.

Create a household excel document on Googledocs. You can share this with your partner and when your kids are older it can be shared with them too. Create different tabs for different things you want to keep organised.

Events: This is where you add events, school events, extracurricular classes/activities, family visits, play dates, family holidays and activities for half term etc..

Meals: This is where you can keep meal-planning for the week organised.

Bills: This is where you can keep track of everything on a monthly basis along with outstanding balances, when it was paid etc..

House maintenance: This is where you can keep weekly chores and divvy up among the household. This is also where you can keep annual/seasonal list of things to do in the house. For example: Clean gutters, clean fireplace etc..

Wardrobe: This tab keeps track of things your children already have and helps keep track of what you need to shop for.

Christmas list: A running list of items that are on your children’s wish list as well as a list of people you have to shop for.

Baby schedule: If you have a baby, you can keep a list of monthly milestones; feeding schedules etc..

Viakal, viakal, viakal. We live in a hard water area and run an Airbnb and it’s a lifesaver.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

If weighing any kind of messy ingredient, instead of kacking up your scales, put the entire container on them, weight it and remove ingredient until it's down by the required amount

Nah you need digital scales- Put the container on mine and press ‘on’ again and it goes to zero. You can then also add extra ingredients and zero it each time

@Dandelion78

Mine would definitely be that drying clothes in sunlight gets rid of tomato/sauce stains. Am weaning my second child and it's a bloody lifesaver. No more soaking things for hours that still come out with orange marks on them.

What other gems are there that I need to know?

Does it? Wow, thanks. My contribution is that bleach poured on skidmarks in the toilet will either remove or very much lessen them after a couple of hours.

@Chicchicchicchiclana

Instead of a kitchen bin have a standard sized plastic bucket in the cupboard under your sink and line it with small bin liners. We are a family of 4 mostly wfh and having most meals at home. Alongside the recycling and food waste bin we only need to empty this every 3 or 4 days and very rarely fill a small sized outside wheelie every fortnight. Kitchen bins waste floor space and look so ugly. The bucket doubles as the bucket needed for floor mopping (once per week).

Absolutely! I do this. It works so well!

@Luckyelephant1

Don't obsessively meal plan. What if you get to Thursday and don't feel like lasagne or whatever you've decided the week before? Just ensure your cupboards are filled with essentials eg tins, carbs (pasta rice etc) and spices, and top up fresh fruit and veg every week. Have a decent stock of meat in the freezer, take whatever you want out the night before. Voila you can make anything you fancy that night and not have spent hours obsessing over weekly meals. Don't feel like a failure for resorting to beige oven food once in a while. Serve it with a huge salad and it's not that bad.

Invest in a good fridge. It makes SO MUCH difference in not having to throw away food that has gone bad too quickly.

I hate planning meals for each day, it goes back to childhood...cold meat Monday, sausages Tuesday etc etc.
I just have ingredients that can be turned into a variety of meals. My best friend is minced beef- spaghetti bol, lasagne, cottage pie, meatballs. & lots of passata to make tomato sauce & pasta.

Buy cheap box sets of kids' books and keep them in a drawer - give two or three as birthday presents.

Put brush and bobbles and school socks in the glove compartment. If your child is creating and won't cooperate, don't be late - when it's time to go just put your child in the car. They'll be much more docile about doing their hair and putting their socks on at the other end of the journey than in the house.

Have just enough school uniform in the right size, but buy one size up as spares. You can always put them in something a bit big in an emergency, and it's not wasteful as you would have bought it anyway. Eventually.

going back a bit for this one.... if your baby is an escape artist and can get out of her sleeping bag and then out of the cot, and you'd rather she didn't, zip it up the back instead of the front.

@borntobequiet

After hoovering the floors, give your dog a quick once over with the hoover (as long as they're not terrified of it).

My dog loved this and used to follow me about in anticipation while I vacuumed.

@borntobequiet hahaha. That's hilarious 🤣

Mum of boys here! magic sponges get rid of yellowing from under toilet seats. Bleach won't touch it but these sponges do it with just water

@Koyto there should be a MM Nobel
Prize emoji for this (fellow mum of boys)

Ditto to Viakal for limescale - we’re in a hard water area, too.

@SeaTurtles92

To get pet hair up of carpets (hoovers don't always get it up) use a shower squeegee.

If you have ever gotten hair dye on the bathroom floor like vinyl (sorry mum) use vim cleaning powder on it and it gets it off. In fact use vim on most hard surfaces with stains. It works wonders.

Or just buy a decent vacuum, mine gets pet hair up without me having to get on my hands and knees with a squeegee!

@RhubarbFairy and @Koyto I used to use those sponges but found they were expensive and fell apart quite easily. I am so sure that they are basically impregnated with the pink stuff! I just use the pink stuff paste now on my normal cleaning cloth or kitchen roll and it lasts ages.

@Glassesdontsuitme I used to use kitchen roll and Method spray. Worked brilliantly. When I moved I chose textured granite instead 🤣👍

@BalloonSlayer

These threads always make me smile. I always want to add:

• save time in the evening by not making your DCs' packed lunches till the morning. They'll taste better too.

• Save time showering by not cleaning the bloody bath while you're in there.

• declutter and tidy your hall by not leaving a box full of paperwork right by the front door for a whole year

• save time unpacking your shopping by not sorting every item into boxes in the fridge and just bunging it all in anyhow