Working mumsnetters, what timesaving things have saved your sanity?

[ToucheEsplat]

Off the back of another thread I had about struggling with having no free time since I went back to work full time. What time-savers have saved your sanity? I'm looking into getting a cleaner so that I don't spend my weekends scrubbing but they're quite expensive where we live.

Being organised with food saves loads of time. Tesco delivery once a week. We have a rolling menu plan that’s easy to cook. Always have leftovers on a Monday night. Prepare as much as you can at the weekend. For example, this morning I made lasagne that will do for tonight & one other night. Whilst the oven was on I cooked sausages ready for another night and a cheese and onion pie for lunches. I also made a pasta sauce to freeze.
We follow a rough pattern most weeks:
pizza friday
veggie meal Saturday
Sunday roastish stuff
leftovers
Something & rice
Something & potatoes
Pasta
It takes the thinking out of it.

Keeping the house tidy means that cleaning is easy to slot in as you don’t have to spend hours putting stuff away first. I do the bathrooms quickly before each shower.

Laundry is one load washed and one load put away each day. Keeping it is my least fave job of anything, so if I let it pile up, the dread sets in and it turns into a mountain.

Lunches are made the night before. Every night we do a kitchen clean and sweep.

I find putting in bits of effort here and there helps with not having it pile up. I hate losing the weekends to housework, so that motivates me to keep on top of it.

Some weeks, of course, it all goes to shit, the place is a tip and we eat oven chips more often than we should!

Meal plan. It is tedious planning, but in the long run it does save both time and money. I have menus on a four week rotation split into each season based on what we all like.

A slow cooker is a life saver.

Batch cook and have a few nice ready meals in the freezer.

Have 5 sets of school uniform and 1 spare set for each child.

I make a batch of sandwiches for the children's packed lunches on a Sunday and freeze. Take out night before or morning and are defrosted for lunch. Add salad in a container, as you cannot freeze salad.

Clean as you go Less to do at weekend.

Laundry one load on as soon as you get up. Hang up to dry or tumble dry as soon as you or partner get home.

Have a drawer with assorted birthday cards, stamps, gift vouchers, sellotape, batteries of various sizes, pens, spare hair bobbles/slides, mini hairbrush, envelopes and £30 made up of £1 or £2 coins. This has saved my arse many times when the children have needed money for a cake sale, non uniform day etc. Also when I have forgotten a birthday!

Saturdays in this house for food are treat days. This is when the children can choose what they want to eat within reason. Bakery treats for breakfast/brunch, Mcdonalds or a take away for dinner. Saves my sanity.

Have a dedicated work bag with all the stuff you need in it for the working day. Keep it stocked and check monthly so you are ready to go in the morning and don't have to faff around on a work morning. Keep it in one place. Mine is by front door.

Time yourself getting ready in the morning if you have a tight deadline to be out of the house. I allow 30 mins for shower, teeth, dressing and breakfast. This does not include getting children washed, dressed and out.

Cleaner
Enough uniform for a week. So no washing.
Organise lunches/snacks day before.
Think and plan 5 days of food. Write on fridge so shared responsibility!!
Kids tidy before bed

Do you have a DH/DP?
DH and I have split the child admin so we only have to think about our "half" (DH has school/nursery...I have drs/dentist/haircuts/out growing clothes and getting new ones)

Definitely have lots of sets of school uniform!
Make DC have school dinners so no packed lunches to do.

I could never get on with meal planning so tend to rely on things that are quick to cook (lots of pasta and egg based meals)

I’d say about 80% of my shopping is done online and delivered. Another 15% is click and collect. It’s only the extremely rare item I will actually enter a store and buy anymore.

We have a cleaner. DH finally agreed to some
Help with the garden though he won’t outsource it all.

I keep each person’s laundry separate to minimize sorting. Also if we get behind worst case scenario they have a basket of clean but unfolded clothing.

Run the dishwasher every night because if you don’t the next night it won’t all fit and you will be playing catch-up for days.

Shared calendar that syncs to everyone’s phones. If your child’s school offers an online calendar feed make sure you are using it. Same for you children’s activities. Those online feeds are a lifesaver.

Bullet journal with tasks for the week and important notes. It helps me to write it down instead of trying to keep all the details in my brain. Paper also seems to work better than my phone. I keep this simple. Don’t get sucked into the pretty planners if you are doing this for time savings. At most indulge in a journal with quality paper and a set of multi-colored pens. Really all you need is a small notebook and a ballpoint.

Also, I bought enough lunch containers for 5 days. I pack all the shelf-stable bits on Sunday. Then I just have to add a sandwich and a piece of fruit on the day and pop in the lunch bag. I dedicate an entire kitchen cabinet to this, but it is worth it.

I’ve given up cleaning, don’t iron, live off fish fingers, oven chips, and chaos

^

We live together

We resisted having a tumble dryer until I went back to work full time. I am sorry to say it has made such a difference to the time I spend moving washing around. I generally try to stuck to drying towels and bedding in it but I do do the odd other load as well.

Get a cleaner once a week ASAP, everyone I know wonders why the fuck they didn’t do it earlier. Make sure they can iron. And get them to change the beds.

Streamline and organise all your systems as much as posss. Shared calenders, admin jobs clearly divided. Mini cleaning jobs each day divided. Automated shopping list. This takes time - experiment.

Cheats like frozen chopped onion, grated cheese, precut butternut squash.

Drop your standards a bit.

Mix of batch cooking at weekends, super quick meals and freezer meals - cook family tray things are great and quite cheap. Picnic meals at weekends. Cooking every night is really knackering. Some kind of rough 3-4 week rotation so you can automate shopping lists.

Routine times to do laundry, prep lunches etc. Experiment with what suits you but habit makes everything easier.

Weekday breakfasts - Porridge in the microwave, mix it the night before in one or two bowls. Bircher made up for the week in summer. Lunches - if you have to send pack lunches have a simple rotation eg week of sandwiches, week of half pasta/half rice salad, week of soup and roll.

Laundry - coloured and whites separated at source. A regular routine.

Carve out time off. It’s the secret of success.

Oh - and if you don’t have one - dishwasher

We don't really have the budget to outsource things unfortunately so it's just the little things here like:

• Dishwasher. I can't believe some people don't have one!
• We just got a car recently as couldn't afford one before, that has saved time travelling to/from leisure things on the weekend and saved DH time travelling to/from work.
• Putting laundry on the night before on a timer so it starts the next morning. I WFH so then I can put it out on the line/radiators when it's done.
• Some limited meal planning.
• Online grocery shopping.
• Packing bags for work/nursery the night before and having all outfits layed out ready the night before too. Oh and same with packed lunches.
• Doing the bare minimum of domestic work...!

It's a bit of a moral black hole, but Amazon subscribe and save for those annoying things you forget and would have to make a special trip for. So for us loo/kitchen roll, washing stuff/dishwasher tabs, kids shampoo, toothpaste, sun cream, dog poo bags, bin liners and probably a few other things. Also ridiculously precious dog food on subscription from a pet supplier. Means I never have to dash out just for those things - you do need some space to store them though.

I justify the amazon spend by the fact I wouldn't be buying any of the above from local independents anyhow, and try and use local gift/book /homeware shops for nice things instead.

I agree with tons here. An extra that is probably obvious to others.

Keep kit in bags rather than away in drawers. There's a row of hooks over the DC's wardrobe doors with bags on. The bags contain gym kit, indoor pe kit, out four pe kit, swimming kit, Cubs uniform etc. They get washed and put straight in the bag ready to grab on the day.

I wear a lot of smart dresses for work and they're awful to iron. So now I just iron my sons clothes and drop off all the annoying dresses to be ironed for me.

I drop them off when I click and collect my Tesco shopping then collect the next day, it's worth every penny!

Because I have quite a few I can get away with taking them every other week too which is nice

I'd also suggest making your DC responsible for age appropriate tasks.
So my DC have always packed their own bags for school. We started off that they'd pack and I'd check but by about Year 2 I'd stopped checking. They have to get uniform out the night before and tell me if they don't have anything. They got their own breakfast and made own packed lunches once they were old enough. The morning is hectic enough, don't feel you have to be the one doing everything.

I have drawstring bags in the hall cupboard for clubs, so Beavers uniform, Stagecoach uniform etc. So as long as I wash it in time, it's there when it needs to be.

Cleaner (although you do have to tidy up)

DH does most of the morning school runs, so he is responsible for ironing the school uniform and getting dc dressed etc. I do the pack lunches and brush their hair. No-one gets involved in someone else's job, there's a system.

If I'm cooking properly (ie not beige oven food) then I always cook enough for leftovers. Life is too short to put in loads of effort for just one meal!