Tell me at one or two small thing you've done to make your life easier

[listsandbudgets]

I've done 2 this year

1. I've unsubscribed / marked as spam from nearly all my mailing lists. Now my inbox is an oasis of calm and I don't spend what feels like hours every week wading through emails I don't want My spam file is brimming over!
2. I found a sharpie and (once I was sure they were the right way round!) labelled my double fitted sheets with side and top - wish I'd done this years ago not having to shuffle them about trying to work out which way up they go

Only downsides this is sometimes you have to remove them from the cover to be scanned, which is a ball ache

Well it’s not exactly small, but boading the loft out which triggered the mother of all clear outs has been life changing. You wouldn’t believe the amount of stuff we’ve got rid of. 18 bags to the charity shop, six tip runs, over £800 and counting made on eBay. Everything’s that’s left has been shifted up there now and we just have so much space. Wish we’d done it years ago.

Keeping our shopping list on Alexa. So much easier to shout "Alexa, add fairy liquid" when up to elbows in washing up!

Ha! Same here! Need to do this! Got loads in my attic, loads at DM’s attic. And my DB has loads stored in DM’s attic too..

I bought some front-opening deep A4 photo frames which hold 50-150 kids' drawings. It's a really nice way of keeping their art without being overwhelmed by it.

I am paperless wherever possible and have set up a load of email rules in Gmail to sweep regular bills etc into folders, but to keep them unread. I then check unread emails periodically to make sure I'm paying the milkman etc.

I have two small runner's rucksacks, with the bladder removed. One's for my work and course and contains a spare laptop charger, phone charger, pencil case, slim notebook, tissues, antibac (not a massive user of it but you never know), sanpro and paracetamol/ibuprofen. All I have to do when I leave for work or uni is put my laptop and a water bottle/coffee cup in there. Phone is in a wallet with my cards and cash (appreciate some people might be anxious about risk but it's better for me than having to try and remember different wallets).

The other bag is for my 6 year old and contains: 1 change of clothes including 2 pairs of undies and socks, wet wipes, a light coat for her that rolls up neatly, tissues, dog poo type bags (for dirty pants or other unmentionables), Calpol sachets, her water bottle, phone charger, any snacks, antibac, colouring pencils and activity books/drawing paper. In the winter I add spare hat and gloves. I also have a pencil sharpener in there it's not very good.

I bought some Tiles - a credit card one for my wallet, a tag for my keys and a round one which I stuck on the Amazon Firestick as we keep losing it. I really like being able to phone my keys and remote! (I don't use the wallet one now as my phone is in there.)

I also got the child a really good pencil sharpener for home - a heavy-duty stand-up rotary one. No more blisters!

A bin for recycling in the bathroom so the empty shampoo bottles don’t sit on the edge of the bath for days waiting for someone to rinse them out and take them downstairs.

A cordless vacuum upstairs so I can quickly vacuum whilst DS is faffing about in the bath.

Buy enough school uniform that nothing needs washing during the week. It’s all washed, steamed and hung in day order on Sunday nights, including things like PE kit and swimming bag.

We have a template checklist that we use for non clothing holiday packing-
Passport - Bruce
Nosh
Mobile- Bruce
Nosh etc
includes All devices, and their associated charging cables,(tablets,, smart watches etc)
Plus chargers for electric toothbrush and razor etc
Overseas adaptors

We tick them off as we pack and cross them off when packing to return

If I have leftover lemons, I cut them in small chunks and freeze them separately. Need an ice cube to chill your G and T? Take a frozen lemon chunk out of the freezer and drop it in your glass.

5ltr bottles of hand lotion, shampoo, conditioner and hand soap. Plus bars of soap - all from faith in nature.

hair dresser then comes to your house e and cuts everyone’s hair that want it, saving money and three hours at the hairdresser for highlights.

robot hoover and cleaner

marie kondo and have a small house.

kids help clear up after meals - and tidy the living room.

Laundry system- three dirty laundry baskets, a Shiela maid and dehumidifier and everyone has a clean laundry basket.

listen to radio 3. Feel clever and only get small amounts of news.

use transparent toiletries bags for storing medicines. Plus have spare of everything required on holiday like toothpastes and shampoos etc so just take with up.

ditto all spare Charging sets

huge whiteboard in kitchen that all info goes on. Weekly view and monthly view.

No social media. Cept Mumsnet

buy plaincolours then everything matches !

have places for everything then quick to tidy up.

give stuff to charity shops

invest time and love into your relationship and have strong boundaries. Only do what you want to!

I'm riddled with Rheumatoid and Osteo arthritis all over me and it breaks my back picking up our cat food bowl every morning and putting it down every night so I went to a local independent pet shop and bought a Height Adjustable Double Diner Deluxe Raised Cat Feeder. It cost me a whopping £26.99 but I've adjusted the height of the 2 stainless steel bowls so our cat can feed from them but also I don't have to bend down so far to pick them up or put them down!

I moved house and completely decluttered
Reminds me of our last move, we made so many trips to the tip before the move, very pleased with our decluttering, we then had to quickly find the tip, recycling centre, after the move, don't know where all the new tip stuff came from!

Threads like this always make me smile. We used to have a piece of furniture with 4 drawers where all the domestic junk was kept. OH got so angry when he could immediately find some thing that he decided that he needed to organise the drawers, he brought home from work a load of indexing cards and the drawers were organised into back/front and left/right, 4 sections per drawer so 16 cards for the 4 drawers. When he needed to find something days later he was crowing about how his new system would make life so much easier, except he couldn't find the cards! No, I hadn't hidden, chucked, eaten the cards and they were never found.

Buying chopped, frozen onions and garlic.

Bulk buying scissors and glue sticks.

Changing £40 into £1 coins at the bank for school cake sales, home clothes days, Aldi trollies etc. Rather than rummaging through drawers and tins looking for a bloody pound coin.

I have so much 'loose change' stress in the mornings too. Like, nearly everything is contactless, and I never have any! So having a 'float' is a good idea.

Futility room

^

Oh my life 😂

That’s interesting.
I hadn’t considered that sometimes journalling can feed into anxiety and overthinking.

M&S frozen disks of garlic butter. Frozen chopped onions, frozen chopped peppers. Bottled passata.
The base of soooooo many quick teas.

Deleted social media.

Online food shopping.

I haven't managed it but I strongly feel losing weight would make my life so much easier. No morning stress and trying on numerous outfits before I feel happy with what I'm wearing. Shopping may actually become enjoyable not a necessity that I begrudge because it costs money and I never like anything I buy.

I also find that when I'm thinner I don't have to make as much effort with hair and make up as naturally I just look and feel better.

I wish I could manage to drop those lbs.

I have a string cotton bag hung up in the Coats cupboard with my bobble hat, scarf and gloves. Mine is pink and DH is green.

when we go to stay with our relatives who have a similar cupboard I take the bags and then our stuff is always stored out of the way and we’ve never left anything behind since.

Putting the kids NHS numbers into my phone under their names so that I have them handy when filling out the endless permission forms.

Also used to have a stack of envelopes and a pad of Basildon bond to write excuse letters to school, thankfully past that now, but they were almost the only letters I ever wrote and I could never find paper and an envelope when I needed one.

Thank you to whoever mentioned whistlefish. just ordered cards to cover the whole year, no more last minute dash to the corner shop and paying through the nose.

I have a hook in my bedroom ceiling from which I hang my jumper when i take it off at night. It stays there airing for 24 hours then I put it in the wardrobe. Saves washing and prolongs life of jumpers.

(obviously it’s not always the same jumper and I wash jumpers after 3 or 4 wears. This only works now I don’t have sticky little children who made all my clothes dirty every live long day)

1. Decluttered house including loft and garage after moving and realising we don’t need half of it.
2. Stopped buying stuff.

Don't understand the issue over the way round duvets go?

Arouund here the car park machines are often broken so won't take cards and they don't use parking apps. So basically you need cash. I reasoned that car parks were the only place I ever really HAVE to have cash, so any cash I get given I put in a hiding place in my car. That way I've always got money to pay for parking (and the one time our local petrol station card reader was broken I had enough to put in enough diesel to get me to the next petrol station).