To ask: please share your life hacks?

[IDoDaChaCha]

Are there things you do that make your life easier? I'm a single mum hoping to have another baby (both with donor sperm) and I want to learn how best to manage time, which isn't finite!

Share your life hacks with me?

I like stuff like: running bleach around the rim of the bath and taps and same with the sink, going off to do something else and rinsing it all later.

I need to pick your collective brains!

all clothes go straight in the washing machine every morning or as soon as dirty (except whites) rather than in laundry bins. Saves washing building up.

advance buy Xmas presents and kids birthday presents / gift wrap / cheap cards so you're ready to go rather than make a special trip. Generic presents for kids parties (rather than individually chosen) usually fine!

Declutter as much unnecessary stuff as poss. I cannot stress this enough with regards to keeping clean / easy control of the important stuff in a minimum of time. (that said I think it's also useful to buy two or three of important little things you think you might run out of e.g sellotape, lightbulbs, calpol etc to save a special shopping trip!)

Organise, organise, organise! Organise, clean & declutter one small rotating area a day e.g. one cupboard, or drawer - keep it small and often rather than getting overwhelm - little and often means it gets sorted and stays that way and becomes a habit...

Deal with all paperwork as soon as it arrives. Take photos, or scan things like party invites and ensure you have them backed up and filed somewhere in the cloud. Then dispose of the originals to avoid paper clutter mess and losing them...

Overnight oats is a healthy easy breakfast for kids.

Fix things as soon as they break or go wrong rather than letting lots of little tasks build up.

Get washed / dressed as soon as you get up - makes the day start quicker and more efficiently.

Buy next year's school uniform while buying the current year's to avoid having to get it again next year (and also you can use it as a slightly larger occasional spare if you run out of clean uniform).

Clean the bathroom while the kids are in the bath...

also you must must must get a decent cordless vacuum cleaner, and a tumble dryer! both life changing in terms of the time savings and convenience, and well worth the money vs time saved. (i have found my tumble not too expensive to run either).

Loving this thread! Can I just ask, what do you all use to freeze? Freezer bags? Or is there something else I could use?

Oh other good tip from mn, when freezing mince (but works for other stuff too) don't freeze it in a ball or a black or a big splodge. If it's in a freezer bag, don't tie the ends and use a rolling pin to flatten it out. Then seal bag and freeze. It then defrosts bin half the time. Ideal if you are like me and always forgetting to get something out the freezer for next day.

ikea do some good freezer / food storage boxes that are pyrex glass with a plastic clip on lid, they can be put straight in the oven e.g. if you freeze lasagne etc it can go straight in (better than the aluminium trays as reusable and safer as they leach aluminium into the food if its acidic).

In Winter, take wet washing in bulk to the launderette to dry.

Amazon prime.

I have things like cat food, toilet rolls, washing powder etc on repeat order. I just worked out how often and how many and they automatically get delivered every two/three months. Saves running out and carrying heavy/bulky items.

Also find a local place that sells stuff just going out of date or is out of date - normally things like tins of beans, soups, crisps etc which are sold at a massively reduced cost and are absolutely fine. Saves us a fortune.

Chalkboard in the kitchen. As soon as you notice you are down to one or two of an item, write it on the board for shopping. When you go shopping just take a photo of the board on your phone - saves actually having to write out the list again.

Check out your local butchers - ours does a loyalty scheme and also do deals on bulk buying so if you buy say 10lb of sausages you get them at a cheaper price per lb than buying just 2lb. I shop once a month, fill the freezer and every time I shop I get a stamp on the card which can be redeemed for a 'breakfast bag' - eggs, bacon and sausages.

Make your own pasta sauce using passata, onions and herbs. Really quick and easy to make and so much cheaper than buying jars. Add a teaspoon of sugar to remove the tartness of the passata and oregano, thyme and garlic for flavouring. Total cost is about 40p instead of over £1.

Hooks and pegs for everything. For keys, bags, coats - have a bag for each of your dc's activities. So easy to just grab the bag in question than to run around the housing looking for 'stuff'. DD2 has two swimming bags, martial arts bag and a kayaking bag. All hung up in the cupboard along with dp's lifeguard stuff. We have designated hooks each for jackets/coats and a shoe rack in the porch.

Storage boxes for under beds - anything not in regular use can go under but even things like clean bedding/towels can be stored underneath a bed.

All bedding goes into one pillow case. So duvet cover, sheet, other pillow cases all get folded up and put in so you don't have to hunt for matching things. Just a box/drawer full of pillow cases with the rest inside.

Oh forgot this one.

When you have cooked potatoes, rice or pasta then fill the pan immediately with cold water and then eat. When you go back the pot should just wipe clean.

Decide on a 'colour scheme' for each person clothes wise. That way everything goes with everything and easy to know what's who's in the laundry cycle.

Hardcore

My best tip: Babies seldom need baths (every night is pure madness, imo).

Alternative to the "flat freezing" of soft foods as per pp:

Use a marg/takeaway/whatever tub and put your to-be frozen freezer bag in it, making sure it fills out the tub shape. Freeze. Remove from tub. Repeat as needed and you end up with neat little stackable briquettes.

luncharmstrong Keep a house key on your car key

Noooo! Terrible security risk and not to mention complete ballache when you lose it - you've lost both!

Instead make your house and car keyrings feel/sound obviously different, so you can tell them by touch or rattle.

@specialsubject Even low energy bulbs get hot and in a confined space like an airing cupboard it easily gets warm enough to dry clothes including towels and sheets. Prob goes without saying but clothes have to be spread out and not piled up.
I don’t have the luxury of constant hot pipes & hot water, I wish.

Meant to say - they don’t have to be low energy bulbs - ordinary ones would do just as well.

My "life hack" is to just get on with stuff without making some big deal about calling pre-prepared food a "life hack".

Along the lines of buying uniform for the next year:

Buy two houses at once. One just big enough for you, DH, DCs when they're little and a much bigger one for when the DCs need their own swimming pool, pony paddock, parking spaces.

When DCs leave home you'll be much better off selling the bigger house and moving back to the smaller one. Sorted.

I agree never go from room to room or up/down stairs empty handed.

Soak pots dishes etc which have burnt on stuff or egg with a dishwasher tablet overnight and it just rinses off in the morning. Even bad Sunday roast tins (maybe 2 tabs). Also good for mildly blocked drains.

Invert all wipes - baby, work surface, face as then the seal can't pop up and dry them out.

I like to cook fresh food from scratch and to freeze but frozen onions and frozen mash have been recent revelations. Check the ingredients - the onions are just chopped onions and the mash is potato butter and milk. It's obviously not the cheapest thing to do but they're both a Godsend for throwing together a meal.

Colour catchers in laundry are amazing - wish I'd invented them! No more colours running into paler ones.

Baking soda and distilled vinegar for loads of things!

Sprinkle baking soda on pee and vomit stains (after cleaning), let sit overnight, hoover up next day. Miraculous.
I also do this on the carpets and sofa just to freshen things up a bit (a lot actually).
Unclog kitchen drains with a baking soda and vinegar mix.
Put distilled vinegar in the dishwasher rinse cycle (same with washing machine if you don't like fabric conditioner).

Do a monthly or quarterly empty hot cycle with a bit of bleach or vinegar in the detergent compartment of the washing machine, just to give it a good clean. I could go on with the wonders of distilled vinegar!

Vodka is great for polishing up chrome (in the bathroom especially).

Oh and another great one... crumble up a bit of tin foil into a small ball and use to rub away the rusty spots on a bike frame/handle bars. Works a treat!

My MIL (who had six kids in eight years) told me not to bother trying to keep track of which socks and underwear belong to whom and deliver them to separate drawers. She put everything in a big box and let the kids hunt each morning for something which fit.

I have a big age gap between my two kids, so I have only recently implemented this with socks now my younger child is 11. I share socks with the kids also. And hats and gloves. It means we get by with fewer items too. It's very rare that all three of us want a sun hat at the same time, so we only own one between us.

Find a DP that'll do it all for you so you can go to bed nice and early

Download the Simplenote app on all your devices. Use it to store things like shopping lists, sizes, clothes to replace, measurements for furniture - so when you're out, you can check to see what you need, and all the info is there, so you don't have to make lots of separate trips.
I also use it to note down things like films and books that friends recommend, so when you are stuck in by yourself you've got something to do.
So everything I need is available on every device - it saves frustration because there's no more paper lists to lose!

Replace courgette with any other vegetable, carp with any other fish and turkey with any other bird for a much nicer meal.

Buy a calendar with big squares so you can write all relevant information right on it: "2pm Kid1 to GP, ask about DPT jab" or "2:30 School play TAKE SWORD."

In the case of appointments, write the phone number there too in case you need to change the appointment - saves looking it up again. If it's somewhere you haven't been before, write the address on the calendar so you don't have to save bits of paper such as party invitations.

Whenever something significant happens and you may later need to know the date when it happened, write it on the calendar. Save calendars for a couple of years. E.g. 27 April car crash, 14 Jan Billy to A&E.

When someone is supposed to do something for you, choose a date and put a note on the calendar to follow up if needed, e.g. "Chase council for amended council tax bill", "check for credit card refund".

One of my big ones is that I schedule a deep clean of the house every 6 months or so - I earmark a day and that day is for the houseclean only. One is usually late June and the other late November and because they are scheduled - in the diary, on the calender etc - I am less likely to put them off as it is an "event" just like a dentist appointment or a party invite rather than a vague idea that the house needs a good deep clean "sometime soon".

I live in a 2 up, 2 down Victorian terrace so it is totally doable in a day, but it does take the entire day - from top to bottom, everything gets pulled out, scrubbed and put back in it's home. Having the whole house in it's place, having a shower, putting on clean PJs and getting into fresh sheets that evening is the best feeling ever ad makes it all worth it.

I also use it as a time to purge DD9s stuff (I make her help me so she is involved in the decisions) as her birthday is in July so having a clear out in late June (and another pre-Christmas) are the perfect times to get her to throw out/donate toys that are broken/no longer played with as she has the promise of new stuff to replace them with also it means my house looks less like a toy shop than it would without the clear out as my DD is a total toy hoarder

Hardcore

Haha! Yea maybe but I'm a lone parent without any support and at one point was working 12 hour days with a 6 year old! Still makes life much easier.

Uses for baby powder:

Dry shampoo
Clearing up greasy messes on any surface
Anti chafing product
Making vomit easier to clean from carpet (and deodorises)
Removing sand at beach
Shoe deodoriser
Untangling jewellery and hair ties
Freshen up drawers
Freshen up suitcases

Baby wipes do loads too (Inc getting crayon and pencil off walls )

As a skint student Lp I bought dds clothes 'out of season' in sales for the age she'd be by that season eg winter coats at beginning of summer, swimsuits at beginning of winter. I once got her a winter coat out of MOTHERCARE for £2.50 that lasted her 2 years!