Your mum/life hacks?

[Emlou07]

Aibu to want alllllll the 'hacks' for an easy life

Please share

I don't get the excitement over pesto.

The fact remains that you are basically turning a plate of white flour into a meal. It may feel a bit posh but it's a nutritionally unsound plate of food.

I wouldn't want to have several pesto based meals within a short period. It's something that will probably only come round every few months. Hence keeping the leftovers in the freezer.

Freezing bits is really very useful. I only ever use a stick or two of celery at a time, so finely cut up the rest and freeze it. Any time I need a handful to go in bolognaise, soup or stew, I just take a handful from the bag in the freezer.

I know 'leftover wine' always raises eyebrows, but I often have a glass worth leftover and again, it is useful to be able to produce a glass sized amount from the freezer when a recipe calls for some wine and you don't want to open a bottle or have one open already.

Grease proof paper. When cooking anything in a roasting tin, line it with grease proof paper; the food never sticks and the tin doesn't need scrubbing or soaking.

When using a sandwich toaster, pop the sandwich in an envelope of paper and you don't get gunky mess all over the toaster but you still get the nice toasty bread.

DancingHouse, wine can go bitter if left in the botttle. I have phases of not drinking for months so that's where the freezer comes in handy.

Have two identical christmas stockings

1 to hang up and one ready stuffed to swap in at midnight

Thesmallthings you’re my kind of person

My husbands feet are a men’s size ten and I’m a 7.5 in ladies.
We own a load of men’s black sock and no others because matching and pairing socks is the worst. In our bedroom we just have one big draw full of socks! No worries about odd socks and if we’re behind on the washing we can just grab them off the radiator and go.

Fab hacks on here, thank you oh knowledgeable ones :)
Mine are pretty old but....
Bake O Glide (get the cheaper version on amazon but make sure it's brown as the black one is useless) for lining baking trays - nothing sticks and it goes in the dishwasher.
We live in the stix so get loads of flies complete with their Black Dots each summer (the joy). Baby wipes are by far the best at removing the splodges which probably means there's something awful in them I'm wiping nipper's bum with but then that can be pretty grim too sometimes!

And sherry/port for bolognese never red wine - sometimes get bottles of the first two as prezzies but am not keen so rather than waste them the sweetness work well with acid in tomatoes. Red wine for the cook to guzzle instead!

My top Viz tip is "Don't let problems enter your life/ house in the first place."

So buy no clothes that need special care. (I include ironing in this! And pale things apart from necessary uniform.)

Don't have a snacks cupboard. Then your kids have to go out and buy the stuff and half the time mine can't be bothered and have a piece of toast.

Open your windows regularly, wipe away condensation and keep your house (particularly kitchen and bathroom) dry. It costs a bit more in energy costs but it cuts down on repainting costs over the long term ime.

I take photographs of receipts on my phone, thus if I need to return something, I can find the receipt and the phone is portable so that I can just show it in the shop

Do shops accepts the photos of receipts?

Mine was to put sweets and biscuits in the top of the cupboard where I couldn't reach them without a stool - out of sight, out of mind.
Forgot that DP is much taller than me.

I got my dd to bed easy via the bedtime train. About 7 id say whats that noise while making steam train noises that gradually got louder. She'd get so excited and scream its the bedtime train. We'd then conga train up to bed, get a bit stuck on the hill/stairs and make a stop off at the bathroom/ toothbrush stop. Make a little joke about being at the wrong stop (our room) before finally departing at the final stop for a story.

I know not all kids would go for this but we never had trouble getting dd to bed shed even announce the bedtime train on occasion.

Soeakout, tastes good though

stuffing in the microwave.space saver in the oven when your cooking a roast and trying to balance tins on tins!
buy those tubes of garlic puree and when you open it freeze the rest into ice cube trays.so much easier to have on hand and no horrible tube or it going off.
buy big packs of cosco chicken thighs and portion off in 2 thigh bags for easy usage.same with a big side of salmon
giving the kids their own piggy bank helps them want to save or do chores for pennies.
having those whicker baskets for ironing piles.they got more into wanting there pile either tidied or ironed.and if neither at least thing were easier to find and ended the screaming match of "I'm late where is my""youve knicked my"
kilner jars for pasta and rice.
always begin with making chores something we all help with.dont begin with a reward system.of course it might get to that but alaws strt things like that at the base line and work upwards to having to give insensitves. this helped our dish washer just be something we all did.and putting the washing out something you did when asked and not something you did for rewards or to get something.

Colour catcher sheets for the washing machine so you can bung all the washing in together and not faff about sorting.

Buy a bunch of little plastic pots and scoop a few spoons into them of your dinner from the pan when you're having bolognaise, stew, curry, chilli etc for the freezer so you always have an easy meal to hand for the toddler.

Buy wicker baskets/ canvas bags for the corner of each room so you can bung in the bits you need to take elsewhere in the house so they don't litter the floor.

This thread is brilliant. Stealing loads. Thank you all!!

greenrut- how does that work if you want to wash by colour?

I'm a sloth when it comes to washing by colour and only buy my dcs the blue version of their school shirts so I don't have to worry about white fading!

Following!

Stealing the laundry baskets idea but not for laundry, but for weekly events like swimmers by lessons, sport groups etc. This will be better than keeping in bags like info now!

@Lostmyemailaddress- you are my new hero! Would love to see some pics of your ideas :)

@catspants will sort some soon for you in middl3 of homework and shower time :)

Biggest time and money saver has been online food shopping, takes less than 10minutes to do the weekly shop which is delivered straight into the kitchen by a friendly driver which also saves the heavy lifting of bottles etc. Saves all the temptation to buy all the goodies on offer in the supermarket, plus saves petrol and the risk of prangs in the car park. One of the best thing we've done.

Also remember to check the price comparison website after every delivery, if the order is not more than 10% less than other supermarkets vouchers are given towards the next shop, have had vouchers most weeks up to £7.

Have mostly black underwear & socks. So that I'm not wearing the same ones all the time, I put them in to the drawer on the right hand side and take them out on the left.

Have scanned all my store cards and even bank cards and driving license onto an app such as wallet or Stocard, which saves carrying all the cards in my purse, especially those that are rarely used.

Have a concertina file for receipts, guarantees etc in alphabetical order, makes it easier to locate them.

Kids help with the housework to earn extra pocket money, cheaper than a cleaner and good life skills for them.

Iron cotton clothes like shirts while still damp, saves on drying & the need to use a steam iron.

I can't make up my mind about this thread. Yes, there are some useful ideas, but my overall impression is that it's the women doing all the work .....

Look at your keyring and see if you actually need to carry all those keys around with you - I had several that I had no idea what they were for. (One was possibly the back door to our last house!)Trimmed it down from a big bunch to just 3 keys, much lighter!