Your mum/life hacks?

[Emlou07]

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

Please share

Get packs of nice cards from paperchase in the sale and use for birthday, thank you and general notes to people.

Dump bags for the slow cooker are amazing! Batch cook pasta, rice, potatoes etc and freeze so all you need is to reheat. Roast potatoes are brilliant done like this! Portion up left over homemade soups and freeze. These are great to take to work for lunch or for a quick weekend lunch.

Have a present box and fill it with things when on offer or cheap. Yankee candles, kids books, sweets, coloured pens etc for birthday presents. Choose age generic items.

We use IKEA plastic bins to tidy up downstairs. After emptying bin. Each child gets their bin and goes round downstairs putting their things in the bin to take upstairs. Once full they put the stuff away in their room.

DC put their dishes in dishwasher, clothes in linen basket, straighten their own beds, put their clothes away (4 year old needs a bit of help!). Hang their towels up and makes sure their shoes are by the front door for the morning.

Store DC clothes in outfits! In hangers or rolled up in draw. Pants, socks, bottoms, tops. Get the next days clothes out the night before. Works well with school uniforms.

Have enough uniform to last the week. Do all uniform washing at weekends. 2 loads and it's done. Whites and darks/colours. Tumble and hang while warm.

Fold carrier bags into triangles (method on YouTube) and then keep a few in your bag, nappy bag, glove box, etc. Take up hardly any space, no more huge overflowing cupboard of plastic bags and you have got them when you need them. I can fit about 10 into a ziplock sandwich bag which I carry in my trolley when I do my shopping.

I have started doing my laundry washing in a different way and it's really helped.

Now when I wash, I only ever wash in batches of the same types of clothes. School uniform items, underwear and pyjamas, tops, trousers, and then towels and bedsheets.

It has helped enormously with the sorting after they're dry. And no more pot luck that the last wash had much needed items like knickers in it!

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

I have white cotton school shirts to wash- I was them on 60 degrees with a powder to boost whites.
Some parts of the uniform are black. If I chucked them in then the shirts would turn grey and the blacks would fade. I want to wash dark colours on a 40 degree or even a cold wash with a detergent without bleaching agents.
In fact that's across all of my washing.
I wash by colour and fabric type.

The swimming/pyjama thing is just plain weird.

Aren't they embarrassed? Surely it just takes 2 minutes to put their PJs on when they get home?

Buy generic wrapping paper (plain/spotty/stripy) that will work for any occasion, and lots of birthday cards. If you have young children, stock up on birthday presents for their friends when they're on offer.

Weekly whiteboard with all activities on there - every night the children are responsible for packing their bags - I direct them to the whiteboard so they know what clubs they have, whether they need to make a packed lunch, whether it's homework handing in day, etc. In the morning I remind them to check the whiteboard while they eat breakfast. Less nagging, they take responsibility.

I also write the meal plan on the whiteboard so they can see it and stop asking me what's for dinner all the time.

Don't allow screen time until chores are completed, e.g. rooms are tidy and homework is done.

Don't have breakfast until bags are packed and ready to go.

My 3 children are also colour coded - for things like swimming caps, goggles, water bottles, lunch bags, music bags, rucksacks, nametapes, toothbrushes etc. It started by accident but is brilliant. They each have the same consistent colour whenever there’s the opportunity.
After a refurb my utility room now has a wall with a sort of built in section for each child with open shelves and lots of pegs- all school uniform, games and swimming kit, school bags go in their section. They have small baskets for pants, school socks etc. So that washing never has to go upstairs and it’s always ready for the morning. They change in there after breakfast and it saves so much time. Before then I spent every day carrying washing upstairs and every evening going and getting it back out again to get ready for school. My downstairs is bigger than my upstairs so it works for us storage wise too. It is brilliant.
Also big magnetic whiteboard hung in kitchen - regular schedule for each child written in one colour - every Sunday evening I write in another colour the week’s goings on / things to remember / who’s doing which school run. And stick up with magnet any letters / forms so they are to hand.
Snack bag for after school with choice of snacks in - I just have to grab it and they can choose one each day - saves any complaints.

I got fed up of trying to buy shoes for my oldest in shops which don’t measure feet. He’s too big for kids shops. So I bought a plastic shoe size measurer from amazon for about £7 - I can now measure their feet myself before we shop. It means we can buy football boots etc online too. Wish I’d thought of it years ago.
I wish I had taught my children to load the dishwasher though!

I have a notepad hanging on the side of a kitchen cabinet, I draw a line down the middle, left hand side is for shopping list. The right side I write days of the week and put down what I need to take in the morning under each day, so homework, library books, one off trip bits, it's made it much easier as I just tick it off in the morning. I have a family calendar too which is great.

Always cook double the recipe so you can freeze meals.

I have five sets of uniform and I hand them as sets so my dd can grab one in the morning. I also hang my ds clothes as outfits using clippy hangers so I know The kids have enough clothes for the week on a Sunday.

We have 15 minute sand timer for breakfast during the week to help keep us on track.

Haven't rtft so apologies if repeating!

I take photos of all letters from school / screenshots of emails and save them in SCHOOL folder on my phone. Can do same for clubs / hospital appointments etc. It's v handy.

I think in 11 years that's literally my only hack!

@heron98 my DS isn’t embarrassed by his post swimming PJs - they are very cool (to him) space PJs and as I mentioned all the other families have now copied us. He is only 4 though and I wouldn’t force him if he didn’t want to.

It’s so much nicer to shower him and get him into clean pants and PJs and just get out of the horrid hot and noisy changing room (especially as I have a baby with me too!) than to struggle with his school uniform/dirty pants.

It was a revelation when I first did it!

Instead of laundry baskets we use collapsing crates. Each one holds about a load of washing, handy for sorting by colour/temperature etc. Also I can keep one for whites, as we don't wear much white, and wait until we have a full load (whites used to languish at bottom of washing basket forever). When not in use, flatten and pop away on top of a cupboard in utility

Great idea Hoosier

Going to try this!

We do the swimming / pyjamas thing as well and my DC love it. Their lesson is 6.30pm on a Friday so after that they love getting into a onesie and going home for a bit of TV. Can't understand the judging on this one. When your Dc are too old for this they'll definitely let you know!

Mine is to have a shared google calendar with DH that we can both see on our phones. We both work FT and travel and couldn't manage without this.

I love this thread! Expecting my first baby and can’t wait to be super organised like all you experienced mommas.

Hoosier that's good! We use these boxes for storing shoes but I'd never considered them for laundry. Brilliant especially as they collapse so easy to sore 😁

*store

I've forgotten my best one! I have the audible app and listen to books whilst tidying. It makes it much more enjoyable!

Oh Fox I do that with Netflix on my phone. Stick on a boxset I have already watched, like Royle Family, and let it play in background. Doesn't work with new show's where I have to concentrate on the plot 😂

Anything to make a grim job better hoosier!

Washing by person. Use colour catcher sheets one person's load at a time. No sorting.
Ikea blue bags for laundry. Whilst empty each person uses theirs to sweep house for their stuff.

I do that too @FoxSticks makes the time pass way faster.

I line my fridge with sheets of kitchen roll. If anything leaks or spills then the paper soaks up the mess. It's easier to regularly replace the kitchen roll sheets than it is to wash the fridge out.