To ask for your easy life hacks?

[Polkapjs]

I need easy ways to make life easier and help me get my life in order in all areas

Tonight have have used a garlic press with an UNPEELED love of garlic as recommended by Jamie Oliver. Genius.
Give me yours that don’t involve needing stuff I don’t have but help make stuff a bit easier or cheaper?

Frozen onions all the way here but limes I hadn’t thought of. Will do that forthwith for the gin mentioned up thread...

Put the roll of bun bags into the bin, take first bag into bin attached to roll then when full rip off roll take to wheelie bin and next bin bag ready ! Can't make head nor tail of this!

Don't let your children have free access to all their toys all of the time. 'Cycle' them every couple of weeks to keep them fresh and interesting. This is a lifesaver for times when they're under the weather/at home for school holidays and prone to boredom. Have a storage chest in your room or under-bed drawers that you can keep the things in when they're not in use that week. This means there's no opportunity for the little darlings to get absolutely everything out and leave it all on the floor, and you can quietly slip anything special/fragile/with 15000 parts into it before friends come round to play!

You can also make a 'get better box' (an idea I stole from the 'My Naughty Little Sister' stories) for random crap to end up in. Buy a small storage box (you can get plain decorate your own ones from Hobbycraft) and any tat from Happy meals, party bags, Kinder eggs etc that would otherwise lie around the house for a couple of weeks and then get binned, pop it in the box. Ditto (some) of the gubbins they find outside that they instantly fall in love with, like conkers, stones, feathers small sticks etc. Bring it out when your little one is under the weather. It keeps them occupied and reduces plastic waste.

If you have a cake fall flat, instead of binning it, chop into cubes, freeze, and next time you make a trifle use as a base instead of sponge fingers. (Tastes great when soaked in sherry!!)

You can halve the sugar in most cake/biscuit recipes without affecting the taste, and save yourself some calories.

Throw a handful of spinach into any soup, stew or curry for extra fibre.

Whizz up stale bread in the food processor for breadcrumbs.

To clean bathroom or kitchen plugholes, tip in a couple of teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda and then add vinegar. It will bubble up and give it all a good clean! Then rinse with hot water.

One I got from MN. File all post for the month in one envelope with the month and year written on the front. Fill the envelope for the month with all the letters you need to keep. At the end of the month file the envelope.

Cash back credit cards like Amex. Cash back websites like TopCashback and Quidco. It’s all free money.

Clean the bathroom whilst the kids are in the bath. You have to stay and supervise your anyway.

• A plastic set of drawers like this. Print an A4 page with words like: socks, pants, pjs, pe kit, swimming, gymnastics, school socks and tights, vests’. Sellotape a label on each drawer Put these inside the wardrobe. You can mix and match the big and small ones.

This helps with the confusing jumble drawers can become. DH/p can put away laundry without messing up your system, and people can find their things without stress, or easily see they don’t have the thing.

1. I use the jml dri buddi (I’m not paid, honest). My laundry goes in two piles out of the machine a, things that go in the dryer, b things that hang up. I put the hanger things in the dri buddi and it steam irons and dries them. I got the square one. It’s ugly though.

1. A variation on the sock one. We all need black socks so I went on amazon. There’s one batch with an embroidered design on the side. Those are all mine. There are some with coloured toes, those are dh’s. The ones with patterned soles are ds’s and The plain ones are dd’s.

The blob of polish for tights is genius. I already use a blob to distinguish keys so I should have thought of that by now!

Following

Garlic press? Tesco frozen onions and garlic are the business!

Someone recommended this spray for the mould and stains silicone around the bathroom tiles and bath. It's like a living miracle!

My slow cooker!

Placemarking

After you've washed swim kit/dance/ football kit put it straight back into the bag and hang it back up.
Talcum powder in your beach bag is brilliant for removing sand.
A plastic storage tub meant for holding cereal or dry cat food makes an excellent bin for the car. Line with a bag and kids can lift the flap and post in rubbish.

Whenever you go to the bathroom or have a shower wipe down the surfaces / sink, toilet top, with a wipe or tissue and spray.

Cook extra mash and freeze it for when you're feeling extra lazy. I also freeze portions of curry and rice

'Boxes' of dry lunch items, for school, with disposable bags on the side get the DC to pick one from each, one from fruit, and have sandwiches made up in the fridge. They can pick what they like and don't risk not eating it.

And just my main one not really a hack but just generally cleaning as you go especially While making dinner, while the dinner is piping hot I clean down all surfaces and get all dishes in the dishwasher so I can relax after eating, not up to a huge mess!

If you batch cook and freeze, wrote in the freezer door in white board marker including quantities e.g
Chicken curry 1 2 3 4 5
Then when you take a portion out, wipe off the last number. Tells you instantly what you have in freezer and how many portions.
Same as pp with school uniform, all my gym kit lives in one box so I only have to go to one place to sort gym kit. Also gets washed and tumbled as one load so no sorting needed, just empty gym bag into separate laundry box.
On the laundry vein (I hate doing laundry!) I learned on another thread recently that an IKEA kallax box 30cm X 30cm X 30cm ish) holds 1 load of laundry. I have 4 in my bathroom - dark, light, bright and gym. Put in the correct box when taking clothes off and launch box washer-wards when full.

(apologies for typos in first sentence, my phone is determined to make me sound like that policeman in Allo Allo...)

This chopper Russell Hobbs Desire Mini Chopper 1 L Bowl with 500 ml Food Capacity, 380 W 18558 - Black https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007CLSHI2/ref=cmswwrcppapi_bWszBbFA4F214 from Russel Hobbs is my min life hack, I am veggie so do a lot of dishes involving chopped onion/ garlic/ carrot/ celery/ chilli etc this does it in an instant and just a push of a button. It has a nice sized glass dish which you can chop a decent quantity of stuff in. If i ever broke it I'd be on Amazon prime replacing immediately! Great for making batches of breadcrumbs in too (which I freeze).
We also have a giant stock pot so if we're making chilli or bolognese we make 6-8 servings for us to whack in the freezer and then portion off mini servings for the kids for when they're eating on their own.

I have a few I’ve always stuck by no matter what.

1. buy ramekins in two sizes (one bigger and one smaller). When you cook something “family sized” make sure you freeze leftover portions in the ramekins. That way you have perfect baby and 4 year old size meals, you know they are healthy and it makes blw much easier.
2. take an iPad to bed and charge it up. When your children attempt to get in with you early in the morning hand it over. It gives you an extra hour in bed.
3. all of the toys in our house fit into canvas boxes or buckets. If it doesn’t fit it goes to the charity shop pile.
4. anything to be sold on Facebook or whatever, put into a tub. When it gets too full, you take the first lot of stuff to the charity shop because it clearly hasn’t sold.
5. give smaller children “tasks” by making it a game. “I bet you can’t put all those toys away by the time I’ve loaded the dishwasher.” “If I can hang the washing up before you take x, y and z upstairs I’m going to win and you’ll be a smelly egg”
6. we use “smelly egg” for bedtime etc. “Last one upstairs is a smelly egg.” “Last one to get into bed is a smelly egg” etc

Oh and my son has a thing for “lunchboxes” so I can ensure he eats everything if I put it into a lunchbox for him. Especially if I tell him he’s got “daddy’s lunchbox” “mummy’s lunchbox” “grandads lunchbox etc”

Top tip: marry a man with an obsession for washing and ironingo
Use a drawer divider for knicker drawers
Stuck on hooks inside wardrobe for hanging up bras
Hooks on back of bedroom doors for hanging up handbags
Washable microfibres cloths for cleaning bathroom and kitchen
Feather dusters
Heavy duty bags for supermarket shop kept in car, after emptying shopping leave by front door ready to put back in car.
When buying something new, get rid of something old. Saves cluttering up wardrobe / drawers.
Seperate boxed in fridge for veggie / meat products like no bacon bacon and quorn sausages

@hebemumsnet Once my old cat had gone completely deaf she used to enjoy being hoovered with my little hand held Dyson vaccum cleaner. I did still have cat hair all over my house, but it made brushing the cat much easier (and funnier)

Use a pan lid holder to store clutch bags is one of my fave

My pressie hack is to make a big fold in the wrapping paper of a gift. You can then slide in the birthday card into its own little pocket within the giftwrap.

Absolutely genius tip @tutu112!

I don’t own either clutch bags or a pan lid holder but if you have t sent that to Take A Break, you need to...
Some tips feel too overwhelming for me but I’m already starting the small ones. I love the idea of over door hanger for downstairs loo but wondering what to put in them! Got swim goggles and insect repellent and plasters so far...