To ask for your ultimate life hacks/time saving ideas/easiest recipes/money saving tips all in one go.

[shakeituntilyoumakeit]

I’ve been unwell and off work for a money and the combination of getting back on my feet and January and kids and school and washing and ALL OF THE THINGS to be a bit much at the moment and need some ideas on how to make life easier.

I’ve just started making overnight oats for everyone which is very cheap, very quick, vegan, a nice kids activity for them to learn to chop fruit and pick what they want and thought of the time I could have saved over the years. This combined with the fact it’s really healthy and it’s a nice activity to do with the kids made me want to reach out for hive mind collective wisdom.

What am I missing! I’m looking for your smuggest tips!

Cutting up the rubber glove is cool. I also usually get holes in my right glove, so if get two spare left ones, turn the other inside out and it becomes right for dry jobs or gardening..
Another thing which I worked out to do to save cleaning up, not sure if everyone does it, but before roasting chicken, sausages etc I line the baking tray with a couple of layers of cheap supermarket wrapping foil. Then I just roll up all the congealed grease and chuck it in the bin.

Also when my previous oven died I bought my dream self cleaning oven and just wish I owned one earlier (though it does smell when it cleaning mode).

When I roast a chicken I scrape all the fat and brown bits out of the tin and shove them in a big pot with the stripped carcass and some odds and ends of veg to make stock. You are chucking good stuff in the bin Cass. Waste of foil too.

But i don't make stock 😬 btw all the bones skin tissues we chuck in the garden for the wildlife to eat... it's just jellied fat that I get rid of.

As for garlic, though I chop up fresh sometimes, I always have a jar (about 1£) of minced garlic from World food supermarket section, keeps in the fridge forever after opening.

We reuse foil. We can also recycle clean foil in our household recycling bin. We have a box for it in the cupboard so it goes back in there after use to be used again.

What about the actual nourishing value of food after you cook freeze microwave it? It sounds like you save time but lose all the properties along the way.

These threads always make me smile. Behold, 4 completely different, life changing life hacks:

Poster 1: Put a laundry basket in everyone's room. Then you don't have to pick dirty washing up off bedroom floors.

Poster 2: Have different laundry baskets for dark and lights. Then you don't have to sort the washing.

Poster 3: Don't wash anything that's not in the laundry basket. That will teach family members not to leave dirty clothes on the floor and expect it to be washed.

Poster 4: Get one big laundry basket in a place accessible to all. Saves money on buying lots of different laundry hampers and washing only takes seconds to sort.

See also:

Person 1: give up a spare room and fill with two chest freezers (£250 each?). Give up one day of your leisure time a month cooking army sized lasagnes and bolognese etc X shop sell cheap dishes that you will need to buy to freeze if all in. As long as you decide what you want for tea at 6am in the morning, voila home cooked food every day. It will save you pounds!

Person 2: Buy a truckload of spuds and give up a day of leisure time peeling them all and preparing them all. You might need your two chest freezers to freeze them flat (looks at bulging freezer in which anything has to, frankly, take its chances)

Person 3: Congregate in the kitchen chatting to the kids and DP while one of you cooks every night, it's really nice social time.

Person 4: When you want potatoes peel what you need ( takes about 1 minute).

Person 5 (My Mum): Don't bother with a freezer. Ride your bike to work and pop to the shops as you pass every day on the way home. That was you can always have exactly what you fancy for tea and it's completely fresh.

Take a photo of important letters when they come in, then you have them if you lose them. I do this with hospital appointments etc, then put in my calendar when I can.

Op I’ve been off sick and found out that if you have diarrhoea wearing men’s pant are much more “safe” and much more comfortable 😊
They fit snuggly without being tight

Always keep a stock of x3 store cupboard foods in the house, spare bread to part bake at home. Then you can extend the weekly shop to 10 days every week. Or live the last week of the month without shopping, especially if you’ve frozen double up dinners through the month

I only meant cheap supermarket foil which is about 60p a roll, it's really thin and cannot really be re-used, tears very easily.

All the freezer stuff I'm not sure too, I have a colleague at work who got rid of the freezer altogether (now there's only one child, teenager, left at home) and he says he has saved more than 10% of his entire electric bill. They only have an under the cupboard small fridge. Fridges and freezers are expensive to run, because they are on 24/7 and if too icy will get inefficient etc, so by not running an extra freezer you are freeing budget to buy fresh meals with.

I'm also not sure about cooked, frozen then microwaved foods(I'm not against microwaves in general), but surely some nutritional "vitality" would be lost in the process? Surely baked potatoes would lose their crispy skins? Though I think I saw pre-backed potatoes in Iceland...I do love the freezer first of all for chopped frozen veg and frozen fruit and berries, but they are all harvested fresh then quickly frozen, they can be fresher than fresh stuff...no nutritional value lost

To me it makes more sense to cook more soups (last at least two days) and more stir-fries and stuff like basmati rice plus any protein on the side and green salad or microwaved frozen peas etc.

Interesting about frozen rice, brown rice does take forever to cook, and I definitely saw frozen rice for sale, however the other day looked at freezing a Charlie Bingham ready meal, and it said "not suitable for home freezing, rice doesn't like it"...

@BalloonSlayer surely people choose the tips that work for them. We don't need a basket in every room but we have a separate one for things to be washed at a higher temperature and one for whites.

That works for us. No one is suggesting you should follow every single tip, just that there may be other ways of doing things that you hadn't thought of.

I always get a hole on one marigold at a time. I can't believe it's never occurred to me to turn it inside out and use the pair on dry mucky jobs

But Cass agree ... don't chuck all that chickeny loveliness away! If nothing else put all the juices in a pot when cool then into the fridge. Next day scrape the fat off (you can reuse this if within a few days for roasties) and use the jelly as a "stock pot", you can even freeze it!

Another phone one - I tend to work from a pen an paper to-do list however if I'm out and about and think of something I need to add I take a quick picture. For example checking air in tyres. I've set a folder up on my camera role and quickly pop it there. Then on a Sunday when I'm going my plan of the week I check the folder, list the item then delete the pic.

Oh and talking of pictures, notes etc on phones .., be sure to only back up stuff you really need. The carbon footprint of energy servers need for cloud storage is horrific

I love all these tips. I normally read them all but will only implement one that sticks.
My tip is to get those mesh laundry bags and use them for socks, pants and tights. I use one for each and can then easily grab a bag that has pants in and put the pants away without rooting through all the washing. Putting tights in a bag stops them tying themselves in knots too.

Putting tights in a bag stops them tying themselves in knots too.

Great idea ! A wash with tights bras shirts and leggings always ends up a big tangled mess!

Sorry I’m place marking

Cassandrainthenight

Some good points about freezers (and fridges), they should not be run empty or almost empty, if you have space put something in it like paper, or, when I was at college one day a week, the same day the students made bread, I would fill it with bread.

Top tip, reading a list of tips only try the things you think might work, I live alone so I'm not going to put a laundry bin in every room.

One for winter; when car is iced over, fill a ziplock bag/sandwich bag with hot water (tap hot not kettle hot) and wipe over the windscreen-melts the ice instantly and without mess and chemicals. The same bag can be reused again and again.

Top and tail carrots and store in airtight Tupperware in fridge; will literally last weeks and never go bendy

For quick (and portable if need be) school day breakfasts, make a load of cheese/cheese and ham sandwiches, wrap individually and freeze. Take out what you need and store in fridge the night before, put into toaster bags the night before/next morning and breakfast is made with minimal effort.

I’ve also now started buying wraps/thins/English muffins cheap (our local Morrison’s reduces bread items to 6p most days), and I make a big batch of cooked egg/omelette and make breakfast wraps/McMuffins etc and freeze those. Once defrosted overnight you simply turn the oven on, jump in shower or do another job, and they’re warmed through in 10 mins. I also make extra pancake batter and make and freeze extra-it helps to have breakfast options that don’t require milk for those odd days when you’re running low for cereal (although I can’t bear running too low for morning cuppa so always have a 1 or two pint milk carton in the freezer; can be left to defrost overnight, kept for about a month in the fridge. Must be homogenised milk-check the label)

I freeze sandwiches for lunches too; have done for years (also means you can take advantage of reduced short-date bread/cheese/meats). I do the same with cakes for lunch boxes, so in the morning all I do is open drawers in the freezer and take stuff out. It’s defrosted by lunchtime, and there’s no need to ferret around for ice packs.

In the summer, half fill a (reusable) plastic kids drink bottle and freeze. Add fresh water the next morning and it’ll keep their lunch bag cook but will slowly defrost giving them a cold drink on hot days

sibling ... I'll try the hot water bag car thing ... another tip I got here a few months ago was a hot water bottle filled and placed on the dashboard not only melts much of the ice but prevents the inside of the windscreen misting up ... I find that element of a cold car on a frosty day possible worse than the ice.

For some reason though I was paranoid about placing the bottle straight into the dash (no idea why, thought the heat might "damage" the plastic!! Hopefully someone will come along and tell me it's fine) so I put a folded towel underneath. If you use a couple it has the advantage of getting the bottle closer to the windscreen too.

I don’t store my shopping bags in the house. They are all kept in the boot of the car, easier to fetch a few when you’re popped to the supermarket

I keep shopping bags in the car too.

On the subject of mesh laundry bags when my dcs were very small and had tiny socks that got lost easily I tied a mesh bag onto the handle of their laundry basket. Worn socks went straight into it and then the bag went into the wash with no lost socks. I also used "Sock-ons" to keep socks on their little feet during the day.

Going to post to see if it resurrects the thread as I’m enjoying reading all the ideas...

I have single portions of chilli, casseroles, curries etc in the freezer. I can pop a portion in the instant pot with rice & the whole thing is ready in about 15mins. I pressure cook on high for 6 mins with natural release.

Agree mybrain!

I've just bought a huge chunk of cheese, cut in into three smaller portions and froze them.

@mybrainhurtsalot - that sounds interesting! Probably a daft question, but is the rice pre-cooked? Do you use those foil trays for freezing, or plastic tupperware type things?

And does it have to be an Instant Pot? There's quite a few Pressure King cookers on my local Facebook marketplace so I was wondering if it was a decent alternative to an Instant Pot.

I use dried rice and don’t even bother rinsing. I do 1/3 -1/2 cup of rice depending on how greedy I’m feeling plus double the amount of water then pop the frozen block of curry/casserole/chilli/sweet and sour/whatever on top & cook for 6 mins high pressure. I’m sure you could use another brand of pot and experiment with the timings. For freezing leftovers I have Lakeland re-usable stack a boxes - the 200ml (I think) ones are perfect size. Just pop the frozen food out of the box into the pot.

Thanks so much for that. I have the Lakeland site opened in readiness!