To think a bottle of washing up liquid should last a year

[Kinsters]

This is dredged up from ages ago but I'm wondering AIBU to think my parents are the odd ones? Is it me that's strange?

I moved into a new place and bought a new bottle of washing up liquid (just normal stuff). My parents came to visit me about 4 months after I'd moved in and in that time I had used about 1/3 of the bottle. They stayed for three weeks and by the end of their visit the bottle was almost empty!

Now it's 10 months later and I'm just getting to the end of the second bottle (ie the replacement for the one my parents went through so quickly). Who is the weird one here?! Are we both at opposite extremes of the washing up liquid scale?!

DataColour I wish we had a dishwasher lol

PickAChew the point is that my parents didn't cook when they were here either. But in those three weeks they used more washing up liquid than I had in four months! I know if I was cooking I would use more.

Not RTFT but a year?! We use a dishwasher for almost everything, and still have a new bottle about every 6 weeks!

@Kinsters the food deliveries sound amazing and so delicious.
The washing up situ, on the other hand is kind of insane 😆 and I wouldn't give it any more headspace.

It’s normal for you to use that amount so isn’t that all you need to know?
I cook a lot and use a dishwasher for everything I can but use a lot more.

MiaowMix this thread has thoroughly scratched the itch and I can rest easy knowing I am the odd one, not my parents.

I don't know why the UK doesn't have something similar like the food delivery I get. I think health and safety probably plays a part - the food just gets left out in a box on my gate. When I was working it would be out there for a couple of hours in tropical weather! Never got sick though.

@Kinsters

WhereverIGoddamnLike as I said above, I live in Asia. It's very normal to get food delivered here. They call it catering rather than takeout as it's home cooked style food and you don't choose what you're getting. Today we had a chicken curry, steamed fish and some spinach type vegetables. I cook rice to go with them.

I'm moving to where you live

I think it depends.

If you wash up after every meal you'll use more than if you just wash all the day's dishes after your dinner.

If you cook everything from scratch you'll use more than if you cook mainly ready meals or frozen things from the freezer.

And of course some people do use far too much. My DSS does this, and then ends up dropping plates because they're so slippery when he's taking the out of the water .. there's no need for it.

Unless you have an anti-bac washing up liquid, the only function of it is to smell nice. Washing your plates with water would have the effect of cleaning them - even cold water, as the heat isn't enough to kill anything, either!

Perhaps you're both odd, they use too much and you too little, and the ideal amount is somewhere in the middle.

Do your parents live in a hard water area, and so are accustomed to needing to use more washing up liquid? It goes a lot further in soft water areas.

Mine lasts for months. I noticed when MIL came to stay she was using tons of the stuff washing up! I also do not use a washing up bowl, it seems a really unhygienic practice, but then I was brought up in Australia and no-one that I knew there used one. I wash up under running water, squirting on a bit of washing up liquid as I go.

Ginfordinner it only costs £65 a month...

LindaEllen you'd need to do an awful lot of scrubbing if you weren't using any soap. Soap gets rid of the grease and grime and helps lift stuck on food.

@Kinsters how do you reheat the food? And how often is it something you don't like?

Do you have very soft water? I live in a very hard water area and get through quite a lot but if I ever go over to someone's house who has a water softener I'm always shocked by the lather!!

Another confirmation from me that Asian people don't use skanky washing up bowls full of stagnant water but wash under a running tap (the correct way).

But forget about the washing up, I want to know more about the affordable daily home-cooked style food delivery - I would love that.

So one delivery a day - do you eat the same for all your meals in a day then?

@Kinsters

afaloren yes, I rinse under the tap. It's honestly very clean. I do think the putting water on stuff when it goes in the sink is essential though, otherwise it's not easy to clean. They don't get washed in that water though. Personally I think washing everything in a big bowl of water is a bit rank. Doesn't the water end up all oily and full of bits?

I think you have more to worry about than dirty water if you are getting meals brought from outside all the time 😱

Nanette Newman is that you?

Mine probably lasts since months, and I do cook everyday.. I live in the UK and also wash the correct way but washing under clean water, bowls/sinks of dirty water are too grim for me 😂

picklemewalnuts depends what it is. Most things just go in the microwave but fried stuff I stick in the oven and egg I do in a pan cause microwave overcooks it. It's rare that I don't like what we've got. My tolerance for spicy food is so bad though! So sometimes if we get a very spicy dish my husband has that and I'll have the other main dish all to myself.

AuntiePushpa it's only for dinner. Breakfast and lunch I do myself. Before I was breastfeeding and eating like an elephant though the box would do for our dinner and then I'd take the leftovers to work the next day for lunch.

Some people just do automatically squirt out a lot more liquid than others. I gave up buying concentrated washing up liquid because I couldn't get it into DH's head that, when using it, he would get the same results by using a fraction of what he normally put in.

And I do use a bowl but soak, wash, rinse. Change water if it gets manky.

this reminds me of my grandmother - she used to save up the fairy bottles and then she would put 1/3 of a new bottle into 2 bottles, to make 3 bottles with 1/3 in each, and then she would top them up with water... she said my grandfather was so wasteful - he would have the bottle used up in no time as he squeezed loads out... (of course he knew what she had done, so he used to use 3 times as much....!!!) Funny to me when I was about 12!!!!

A bottle would never last a year in typical use.

One hardly dares to ask about a bar of soap........

Is this the latest version of mumsnet competitive under eating? Like a pandemic special? I’m loving it. Just what we needed on a dreary lockdown November day.

Your parents aren't odd.

We have a dishwasher for most of our washing up and use approx 2 big bottles or ecover washing up liquid a year for hand washing. There are 4 of us, I cook from scratch a lot, I shove as much as possible in the dishwasher but we have nice glasses, vases, knives and pots which are def hand wash
I would say you are very frugal if that's your main way of washing up.

Mine lasts about a week and a bit with an average bottle. Large bottle might last me about 3 weeks.