Let's start a thread of just random advise / hacks

[washingmachineslivelongerwithcalgon]

No specific topic, just great advise you'd give.

Keep it simple.
(Apologies, I didn't know which other category to put this under that would gain traction)

I'll go first:

• don't sweat the petty stuff, & don't pet the sweaty stuff.
• if you can't open a food jar, pierce the top to get the air out and it opens right up!
• drizzle a tablespoon of marmite into the cooking fat before you roast your potatoes (and drizzle some over the spuds)
• if you don't have egg cups, use shot glasses
• hair spray gets most things out of carpets. (Learnt this when staying at a boyfriends house as a teen and dropped lipstick. Blind panic and hairspray saved me!) used it ever since, in emergency situations.

Still harbour feelings for your ex?

Leave the house looking bloody awful and it's guaranteed you will bump into him. With his new bird on his arm, dressed to the nines.

Even if you're not very good at cooking, learn to cook a couple of things that can feed a group of people and be able to bake one type of cake fairly reliably...because people remember those things and you don't have to do as much of the washing up. Nobody gives a shit about the person doing the washing up. If it's a weekend away, offer to be one of the cooks on the first night then a) you've done a chunk of your share of the work at the start and b) nobody else can use "your" dish that you can confidently make on the first night leaving you scrabbling to come up with an idea.

As an aside- if you see a nice looking chap quietly getting on with the clearing up and washing up- rather than expecting a big prize for doing it or holding forth over a glass of port whilst women clear up around him- then you should probably marry him.

Toothpaste gets washable paint off the bath (because washable paint is not all that washable)

Leave harvest men, the spindly long legged light brown spiders alone as they prefer to stay up high most of the time and they kill proper big spiders.

I didn't believe this at first but overcame my fear of them knowing that kill proper spiders.

When buying a box dye in a shop, close your eyes and randomly select a colour as they never come out like the colour on the box that you spend four hours in the aisle choosing and then a week of crying because it looks nothing like the colour you chose and is either black or ginger. Or a gingery black.

By selecting a random colour your hair may turn out ok.

If you lose things like keys, bag, phone, bank cards between coming home in the evening and trying to leave in the morning, plan your entry;

You open the door. As your keys are now in your hand, they go straight to a dedicated place immediately. I suggest at face level because they will be easily visible, you have to learn a lifting up motion for muscle memory and if they fall down, you will hear them from a height of five foot. It's useful to have your work pass/fob/tags attached by carabiner so they also go onto the same place and will increase both the size for visual impact and noise for falling down.

You take your coat off. It goes onto a peg within a few steps of the door. Your bag has a similar place where if you've forgotten anything, it will be in either your bag or the coat pocket.

You take your shoes off. Put the shoe rack/storage where you take them off. It stops a trail of shoes, muddy feet and losing one of them somewhere between there and the wardrobe or bedroom floor.

By the time you are sitting down/in the kitchen/bathroom, everything has a location you have automatically put it in. As a result, when something is missing, you can follow your coming in routine either physically or in your head/accompanied by actions and it will take you to where it was left.

And plan your exit - you close the front door by pulling the handle shut ONLY with the keys in the same hand. It's a bit clunky sometimes, but you won't ever close the door and then think SHIT, MY KEYS because you have them in the hand - not having them will feel wrong and you're likely to stop and check for your keys before closing the door.

Repeat the entering and leaving routine - and do the same for the kids and their detritus - muscle memory kicks in after a while and you won't even know you're doing it, but it will work, especially for some of the more ND of us who can't afford to trust our conscious brains with something so essential. Trust me, it's helped 2 adults, 4 kids and even the cats know the routines enough to stop and look at you if you haven't followed it right.

Read the instruction booklet, including installation instructions and keep it nearby. It doesn't help when you're trying to work out why the dishwasher isn't cleaning properly to have to then rip the house apart searching for the instruction booklet somewhere in the loft. Whilst you're at it, as you read it, write the serial number, model number and date of purchase (maybe even staple the receipt) onto the front of the booklet. That way, if you need to source a part or claim under guarantee, you've got the details right in front of you, instead of not knowing or looking at a now blank label where the details have rubbed off. And I don't think you'll appreciate how it feels to try and get an engineer out for your tumble dryer that's not working after three months, only to find that you didn't empty the water tray (cue 'I didn't know I had to do that') and that's why you're getting an error code and wet clothes after 4 hours.

When you're fitting things into your kitchen, write the measurements of each space on the wall behind where the appliance is going and the direction & distance of the power supply and water/gas/etc. You'll always forget the size of the space. Include the depth of the space.

Label your chargers and the leads for everything. That way, you won't have to keep 20 that you think might fit something but you can't remember what.

Separate colour charging cables for each person also helps - no, DP, that's not your USB-C lead, it's mine, so give it back and order your own replacement.

Put a sticky label on the back of furniture with the name, model, colourway and dimensions.

Every woman needs a toolkit of her own. None of it gets borrowed, lifted into a man's toolbox, collection or heap of stuff because it will never return and will most likely evaporate into thin air exactly when you need it. If you need a particular tool for something, label it with the size of bolt/screw/socket/consumables so you can always get more parts and know it will fit all 10mm bolts, for example. I'd suggest a lock on it that only you have keys to, as otherwise the end of any relationship results in your tools disappearing because men think all tools belong to them.

Also label any spare parts and accessories - that random big knobby lid thing is for the dishwasher spray when you're washing big pans and that weird cage thing under the sink goes into the tumbledryer for when you're drying trainers, for example.

If in doubt put it on charge. Saves things dying on you just when you don't want them to - toothbrushes, waterpiks, shavers, phones, laptops, earbuds.

Have indoor earbuds and outdoor ones. This works because when you go to the gym, you've got your outdoor ones in your bag and when you come home, your indoor ones are where they belong instead of disappearing somewhere between the gym and upstairs. Have a different coloured case so you can tell in a instant that you've just found your indoor ones under the sofa.

Buy and fit a mattress and pillow protectors before you sleep on them. Trust me, it's the only way to guarantee that you won't have the puking child/cat/period from hell come 3 weeks early.

Make the bed the moment the sheets are ready. Don't leave it for later, do it as you strip the current ones off or the moment the freshly washed ones are ready. Your 10.30pm self will thank you for it.

And the hardest one of all for most of us is have separate savings. They're not for a treat, they're not for standard shopping, they're for when the shit truly hits the fan and you have nothing else. It might be that they're a running away fund, they could be the fuck this job and all who sail in her fund, they could be the lifethreatening accident, the broken front tooth, husband fucking off with the new admin, they could be the roof falling in or the worrying symptoms that carry a waiting list of 17 months for a first appointment. If you can save even a fiver a month, just over a pound a week and keep it separate and unmentioned, it's going to be fifty quid soon enough - which will feed you for a week. It's unmentioned not just to stop anybody else having it, it's unmentioned because then it'll disappear off into the back of your mind until you truly need it.

@amlie8 , I think it's fabric conditioner not zoflora. It tends to give a slightly slimy feel to the cloth. It doesn't wash off. I soaked something in zoflora to get rid of the FC smell. It sort of neutralized it, and after a second wash it was wearable.

If you are a brunette, just buy Medium Brown. Anything golden or cool will be either ginger or purple.

Mooncup, you're a goddamn genius.

If you’re in London, the change at Euston from the city branch of the Northern Line onto the Victoria Line is the best change in London. Try it.

@ItLooksLikeChickenSoItMustBeChicken poor baby? Are you being serious? Because I did a post on mumsnet whilst feeding her?

Hope that makes you feel better about yourself. I tried to do a light hearted thread after a really fucking tough day and you decide to shame me for that? Wow, look at you, what a hero.

Buy a bright red washcloth and use it to wash kid’s scrapes. They can’t see the blood on it and won’t freak out!

Or make it with milk, I thought only cheap cafes and outdoor catering places made it with water

Instant gravy - pour the water in the jug first then add the granules, not the other way around and you'll always have the correct amount. Sounds obvious, I only thought to do this a few weeks ago. I'm 30.

Bacon - cut off the rind so you just have the medallions. Cook as normal. Meanwhile cut the rinds into little squares then add to the pan. You get lovely little crispy bacon bits without cremating the bacon.

Use WD40 to get rid of the sticky residue left from labels.
Use eye makeup remover (the oily kind you shake) to get rid of sticky residue from waxing straps...or WD40 works too! Or olive oil.

To the nasty posters spoiling this thread, have you really, I mean really, never had a quick scroll on your phone whilst feeding your child? I don't believe you haven't.

I tried to do a light hearted thread after a really tough day and you just have to stick the knife in at any given chance.

Thank you to the rest of you for your helpful / fun hacks. I'm coming off here now. Whoever wants to judge me for doing a quick badly spelt post whilst feeding my child, try looking after a 2 year old whilst trying to work also battling cancer. It's not easy. I needed 5 minutes to myself. So judge away for me having 5 minutes in my phone. I hope you feel better about yourselves. You've just pushed an already vulnerable woman over the damn edge.

Scrape any wet food down the loo to stop stinky bin juice.

Controversial but someone told me about it years ago and living in a tiny flat with the bin store miles away it was a life saver.

I’m loving these tips!

Mine is that it’s okay to have more than one of something if it makes your life easier. I have two of the same vacuum cleaners - one for upstairs and one for downstairs. Phone chargers everywhere. Laptop chargers in the most common areas we work. Makes life so much easier

@Sugargliderwombat , the only things you should put down the loo are pee, paper and poo.

Niche one for teachers. If a child uses permanent marker on a whiteboard. A whiteboard pen will rub it out.

I know but the dregs of my lentil dahl are Close enough to poo for me to trust my plumbing.

Don't be too quick to judge other people because they might well judge you back.

Same, also sharpie

Clean oven shelves in the bath with boiling water and a dishwasher tablet.

Hang clothes on hangers to dry on the line/ airer.

Use Recipe Keeper app for meal planning