Housekeeping life hacks that changed your life

[Newmumburnout]

A bit dramatic of a title 😂. Wanted to start a new thread for great ideas we can share where something easy and small has made your life so much easier ! having a 1 year old and 3 pets and it's a chore to keep on top of everything. Even if it's not housekeeping please share !
Mine are:
Getting as much as possible delivered on a schedule. One being hand wash. I use the brand raindrop they supply a lovely bottle and send tablets to refill so you don't have to keep buying plastic hand wash bottles and they are always full.
Making chicken and rice bowls in one pot. When I cook dinner I will make a few lunch pots, you add rice, chicken, stick , veg etc with whatever spices and cook for 30 mins in one glass tupperware pot. That's it, eat from the.same container after warming up !

Anyone else ??

Keep three bags for life in the car: One for discards, one for recyclables and one to collect odds and ends like shoe and hoodies. Once a week grab all three and sort into the appropriate bin or (in the case of the clothing) storage area.

Really helps the mind to have a tidy car. I also keep a plastic box in mine where I toss things that need to go out such as clothing for the dry cleaner, library materials to be returned, etc; then when I have an opportunity to run errands it's all there. A small spray bottle of water and some cloths stuffed into a seat pocket, and you can do a fast wipedown every so often.

I take a laundry basket out to the car. Decant everything. Sort in the kitchen, rubbish in recycling bins, coats, gloves etc in the correct place.

No, bleach largely is unneeded, no need every time, all those chemicals 🤢use a good eco ( in my case) loo cleaner and brush, I only have one loo

My only tip (I'm a real slattern) is to invite someone round if you think your house is becoming a bit of a heap. The impetus to clean for visitors is normally enough to make sure you at least do a reasonable job.

Oh, one other one. I had a lot of kids and a washing machine that liked to eat socks and regurgitate them at intervals, so we had a LOT of unpaired socks. I used to keep a tub into which all the single socks went. When one of the kids had a sick day off school they used to love going through the 'odd sock bucket' and finding pairs that had got separated. After about six months I'd empty out all the 'no hope' single socks and use them to stuff the dog's bed.

How do you clean the brush though? I have never possessed one, I hate them.

Everything in a cupboard no clutter.

Wipes in bathroom to clean a few times a day and deep clean once a week. We all clean one bathroom each (4 in total) as we have our own. Small silicone toilet brush only.

Learnt to ignore a great deal too.

cleanako.com/products/cleanako-silicone-toilet-brush-v0?currency=GBP&variant=44648846262499&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&stkn=5cd538bb76f8&tw_source=google&tw_adid=&tw_campaign=21387728397&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADCqpLRcrKLWL49iUIR3b7STHVFKy&gclid=Cj0KCQjwxsm3BhDrARIsAMtVz6POY06tFWXZnXu2Tq561GEkJrdV5kRLMXNQzBGcSJI8ayQngEQAjucaAoW9EALw_wcB

You keep your brush in a little holder or pot in which you have a little bleach and water.

After cleaning with gel I flush the toilet over the toilet brush bristles to clean it, and sometimes let it dry laying across the bowl. I put a bit of vinegar in the brush's holder to clean that.

This is Nancy Birtwhistle’s eco-friendly citric acid detergent that she calls Pure Magic. It’s dynamite for toilet cleaning and any limescale cleaning. Spray on and rinse well.

I’ve stopped using bleach, toilet duck and rim blocks in the toilet. Leave it to soak overnight the first time, then one spray over daily. Keep it away from toilet seats as it can dry sticky.

@NSky62 I took "bleach" to mean toilet cleaner in general. I just don't get why you would keep it anywhere other than beside the loo.

Sorry, forgot the photo…
And you can clean your toilet brush by spraying it and flushing it clean in the toilet.
The brush pointing into the toilet, held on by the seat, is a “do not use” signal.

I did that. All the lonely single socks used to go into a bag at the bottom of my wardrobe. I'd go through it from time to time but rarely found partners for them.

One day I mentioned to DH that it was weird how many single socks never found partners, and that I'd had some sitting in the lonely sock bag for months. He looked very confused and said that we don't have a lonely sock drawer, that all the odd socks which come through the laundry get put in the left hand side of his underwear drawer.

Once we amalgamated our two, separate, odd sock collections we managed to pair up most of them!

In our house when you take socks off everyone has to peg them together with the top and put them in a wash bag (I have 2 one for darks and 1 for whites) on wash day I put the whole bag in the wash to dry I put them on the rack still pegged and they go back to the correct person still pegged. No more odd socks and hours trying to pair them

Cleaning one area in my house every day for an hour. 3 bedrooms, lounge, kitchen/diner, hall, landing & stairs. I take Sundays off 😂 It just means the whole house gets cleaned every week and it doesn’t feel like so much of a chore.

Instead of batch chopping the celery / onion / carrots mix, buy frozen sofritto. And frozen chopped onions. No waste and makes cooking dinner SO much easier

I clean the shower when am in it, and also use the towel am taking out to wipe everything down and the floor. Tidy the fridge daily! Always open windows every day. We've got baby wipes everywhere so often give a room a wipe over with them 😂😂

I use the quick wash on the washing machine for all washes except the very filthy loads. I found that an almost 2 hr wash took so long that it delayed the hanging out to dry and folding away process, making it feel much more of a chore to get the whole basket done.
With quick washes i can get through a few loads in a morning, the clothes are just as clean and I can have the hamper empty, dry and put away by lunch.

If a recipe calls for half a chopped onion chop the whole thing and freeze the other half in a ziplock bag for next time. Same thing goes for chilli and herbs. Squeeze all the air out of the ziplock bag and label with a chalk board pen.

If you’ve got a real condensation problem don’t bother with a squeegee after a shower, use a karcher window vac. That way you can vac mirror, shower, tiles and window in about 30 seconds, and it makes such a difference.

Hang one of these Ikea curtain wires close to the ceiling along one wall in your bathroom. It’s so low profile you won’t notice it when you’re not using it. But if you’ve washed shirts hang them on hangers from it, and when the bathroom is next used the steam will rise to the ceiling and drop the creases meaning you should barely have to iron.

Oh, and a large capacity washing machine, and bedding and towels all in white only. That way if you get a sunny day and you want to wash all the bedding, you can chuck a few towels in the wash too!

Flip flops also work well. As I'm wearing them I can gather the pet hair :) then vacuum it up. Brilliant 👏

turtle wax on the glass shower doors after I’ve cleaned them. It’s meant for cars but it makes the shower door repel water and it lasts ages. Then we always use a squeegee thing after showering. MUCH Less cleaning limescale off the doors!

Nancy Birtwhistle Pure Magic for me. We have really hard water, and this prevents limescale build up in the toilet bowl.

Also getting everything delivered on a schedule. Looroll from whogivesacrap, washing up liquid and tablets from smol, laundry dry detergent from Tallow+Ash, petfood from amazon and so on. It means we don't run out amd it definitely saves my mental load!

I’ve found that sorting the laundry out into loads and putting stain remover on stains the night before is a game changer. I put the first load with tablet/powder in the machine ready to go first thing, then all I have to do is push the ‘start’ button while I crack on with other things.

I made her magic cleaning gel and it is incredible for cleaning the loo and the bath and basins. Much easier to use than the spray.

I have the bedding for each room in that room. Saves going up and down stairs trying to find pillow cases etc (one bedroom is downstairs).

I try and tidy before I go to bed. It's so much nicer coming down to a tidy room.

A Victorian airer and a dehumidifier to dry clothes is brilliant. I tumble dry towels but the rest goes on that airer or the heated one. Funnily enough the airer/dehumidifier combo works much better. I put jeans and thicker items on there and T-shirts and thinner things go on the heated one.

I write a meal plan for the week before doing the online shop. Saves money and time and I have what I need in to cook each meal.

I don't spend ages cutting greaseproof paper to line cake tins. I tear off a large enough piece, wet it and scrunch, and then line the tin. It's fine for the weekly cake though not for a special occasion. Then I cut off a large enough piece, fold in half and several more times until it forms a triangle. Put the point in the middle of the base and press where the edge is and then cut a line to that point. You then have a bottom and sides to line the tin in one.

You can buy plastic hooks from Amazon to put on the washing line that you can thread a hanger to. Really easy to bring the washing in if it suddenly rains.