
Here are 10 household life hacks that are quick and easy. I just love simple household life hacks that make things easier in day to day life. Check them out and see how much these little tweaks can help you out around the house!
10 Household Life Hacks You Should Try
- One of my friends came up with a great idea this week. When you’re feeling low on motivation for a chore, persuade your husband to bribe you. Say something like – if I clean out this closet today, will you take me out to dinner? If he wants more room in the the closet, he’s likely to agree and then you have a built-in reward to motivate you to do the chore. Hey, bribery WORKS! Let it work for you instead of against you! Plus you get a nice dinner with your husband.
- When you are cooking, run a sink full of warm soapy water first. Then you can rinse the pots and pans and either set them on the counter to dry, or pop them in the dishwasher for more thorough cleaning. That way the kitchen doesn’t look like a bomb went off by the time dinner is over and you will be more likely to want to finish tidying it before bedtime.
- Use the “One touch” method while you are cooking. You take the ingredient, such as a spice, or milk or whatever and you use it without ever setting it down on your counter. Then it goes straight back into the cupboard or fridge. That leaves you with one less thing to clean up at the end of the meal. Sound simple, but it works great.
- This is a good idea for keeping track of bills that I got from one of my cleanie friends. When her bills or other important mail comes in, she takes a big black Sharpie and writes all the info on the back of the envelope. Something like “Electric bill – due 10/15” or “Car Registration”. Then she puts them into a basket. That way she can just flip through the basket to tell what bills are due when, without having to search through the envelopes. I thought that was a great idea!
- I keep a “sock orphanage” down in my laundry room. We all have those darn pesky mismatched socks. I have a bulletin board down there, so I just use a push pin and tack the all up there. Every month or so, I dig through it and see if I’ve got any matches. Eventually, I’ll throw them out, but I’m always hopeful I’ll find that missing sock….
- We watch DVD’s – a LOT! And my guys are terrible about putting them back in the cases. So every so often I’ll gather up a whole stack of them that are laying around and I put them into the closet for a “time-out”. I’ll even put a note on them “In time-out until October 12th”. Nobody dares touch them and it makes them get better about putting them away – for a while anyway. Works for video games too – those suckers are expensive and they get all scratched up.
- I have been known to put Post-it notes on the counters or on the kitchen table. “You may NOT leave dirty dishes here – they need to go in the dishwasher”. I can nag and nag and they just tune me out, but strangely enough, they’ll mind the notes – again for a while. They tune them out after a week or two, but it does help. Right now, I have a masking tape area on my counter that says “This is a food prep area – do not put mail or dirty plates here”. Hey, it’s not very elegant, but I’ll go with what works every time. Check out my post about decluttering with Post-it Notes.
- When you have phone lists, schedules, coupons, or other stuff that you want close to hand, but you don’t want them cluttering up a bulletin board or your fridge door, just tape them INSIDE your kitchen cupboards. I’ve done this for years and it’s a great way to keep track of things but still keep them out of sight.
- When your teenagers won’t clean their rooms, “offer” to clean it for them, maybe even insist on it if they don’t do it themselves by a certain time. Most teenagers are so big on their precious privacy, they would rather DIE than have you touching their stuff.
- Oh, here’s a naughty one, but it’s funny! When you get really mad at your husband – go shopping. With the TV remote in your purse! He’ll go crazy looking everywhere for hours. Then you casually slip it out, leave it somewhere and just say, Oh it was right over here all the time….
Here are some other posts you might enjoy:
How to Make Money from Your Excessive Clutter
Listing Your House for Sale When It’s Messy
4 Tips to Organize Your Messy Craft Room
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You are cracking me up with the tip about taking the remote! My husband would have been out and back from Best Buy setting up a replacement:)
Aren’t they so funny with the remote. It doesn’t matter if mine is sound asleep, that little device is always clutched tightly in his hand!
Great list! Thank you for sharing these “lifehacks” on the #sharethewealthsunday link up!
Thanks for hosting. I’m sure I’ll pop by tomorrow.
I use the One-Touch for everything – makeup, hair brushes, getting dressed in the morning!
That’s smart. I guess I do too. It’s a good system.
These are great ideas!!! I’ll be implementing a few asap!
I’m so glad that you liked them.
Great ones, ooh the DVD time out idea is awesome.
It does work surprisingly well – for a while.
Writing on the envelope is a crazy simple idea that would help me a lot. I’m always having to open them back up to read them. Genius! Please tell your friend thanks!!
Melinda
I LOVE simple ideas that work, don’t you? I will tell her.
{Kathy} These are right up my sarcastic alley. I love them. Thanks for visiting the other day. Your blog is hilarious. Very needed humor at the end of a long day!
Thanks you guys! I am so glad you are enjoying my little tidbits of wisdom.
I love #9. Except that I really don’t want to clean it if for some reason they still don’t do it!
Ha, I LOVE the last one. Brilliant. I do variations of your cooking/cleaning hacks and I wish my husband did. The kitchen always looks like a bomb went off when he cooks!!!