You sent in your favorite life hacks over the past few weeks, so this post is packed with simple, low-cost tricks to make your home run smoother and your day a little less stressful. Inside you’ll find clever cleaning tips, smart storage ideas, and both high- and low-tech ways to stay organized. We also explain why we’re rolling our eyes about the slow part of our bathroom renovation and share a new money-saving tool we bought for the kids.
You can also find this episode on popular podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, Stitcher, and Spotify.
What’s New
- Life threw us a few curveballs this week, so we didn’t get deep into the “unglamorous middle” of our bathroom reno. We bought materials to prep the floor and walls, framed the new closet door, and planned to begin work after our drywall contractor finished. Due to unexpected scheduling issues, he’s only dropped off a few supplies and hasn’t started yet. Fingers crossed for Monday.
- If you want to see similar steps, check our previous posts on prepping a floor for tile and our earlier full-gut bathroom remodel for reference.
Life Hacks & Sticking Point Solutions
- We asked for your go-to life hacks that remove small daily sticking points and create efficiencies. Here are many of the ideas we mentioned and loved:
- Keep the kids’ socks in a lower cabinet near the exit so nobody needs to run upstairs when getting out the door. We also keep morning essentials there—hairbrush, lice-prevention spray, and the kids’ vitamins—so the routine becomes autopilot.
- Sherry stores her morning routine items in a kitchen cabinet next to her tea mugs. Because she grabs a mug every morning, the vitamins and skincare items are a built-in reminder. For her full skin and hair routine, see her dedicated post for details.
- Kaija recommended keeping a pre-packed toiletry bag ready to grab for travel so you don’t have to transfer items each time. A clear, carry-on-approved pouch works great.
- Store convenient wipes in the bathroom to do quick cleaning while kids are in the tub. Wipes also work well for on-the-go tasks—some listeners keep disinfecting wipes or dashboard dusting sheets in their car.
- We keep a few cleaning wipes and Swiffer sweeper sheets in the car for quick touch-ups.
- For a deeper dive into our trusted household cleaners and how we use them, see our cleaners post for more detail.
- I suggested washing each child’s clothes inside a separate mesh laundry bag so items don’t mix in the wash. Each bag can go straight to the proper room for faster putting-away. I’ll try it with one bag first before buying more and would love to hear if others use this method.
- Miranda Anderson’s husband organizes workout outfits in drawer boxes so he can pull a complete set and go. Grouping items by outfit saves decision time and keeps closets tidier.
- For email clutter, services that unsubscribe you from newsletters can help, though results vary. A quick search for “unsubscribe” in your inbox is an easy manual trick to find many subscriptions at once.
- Sherry realized storing a small makeup bag in the car worked best for her schedule. Paring down makeup to the essentials also avoids time lost digging through things you rarely use.
- Recent small purchases that improved daily life: we finally bought proper chip clips and now keep them clipped to the bin with chip and cereal bags so anyone can grab one quickly. Keeping commonly used items where you use them—rather than in a junk drawer—makes them more likely to be used.
- We also replaced the short charging cords behind the couch with a long braided 6-foot cord so phones can charge from anywhere on the sofa. A three-pack made it affordable to add extra cords at the beach house too.
We’re Digging
- We bought unbreakable piggy banks for each child to teach spending, saving, and sharing. They blend into the bookshelf, are easy to open, and avoid the risk of broken glass from jars.
- One book I recently enjoyed is Educated by Tara Westover. It’s a powerful memoir with an unforgettable story and thoughtful writing—highly recommended.
If you’re trying to track down something we’ve recommended in a past episode, we maintain a master list of “We’re Digging” items from previous shows and a page of book recommendations from our Book Club.
Finally, thanks to Grove Collaborative for sponsoring this episode. They offer introductory sets and VIP options for new members.
Thanks for reading!
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