#153: Straightforward Ways To Make Your Day Less

You folks submitted your go-to life hacks over the last few weeks, so today we have an episode bursting at the seams with all of those low-cost & plain tricks for making your home run smoother and your day a little less frustrating. we have everything from clever cleaning pointers and unconventional storage ideas to both high and low tech ways to keep you more organized. We are also sharing why we are giving a BIG EYEROLL to the latest part of our bathroom renovation and a new money saving tool that we got for our kids.

You can also find this episode on your go-to podcast listening app, like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, Stitcher, and Spotify.

What is New

Life threw us some curveballs this week so we did not get quite deep into the “unglamorous middle” of our bathroom reno. We in short simply picked up a bunch of materials to prep the floor/walls and framed out the new closet door, and planned to start as soon as our drywall guy wrapped up up. But then due to some unexpected scheduling stuff with him, other than dropping off a few supplies late last week… he has not even began. Monday, we hope!
If you want a look at what is ahead of us, you can see the process for prepping a floor for tile in our laundry room (from 2014!) and what went down during our first (and only other!) full gut bathroom remodel back in 2009.

Life Hacks & Sticking Point Solutions

A few episodes ago we asked for your submissions about little life hacks that helped your days go more smoothly by eliminating sticking points or creating efficiencies in your routines, like some of these examples we have mentioned:
- Keeping our kids’ socks downstairs in our “mudroom” cabinet (so no one has to run back upstairs when we are trying to get out the door). We also keep other morning routine stuff there to make it all autopilot – like a hairbrush, lice prevention spray, and the kids’ vitamins. Gets us out the door fast!
- That is an old photo below (picture more vitamin bottles & face stuff ), but Sherry keeps all of her morning routine stuff in a kitchen cabinet next to her tea mugs. Since she has tea every day, putting the vitamins & face stuff there reminds her to do that when she grabs her mug (she used to forget vitamins 80% of the time when they were stored somewhere else). For her full skin/makeup routine, here is a post with all of the details. And here is the evening primrose capsule she mentioned she likes for her skin (she mentions that some people take it while pregnant, but certainly consult your doc if you are pregnant before taking it – it is only for the quite end of pregnancy I think).

Kaija mentioned keeping a pre-packed toiletry bag to make travel prep faster and more foolproof since it is consistently ready to grab & she does not have to transfer anything over. She uses a clear carryon-approved bag like this one. Ours is a little larger and also works strong (they no longer sell our exact one, but this is similar & highly rated).
A couple of listeners mentioned storing convenient wipes somewhere like the bathroom to make it easier to do some swift cleaning while their kids are in the tub, like these Windex Wipes or Clorox Wipes (we wanna try these Seventh Generation Disinfecting Wipes!)
We also heard from someone who stores Arm & Hammer Wipes in their car to wipe it down as needed (although they may have meant ArmorAll Wipes? Both likely work). We also mentioned keeping some Swiffer sweeper sheets in our car to dust of the dashboard.
You can also dive into more detail about our go-to household cleaners in this post.

I tossed out the idea of perhaps washing each of our kids clothes (grouped by kid) within a separate mesh laundry bag (like these) all within the same load to make sorting easier since they will not get mixed up and each bag could go right to the correct room & be put away. We already own one so I might give it a try before buying any others, but I am interested to hear if anyone else uses this method!
And these are the drawer boxes that Miranda Anderson’s husband Dave was using to group his workout clothes by outfit so he could simply pull one out and go. You can see them in action in the closet tour she posted on her Instagram Stories.

We also mentioned a service like Unroll.me for unsubscribing to email newsletters (simply not ours, wink wink!). We have had mixed success with something like that, so Kelsey’s trick for searching “unsubscribe” in your inbox might be a strong method to find them all at once and bulk that task.
Sherry mentioned that she realized keeping her makeup in the car made the most sense (after trying a ton of other locations with less success) and you can see what the heck is in that small bag (she does not have a lot of makeup at all) over here in this post. There is likely a life hack in paring down your makeup so you are not digging through tons of stuff you do not use too.

And lastly, we mentioned some new things that we implemented lately, like at last simply freaking buying some chip clips so that we do not waste time and effort hunting down some random thing like a binder clip or a clothespin or resorting to a elastic band. We also keep them clipped to the bin with our chip and cereal bags so everyone can grab one swiftly. Putting it right where you use them (instead of across the room in a junk drawer) works much better too!

And here is the long 6-foot braided charging iPhone cord that we replaced behind our couch so we can charge our phones without getting up – no matter where we are sitting on the sofa. It is a 3-pack for $10 (!!) so we brought in the other two to the beach house to make charging more convenient there too.

We are Digging

These are the piggy banks that we purchased for each of our kids to assist them navigate the concept of spending, saving, and sharing/donating their money. We enjoy that they are unbreakable (we debated using three labeled pickle jars in each room but did not want any shattering). We like how they blend in with the books on their shelves and they are straightforward to open when it is time (they are magnetized boxes, as opposed to having to wrestle some rubber cork).
And here is that book I lately read and truly enjoyed: Educated by Tara Westover. Such a fascinating true story told in such a thoughtful way. Highly recommend!

If you are looking for something we have dug in a past episode, but do not remember which show notes to click into, here is a master list of everything we have been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we have recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Grove Collaborative for sponsoring this episode. You can sign up at Grove.co/YHL and get a FREE 5-piece Mrs. Meyers cleaning set, a 60-day VIP membership, and free shipping on your first order.