1. Make a Grocery List and Do Meal Planning
This adds extra time up front, but saves SO much time in the long run. We started doing this years ago before our daughter was born. The first part of this is to have a grocery list on the fridge and add to it as you run out of items. That way there is no need to check and recheck what you are out of and there is no forgetting anything. The second time saving tip is to write down meals that sound good for the next week and their ingredients. Typically we write down 4-5 meals per week (depending on the week) and what we need on the list. I don’t have to stand in front of my fridge wondering what the heck I am going to make and I don’t need to run to the store when I realize I don’t have an ingredient. Time saved and money saved!
2. Automatic Bill Pay and Savings Withdrawals
If you aren’t already, make monthly bills like cable, internet, any kind of insurance, gym membership, cell phone, electricity, mortgage, and anything else you can think of automatically paid from your account. Some churches will even set up an automatic withdrawal for donation! This saves so much time from calling to pay or writing out checks and mailing them. It has the added benefit of helping the environment by reducing paper billing. It also means you know the exact day a certain bill will be debited helping with budgeting. If you are a saver, have money moved from checking into your savings account each month. All these automatic withdrawals means less to think about and lots more time!
3. Use Dryel for Your Dry Clean Clothing.
Let me tell you a quick story about what happened to me. I have quite a few embellished sweaters that are dry clean only. I didn’t have time to run to the dry cleaner or hand wash them so I threw them in the washer on gentle. Lo and behold they came out with missing embellishments and I spent over an hour sewing them back on. The washer wasn’t a time saver at all! Now I use Dryel on all my sweaters and save the time of going to the dry cleaner. I even use Dryel for my hand wash items because it is so easy and it works! Indirectly, when all my items are cleaned I can wear what I want, when I want which saves me time getting dressed, too. Dryel saves me at least 2 hours a month from driving back and forth to the dry cleaner and getting my items. And now it saves me money from resewing all my embellishments back on my clothing!
Additional time saving tips:
- Don’t leave a room without looking around to see if there is anything you can bring to where you are going.
- Let you hair air dry at night so it’s dry in the morning and you save blow drying time!
- Clean as you go. Whether it is in the kitchen, craft time, or playing with your children, clean it up as you go. A huge mess takes more time than little ones.
- Have a set place for items like your purse, wallet, and keys. You’ll always know where they are and won’t waste time searching for them.
- Iron all your clothing at once so you don’t waste time getting the iron and ironing board out for only one piece of clothing.
What are other ways you save time?
Thank you to Dryel for sponsoring this post. All thoughts an opinions are mine though!
