TIPS IN EFFICIENTLY RUNNING A HOUSEHOLD AS A SINGLE PARENT

TIPS IN EFFICIENTLY RUNNING A HOUSEHOLD AS A SINGLE PARENT

If you are a single parent, for whatever reason, man or woman (although I know most of you are women), it can be hard to work, remember to take out the rubbish garbage trash, be there for kids, cook, clean up, get enough sleep, practice self care and balance everything, since you have to do everything with no help.

Give yourself a break and cut corners / make things efficient wherever you can.

·       Enlist amazon (yes I am an amazon whore like the rest of you), to automatically order items you know you will always need in your household like toilet tissue. I used to run out of toilet paper because my ex used to remember those kinds of things while I was shopping for in season figs or butternut squash and thinking up new recipes (more on those later). Use the "subscribe and save" button to order these items: toilet paper, paper towels (viva! for dabbing unfrozen fish et al), dead sea bath salts (self care!), cat food, dog food (although I buy the wet food at AlDI), and of course cat litter, that blastedly heavy thing. The button is handy as you can adjust the frequency by skipping a month or more, or ordering it immediately if you need it yesterday! I also use it for supplements like Calmag, Choline Inositol (for restless leg syndrome), NAC (for restless legs) and Joy Tonic (for sadness, stress etc, it works SO WELL!).

·       Hire a lawn service to mow the lawn - yes it will cost $20 - $40 per month - but you will then know it will get done and you will not break your back doing it if you have a huge garden on hills like we do. I have damaged joints, so squeezing the lawn mower handle to go - no thank you, I will be in pain for days (and I have tried).

·       Hire a cleaner (if you can afford it), to clean once a month or once every 2 weeks. I pay mine $110 to do a 5 bdrm house and it is well worth it. I work and have a professional job - I cleaned 3 toilets for decades - I am tired (can you tell I am in my 40s) and I have earned not to clean toilets - afterall  am have a professional job and I just don't want to do it anymore - sorry. I still have to do the laundry, clean up after cooking, go grocery shopping etc...but this helps. I don;t have unlimited data on my phone though - so I would rather this.

·       Get a vacuum robot to clean in between. This one costs only $120 and is every bit as good as the expensive ones. I love it. It picks up all the dog hair while I cook or do other things.

·       Set aside time - a specific time to do the sock matching (uh!) and the laundry. Match socks by the TV - that way you are entertained during this most boring task of all....

·       Do all the maintenance like booking doc appointments, insurance, booking oil changes, calling companies, whatever busy house life maintenance work you have to do - do it all in one go in one morning. You will be surprised how these things take up much mental space, but really only take a few minutes.

·       Pay for things online - this saves postage and time. I like using paypal, as I can always go back and get the transaction back, see the invoice etc.

·       Use amazon prime - I use prime and have done for years - not only does it give us free tv and movies, but I get things in 2 days most of the time. My vitamins, things I know will be fine, I buy there. Yes, it is bad not to shop local, but many of the items are simply not available locally or are more expensive. If they cost the same, like my Joy tonic, I try to buy it from the local health food store - for heaven forbid if it closed! I would be devastated, so I do go there to buy quail eggs and the like as well.

·       Institue downtime on week ends. Do intense activities with the kids like walks, playing basketball, laser tag, chess, and after, get your kids used to "downtime". We have "downtime" in out house, which has morphed form nap time when they had scheduled naps as kids. Now it is called downtime - Mum retreats into her room midday, or midmorning to nap ("don't disturb me unless the house is on fire" I say) and they have to play quietly - mostly they read or watch TV or make art.

·       Break large tasks into small chunks. When my ex left one of the rooms was a mess of his DIY unorganised things. I decided it would take me 2 days. I slowly but surely moved it all to the garage where it belonged. I rested when I was tired.  I drank water and saw the whole thing as a good workout.  In the end I had my guest room back and had moved tons of stuff.

·       Get a tattle box for kids during downtime. A tattle box is for the kids to write down any problems they have during down time. If they argue, they must not come and disturb me with their dispute - rather each kid write a note and writes down what happened and places it into the narrow slot of the tattle box. Later in the day or once a week we open it and go over the disputes. This has two effects - they get to vent and feel better and by the time we open it, they say sorry easily and have cooled down.

·       Time things like the military. I leave enough time for myself to get ready, work out, meditate, eat, dress, and THEN wake up the kids. It takes 1-2 hrs. But it is worth it not to have chaos. I have the same routine every morning and start to finish it takes 3 hours. Be realistic - if you are rushing, get up earlier and go to bed earlier.

·       Get kids to do more and more on their own - get alarm clocks, an intercom, whatever it takes.

·       We have a keycode entry on the garage - so the kids can now let themselves into the house after school. Sometimes they are here for one hour before I get home, sometimes not.

·       Make clear to them that sometimes you need "mommy time" to do yoga or practice self care. They will accept it. Or make pancakes for them to give them some attention and fun before heading to yoga.

·       Exercise with your kids. They become aggressive if they sit in the house all day. Make it a habit  to go to the gym as a group and play badminton, table tennis, let them rock climb, go in the sauna. When my kids were younger, I used to take them there and my 3 year old would kick around an adult basket ball - he loved it. Or we would occupy one of the many empty squash courts and roller scate or play with balls.

·       Use services available. Your car breaks down. Call your insurance for a tow! No biggie - no need for help from a friend or a husband or wife.

·       Something breaks in the house. Call a repair service. They will come and fix it - no need for a friend or partner to do that, since they probably would have done the same anyway.

·       Grow up. If you always relied on the other person to do these things (like servicing the dishwasher, having propane added to the tank, cleaning the septic, etc) , wake up to your new normal. Soon these things will seem like going to the bathroom or wiping down the counter. People often say to me - "poor you" I am so sorry for you. I say - don’t be! I am happier than ever and am glad I don’t have to deal with that other person's dysfunction anymore. Did it help me to live alone in NYC the big apple for 10 years. You bet. So if you are one of those women who are helpless and lost without another - don’t be. Be strong and grow up. Take care of it. Get it done. I know people who wait for a friend to pick them up when their car breaks down, rely on friends to unpack when they move, and fret if their heating system breaks down. Just call the services available to everyone. Yes it might cost $80 to fix the dishwasher - but who wants to owe anyone favors and experts know best how to fix these things anyway. My ex used to refuse to have the heating system serviced. But after I made him leave, I called service and they said that if they had not come the whole system would have broken down due to clogging - it had to be "bled". No ide what that means but they came in the nick of time.  They said it would have been a shame to have such a high tech system break due to no service in 4 yrs.....

·       Learn a little DIY - I have renovated and painted rooms for years. almost every room I had I painted when I lived in city apartments. Now it is no big deal to redecorate my daughter's room from pink to an alternate color. Roll up your sleeves, buy drop cloth, roller and paintbrush, watch a how to you tube video if need be and get going. It feels so good to get things like that done.

·       Use youtube videos for how to. Don't know how to paint? Watch some youtubes. Need to know how the inside of a toilet works? Watch a  youtube....Want to learn how to make break? You get the picture.

·       Use care.com light version for babysitters. Sometimes you will need help. Are you travelling for work? Hire someone to live at your house. Need a sitter for a later night meeting or party? Hire a sitter. I try not to as it is expensive - but it will end, they will get older and eventually not need one. You can also trade babysitting with other Mums and or drop your kids off at friends houses.

·       Lastly - if you can go shopping when the kids are at school - it takes so much stress out of the experience. If you can't I sometimes set them down in the cafe or the market with a hot chocolate and then whiz around and shop. Sometimes I'd have them get haircuts at walmart while I shopped  - Double dip to get things done whenever you can.

·       Alternate with easy suppers and gourmet meals. I will make a large chunk of salmon on the grill with skin on with boiled potatoes one day, then save the rest for my work lunch. Then the next day we eat frozen pizza. Day 3 we eat the rest of the salmon. Other easy meals include tuna pasta (canned tuna in water with Vegenaise and fried onions  - mix in with pasta) and orzo with peas - Orzo pasta made in one pot with cream and cheddar grated in. I then make peas by microwaving frozen ones - they love it. On week ends, if you made a gourmet lunch, make a simple supper like cup noodles.