Making life easier

It is only 5 minutes since I thought I might try the online shopping. I find grocery shopping a chore but is it unreasonable of me when the shop is only a 5 minute drive and I have my own transport.
Of course, I might save the delivery fee by not getting impulse buys.

Bought a Dyson rechargeable animal vacuum cleaner when my existing vacuum was still working.

Coolgran No, it's not unreasonable to do online shopping. Why give yourself a headache if you've no need to anymore. I make a cup of tea, put on some nice music of my own choice and sit down and enjoy doing my weekly shop. No screaming children, no irate parents, no looking up and down aisles for something you can't find and you can always add on to your shopping list if you forget something. Plus the time you save going to the supermarket you can then get in your car and go somewhere you enjoy going to knowing your shopping will be with you at a designated time. Lovely delivery men too! Try it, you might like it. And I love the thought of an animal vacuum cleaner, I'll have to look that up.

I have a cleaner and what a difference she has made to my life now that I have one who actually cares about my house. She is Romanian, is going back to get married but is returning in 6 weeks time. In the meantime her friend who has been in this country for 4 months will take over. The minor problem is that her only spoken word is "goodbye" and she does not understand any English so that should be fun.

I also have on line delivery for heavy stuff such as cat litter and long life milk. I have given up ordering eg fruit because the satsumas which arrived on Sunday were wizened and one was black the next day. It is not worth while complaining about a couple of small items but I do like the heavy items delivered.

I think I save money- I may impulse buy but a day before the order is delivered I "fine tune" it again getting rid of the extras I do not need. I only pay £20 a year for deliveries and it saves me petrol.

I try to alternate online shopping with "real." As others have said I use nline for the bulky or heavy items- dog food, water, loo paper etc and also stock.up on "bargsins" such as half price dishwasher tabs or laundry items. I find I can keep a closer eye on the total and either add things or take them off if I am under my notional limit or (more often) over spending.

Oh another thing- if I have to make a phone call where I am likely to be kept waiting, I load a silly game like Cookie Jam onto the laptop and play it while waiting!!

I buy things like gifts online, but not grocery shopping yet. This is because I am developing a slight tendency to become a recluse, so MAKE myself go and and mingle in supermarkets!
But the weekly shop is becoming more difficult, so I like the idea of ordering large bulky items online and just going to the supermarket for smaller, fresh items. I might adopt this I think.. So thanks for the idea...

My old vacuum cleaner was very heavy to shove around, so I have just bought one of these lightweight ones which was only about £30. So far it is brilliant. Not sure how long it will last, but for now I love it.

I started online grocery shopping when I was working, and commuting, and therefore time was short. On Saturdays I'd potter around and buy nice fruit and veg, and quite enjoy that.

And I still do it - CBA going round a supermarket buying all the boring stuff! It only takes me 15 minutes usually.

My cleaner is my greatest asset, especially while I am not so mobile. She is here now, belting round at top speed and I love her.

A window cleaner. I used to clean them all myself but some i culdn't reach. Now my, admittedly expensive, window cleaner comms every six weeks and does them for me, Bliss!

I have ordered a big shop with heavy and bulky things a few times, but mostly I get a few things at a time (on foot and on buses, I regard it as my exercise routine) In the winter I will may be more organised and get most things online.

Yesterday I found my way to Lidl for the first time without a car, and bought some beautiful fruit and veg and some other stuff. I meant only to get bread and yoghurt but I was glad I had taken my old-lady wheeled shopping trolley. It was not easy to humpff it up onto the bus, though.

The robot hoover I got for my birthday! It's a boon.

I have just sent for and received today - a hand-held B&D cleaner to go with it and clean the stairs and windowsills and dusty bits etc.

Now I will retire the 'fido' hoover I have had for years - works well, is quiet, but I am reduced to getting someone else to carry it up and down, it's too heavy.

Also my shopping trolley, £5.50 NEW in a tabletop sale. I keep it in the car to help transfer heavy bags from car to house. Great.

Wish I had one of those robot grass mowers......

Sheep make good robot grass mowers, Alie They also provide you with a fleece a year, plenty of fertilizer for the roses, and, if you introduce them to a virile ram in autumn, a lamb or two a year for the freezer.

Drawbacks are their inability to distinguish grass from cherished garden plants or from the paths you want to walk on (much more desirable for lying on to cogitate, or stand around on to poop) They need a certain amlount of attention, too, and hay and feed in winter when the grass isn't regrowing.

And they get lonely, so you need two ewes, which in turn need a half-acre of grass for themselves and their lambs.

I have my grocery delivered by ocado. They're quite good but the main problem as they're just me is the £40 minimum spend. Because of the short shelf life of perishables, it makes trying to do an economic shop difficult.
It's easier when the family comes as I have to get loads of things I'd never normally get, such as full cream milk, apple juice, spreadable butter, eggs etc and they then take the leftovers back with rhem

Alie I have vacuums up and down stairs to stop my cleaner having to carry them

I would suggest a doing what I do - adding in a packet or two of dishwasher tabs one week, laundry blobs another, maybe a bottle of gin or vodka, bottles of tonic, bulk buy butter (usually an offer) and keep in the fridge, things like shampoo or hairspray, a few tins/jars for "stores" and the like in the unlikely eventuality of my bill coming under £40.

Like Flickety we now have a window cleaner who comes regularly. I can do them myself, but he does them better and more often. I regard shopping and housework as a good excercise regime.I also quite enjoy shopping sometimes, seeing what new products there are etc.

Elegran I would have to get a good deal more garden...and not grow veg?
and
Galen I have discovered that my OLD robot hoover, which I gave up on as I couldn't get a replacement battery, may now get one and have a new lease of life - upstairs!

Flickety anmd rosesarered being nosey how much do you pay for a window cleaner , ours comes about every four weeks, outsides only front and backm £5.50 does a nice job just added gutters cleaned so we are giving that a go next time round.

What's the going rate for a cleaner??

An awful lot, £35. I nearly had a fit when he told me his charges but several neighbours seemed to consider his rates quite reasonable, but we do have a biggish house and a lot of rooms are dual aspect and having multiple windows. 20 windows, French windows and 3 part glazed external doors, nearly all have multiple panes.

but I would add, it is worth it to have some windows I couldn't reach cleaned for the first time in 20 years and no lomger having to climb out of a window onto a flat roof to clean 6 of them.

flickety I wouldn't clean your windows for double that amount

For years I would deny myself things that would make my domestic life easier because I considered them to be luxuries - paper kitchen towels (I'd buy one roll a month and use it sparingly), having an electric mixer, hand held vacuum cleaner. But since the children have left home we have more disposable income I buy as many rolls of kitchen towels as I like, I've bought a B&D rechargeable handheld vacuum cleaner (always wanted one of those), and I too have a cleaner who comes in twice a month and blitzes the house with youth and strength on her side.

All of which make my life a damn sight easier.

Oh yes and another thing that's made a huge difference, is I now have an app that gives me real time bus info, which means that I never have to wait for a bus anymore, cursing because I have just missed one or it is hot or I am tired or laden with parcels. I plan my outings to fit in with the bus timetable. (I do drive but prefer to be driven because I find parking such a schlep).

I loathe shopping so online purchasing is a real boon for me - groceries, presents etc. I do browse a little when I go to the hairdressers [cant do that online yet!] and wonder why I don't do more face to face shopping at Christmas - and then I remember the crowds!

£20 front and back for windows (excluding conservatory which is self cleaning glass)

Nowadays they are all cleaned from ground level, except for those accessed from the flat roof. They have long handled specialist squeegees, and unlike the window cleaners of yore do not wash and then wipe dry, just wash. But as far as I am concerned just losing the hassle of doing them all myself makes it worth every penny.