Make-up removal wipes make tough cleaning a breeze

I stumbled across a fantastic household cleaning product quite by accident! While cleaning and decluttering the makeup drawer, I accidentally found myself smearing broken-off eyeliner and other cosmetic dust around. The standard multi-purpose cleaners were not helping and the mess was getting bigger. In desperation, I grabbed out a make-up remover wipe and attacked the mess. Just like that, it removed all the old eyeliner, plus power foundation and everything else from the bottom of the drawer! I'm adding make-up wipes to my regular bathroom cleaning routine from now on!

Many meals from one rolled roast

I have found a way to get maximum meals and value from one single rolled roast. I bought a rolled pork roast which was way too big for just the two of us. Not wanting to be living on leftovers all week, I decided to cut it in half before cooking it. As I was about to place the uncooked half in the freezer, I decided to cut it into thinner slices and use the meat as pork chops instead. This has worked well! I also plan to cut the rolled roast into chunks in future, to use for stir fry, sweet and sour pork and so on. Normally you could never get pork chops or stir fry for $7.99 a kilo! There's no reason why you couldn't use this method with other rolled roasts too.

Chef's tip keeps avocado from turning brown

I am no longer wasting leftover avocado, thanks to this simple storage tip! I have always loved avocado but could never use a whole one in one go. I would use about a quarter for my lunch but by the time I went to use the rest it would have gone brown and didn't look very appetising! Avocados can be quite pricy so the expense of wasting so much was very annoying. Then my new partner, who is chef told me how to stop the browning! I didn't realise but the longevity of avocado is due to light. He advised me to wrap the avocado in aluminium foil and then wrap it in cling wrap and put it in the fridge. To my surprise it really works! Now I get to enjoy ALL my avocado and save heaps too!

An organised family is a happy family

In the spirit of getting organised for May, my tip has to do with letting go of control and coming up with organisational ideas that work with the people you love.

For example, my partner is a wonderful, talented individual who wouldn't know how to put away his clothes even if he was bribed! Clothing was constantly strewn over the floor, on the furniture or stuffed into cupboards and this drove me to distraction on more than one occasion.

Finally it dawned on me that the neatness issue was mine and the organising issue was his, so I discussed what would work best for him. I found out that he would prefer a single place to keep all his clothing, something portable and easy. I went away and, based on what he had told me, set up a system consisting of one large plastic tub on wheels and one small wicker basket. I placed both of these in the bottom of the wardrobe.

Clean clothes now go in the tub and dirty clothes in the basket. When the wicker basket is full, it goes in the wash; I made sure the basket was the same size as a machine load. When washed and dried, the clothes go from the basket back to the tub. Simple!

Now I have a clean bedroom and my partner can always find clean clothes. As a bonus, he's reduced his washing by two-thirds because he is only washing dirty clothes, not a mixture of clean and dirty.

Best of all, there is no longer friction surrounding the tidiness of the bedroom. The idea of working with those you love to create a harmonious living environment, where their needs and ways of doing things are heard and acted on really can have a positive impact, both financially and emotionally.