Adulting my way into 2025!

lizzie_b

I've been around on these boards for a number of years now, and still I'm struggling to get my act together   
I guess I'm realising I'm not very good at keeping myself accountable, so I'm hoping you'll let me have this (almost) diary here so I can check in with what I've managed to achieve.
At almost 40, I need some serious adulting support.  I only cook for my family two or three times a week, the rest of the time its resorted to takeaways or quick pick up teas.  My sons diet is awful, and although he's not over (or under) weight and relatively healthy, we could definitely do better.  
I don't know how to keep my house together, its messy, and though not unhygienic, it's grubby.
Help 

Mark_d

Can you be more specific about your goals and where you're at now? Is it about planning & cooking meals?  Is it about looking after your son's health?    Is it about keeping your house tidy?

Siebrie

Added to Mark_d's questions: who is in your household and how old are they?

My daughters had to cook dinner every weekend as soon as they turned 11. They are 13 and 16 now, and need less and less supervision.

I do laundry, but don't fold it for them; I just put it in a pile in a designated spot for them to fold and put away. I don't collect dirty linen, either. If it's not in the basket, it won't get washed!

I don't clear and clean their rooms anymore. I've tried for years to have 2 designated 'family cleaning' hours, where we would all 4 of us spend 2 hours cleaning the house at the same time, as we did when I grew up. Husband has torpedoed this from the start, and we never got into the habit.

mandy47

Have you tried making a meal plan and sticking to it. Make your shopping list to cover the meal plan. Cook double and freeze half for another day.
You can also plan housework for the week. If you stick to your plans it'll come together. 
Put the plans on the fridge so family can see and hopefully contribute. 

Frith

Lone parent of 2 here, so I know a few cheats.

A short and long list on your phone. Other lists in notebooks.
Set the timer on your phone and clean for an hour. 
The more depressed and demotivated I feel, the worse job I choose. If I feel terrible anyway, I might as well look around in 10 minutes and be glad I at least took the bin out. 
Occasionally do 3 loads of washing in a row then take it all to the launderette to dry in an enormous drier. (I don't have a tumbler dryer). Take it home and put it all away immediately. 
Do a room at a time. I have this afternoon hoovered and damp dusted my bedroom and cleaned the inside of the window. It took less than 20 minutes. 
Order 50+ silver foil trays off Amazon and every time you cook do twice as much then freeze it in the trays. 
Save takeaway plastic containers in the same way
Make soup in large batches. 
Fix things as soon as they get broken or take to your nearest Repair Cafe or pay someone to do it. 
Go through a cupboard a day with a black bin liner for the bin and one for the charity shop. 

You could start a new thread for batch cooking ideas but mine are always: shepherds pies, goulash, Spanish chicken, chicken tikka and tomato sauce (for pasta and pizzas). Also crumble (for crumbles!) and I stew lots of apples or whatever then bag into the right amount for puddings. You can also freeze chopped up fresh ginger, herbs, sweet or chilli peppers, chopped up onions etc.

Wraithlady

Sounds a bit like you have 'decision paralysis' - too much to do (or seems so) so you can't decide what to do, so you get paralysed by all the things you need to do....

The only answer is choose something, then do it.

Given the house is grubby, not unhygienic, maybe have a go at the cooking situation. Rope the other members of the household in ( and be prepared to battle weaponised incompetence if it shows up) and take note of the good suggestions made here - even if it's just ' We will have 1 less takeaway a week' it's a start, to be built upon.

Once this is under control, move on to cleaning the house - and, like cooking, rope the other household members in, it's their house too.

LzzyIsGod

I was in a similar place a few years ago (although I'm a few years older!) and it can feel totally overwhelming. I'd also break it down and tackle one thing at a time - small wins and all that.

I totally agree with some of the previous advice in terms of meal planning and cooking. Planning ahead is the biggest help I've found in avoiding buying quick teas and takeaways every other day - it also has saved us money in the longer term. I plan a week ahead so I only order what we need (I like a friday home delivery slot) and then batch cook and freeze at the weekend for the following week. The meal plan gets written on a board so whoever is 1st home doesn't have the "I didn't know what you had planned" excuse for not starting dinner.

In terms of the house - the best thing I did was declutter and reorganise, tbf this was a game changer. I did this room by room and it made life in general so much easier and we have saved time not playing the "Hunt For lost items" game. There are a few "cleaning plans" out there that can be a helpful starting point which you can then adapt to suit your family. I find doing certain tasks daily works for us and then break other cleaning tasks down to individual days - i delegate too so its jot all falling to me. I do also do small loads of frequent washing using a shorter wash to keep on top of laundry as we sink under it otherwise.

That's probably enough from me for now but good luck! 

Rosa_Damascena

Not all of us enjoy spending our time on household drudgery but recognise it needs to be done. When faced with an undesirable task, we have 3 options:

• change our attitude to the task
• change the nature of the task to one that is more palatable, eg by dividing it into parts
• change the task environment to something that is more enjoyable

I opt for the latter, which in practice means catching up on a radio podcast and setting myself the challenge of getting as much done as I can in the space of say, 2 hours. Often starting with a single room can motivate you to move onto the next and make a significant dent.

bouicca21

OP if you concentrated on the cooking, would it free up enough money to pay a cleaner?  

-taff

I think you need to realise you are not the only person in the house and that doing everything is not up to you. Time to start delegating some jobs. Do you also work? If you do, its most definitely time to start having conversations about responsibility and that taking on all of the jobs is not your role.

As you can tell, one thing that constantly irked me when I worked was having to do more of the housework than the OH even though we worked the same hours.

Maybe it's also time to have a conversation about how each person think s the house should look in terms of cleanliness, messiness, organisation etc, because you will all probably have different levels of acceptability [ is that a word?]

lizzie_b

Wow!! Thanks for all the responses and advice guys, so a bit more background.

Household is me, 10 year old son, and his dad.  Relationship is fragile to say the least as after years of putting everyone else's needs first (absolutely terribly I might add) and having little to no support from him, I pulled the plug around six months ago.  Unfortunately he wasn't accepting of this, doesn't want to leave, and claims he's 'trying harder' and 'doing better'  Long story short, he is not!

I actually work two jobs, one from home and one away from the home, but the way everything falls to me you'd be forgiven for thinking I did neither.  I've just had a busy work weekend which had me out of the house for more hours than I was in it.  Laundry was not addresses, homework was not done, meals were 75% takeaways, house is still wearing the scars as a result.

Son is quite fussy with food, I think partly due to never really being encouraged into a healthy diet, so this is now my priority.  He's a creature of habit so over the next few weeks I intend to draw up a list of safe balanced meals to meal plan from, as I find the battle at mealtimes absolutely exhausting.  He has chosen tonight's tea, so I'm hoping this is the first step in the right direction with that.

House is cluttered, oh my lord is it cluttered!! There is so much 'stuff' in here that my office is no longer an office, the loft is full, and every single room is untidy!  As I said before, the house is not unhygienic, but cleaning is always an overwhelming task because it needs to be tidied before it can be cleaned!!  So in the run up to Christmas, while I'm home a little more due to some downtime with my job, I am working on a 'little and often' approach to the sort out.

Thanks again for the support so far, I will check in with an update as regularly as I am able, but please throw all your suggestions and tried & tested methods for adulting in my direction