Somebody asked for people’s ‘unhinged life hacks’ – 23 wildly unconventional tips and tricks you might want to avoid
If there’s one thing the internet loves, it’s a life hack, which is a strategy to manage your time or activities in a more efficient way.
Given that efficiency is the aim here, you’d expect all life hacks to be logical and sane, but it turns out that this is not always the case. They’ve been discussing this on the AskUK subreddit after PsychologicalRow8034 shared their thoughts on the matter:
What are your unhinged life hacks?
Every Tuesday I go for coffee with a friend and there is no free parking for at least half a mile around the area and I don’t fancy spending £3 an hour to park, so I take a gamble and park without paying.
I have done this at least 20 times in the past year and typically stay 2-3 hours as we have a mosey around the shops after. Today was my first ticket, £25!
I will continue to do this since I estimate Ive saved around £100 taking the gamble.
Unconventional and risky, but also fiendishly clever! And lots of other people chipped in with their own leftfield shortcuts for life, like these…
1.
‘If there’s something I definitely must remember to do, I deliberately inconvenience myself by placing items in odd places as a trigger to remind myself of it.’
–CrimFandango
2.
‘OMG I thought I was the only weird one! I used to put initials on the back of my hand to remind me, but I’m so fastidious to wash my hands after going to the toilet that it washes off before I remember it’s there. I started putting random shit in random places to remind me instead.
Reminder to do that load of washing? Sock on the toilet seat.
Reminder to do a load in the dishwasher? Mug in front of the door.
Reminder to take my niece to school? Baby on the hob.’
–Skoodledoo
3.
‘My mum discovered that one car park the fee for not paying was cheaper than the parking rate she would normally pay. So she did the same thing, even if they charged her every time she would still have been saving money.’
–good-SWAWDDy
4.
‘Immediately requesting a refund for any parcel ‘left on doorstep’ or ‘with neighbour’ if they can’t tell me who.’
–Relative-Tea3944
5.
‘Once we were staying in Manchester for a week. Hotel had no carpark so had to park in a multi storey near by. The price was insane, about £90. My husband simply pretended he had lost his ticket and was told he would have to pay the full days rate – £12 lol.’
–CurvePuzzleheaded361
6.
‘Budget supermarkets have floating staff. They go onto tills only when it’s busy. And when they do open a till, it takes them five minutes to get there.
My unhinged tactic is looking impatient and joining a queue I have no intention of using just before I go down the last aisle. As soon as I get the attention of a staff member on till 1, they call for staff.
At which point I do the rest of my shopping and then get back when the queue on the tills is lower just before they close the other cashier off again.’
–Dont-settle-for-him
7.
‘I leave abusive titles on any alarm I set on my phone to shock me into compliance.
‘WORK C**T!!!! GET UP!!’
Tends to be more effective than just entering ‘work’ for some reason.’
–Icy_Oil_1024
8.
‘I used to buy a single Brussels sprout in Waitrose every morning for 1p, to claim a free coffee.’
–robjamez72
9.
‘Not unhinged but I’ve found that my student discount seems to be renewing over and over even many years after graduating, simply because I still have a working alumni email.’
–PineappleCubeKicks
10.
‘When I used to work in a busy city-centre bar, I used to take a blue roll and a few heavy-duty bin bags home every week. That’s probably the thing I miss most from that job.’
–StepIntoMyForest
11.
‘I’m still working through the stack of printer paper and Avery labels I took home with me from a temp office job in 1999.’
–LittleSadRufus
12.
‘1pc KFC chicken is £1.99, 2pc KFC chicken £3.99. 1p profit! Result!’
–abfgern_