While plenty of household items might look like they can only be used for one job, there’s often more ways to extend their life and use them around the home. Knowing how to repurpose items you might have simply discarded can also save you some money, and often help make your home more efficient.

From turning wine bottles into glasses and candle holders, or using empty shoe boxes as storage containers, former Great British Bake Off winner and kitchen expert Nancy Birtwhistle has urged homeowners to stop throwing empty cereal packets away. The self-described kitchen agony aunt, who promotes cutting down on single use plastic through her work, has shown three ways leftover cereal packets can be used.

Appearing on This Morning, Nancy shared with viewers the many ways she uses cereal packets for jobs that you might typically use clingfilm for, and said: “I don’t use clingfilm, I love using a cereal packet liner to cover my leftovers.”

Keeping the bag intact means you can simply slide the whole plate inside it, and keep food covered while in the fridge, preventing it from spoiling. “It will keep everything fresh,” said Nancy.

But perhaps her most popular tip was using cereal packets instead of cling film to help with baking, particularly when rolling dough out.

While most people use cling film to prevent dough from sticking to the surface or lifting too much when preparing baked goods,

Nancy recommends using a cereal packet instead, demonstrating how she cuts it in half to make two sheets.

This can then be used underneath and on top of pastry, fondant or even marzipan, and will keep it in place as it’s being rolled out without needing to use any extra flour either.

One Instagram user commented on the video and said: “Have used it for rolling pastry and it makes it so much easier. Will definitely use it instead of cling film.”

For her final tip, Nancy demonstrated how cereal packets can also be used to break food up into smaller pieces which can be especially useful when baking too.

Using frozen raspberries, she simply placed them into the packet and gave them a bash with a rolling pin, explaining this will give you “perfect raspberry crumbs for cake batter.”

While it will also work for nuts and biscuits, another Instagram user said: “Loved for pastry then I started to use them for pounding meat thinner. A million times better than plastic wrap.”