From nail biter to nail care teacher - tips that work

I was a nail biter from a very young age. Now, I teach others how they can have beautiful nails, without spending a fortune. All you need is a little basic nail care. Soak your nails in oil for 10 minutes each day for one month. Whatever oil is in the kitchen pantry will do. Massage each nail in a circular motion (not back and forth) with the ball of the thumb. After the first month, this treatment is only needed once a month .

The next step is to treat nails weekly for the next six weeks . Cleanse them with a nail polish remover, again starting at the end of the nail bed and working down the nail to the tip. From here on, apply a simple protective barrier nail polish every day. In the beginning, the nail polish builds up as you are learning - do not worry or be concerned about that - just only do the nails once a week. Every week also file and buff the nails. Only do this once per week, as one can over process the nails (just as you can do with skin and so on).

I have ended up teaching nails care for 20 years and all of my clients who have followed handling correctly as well as the process are the proud owners of beautiful nails and hands!

You can heal your life - and your nails!

A book by Louise Hay helped me to put an end to 45 long years of nail biting! According to her book, 'You Can Heal Your Life', biting your nails may represent 'frustration, eating away at oneself, or spite of a parent.' It wasn't until I made the conscious connection to my unresolved feelings and nail biting that I stopped. What I found really helped me was downloading some free meditations from YouTube. These cost absolutely nothing to help relax and unwind. I also repeated some daily affirmations such as 'I enjoy having beautiful, long and strong nails'. I have also used homeopathic remedies such as Brauer's Nerve Tonic, which in my opinion is the best thing since sliced bread to calm a stressed nervous system!

Declare war on the mortgage

We decided to get rid of the $96,000 mortgage on our home within three years. The massive load of interest we would pay to the bank was over the top and we felt that the bank owned us. The entire family bought into the project one hundred percent.

1) We replaced the nice modern cars with older, less costly ones. The net difference and any savings we had and $700 from a garage sale were paid off the mortgage.

2) We agreed to budget as if we were in a life and death war and the war had to be won in three years. I developed an Excel budget spreadsheet and we tweaked the numbers until we had a 'do-able' weekly saving of $220 extra to pay off the mortgage. Clothes purchases would be done exclusively at 'Harrods', our Salvation Army shop, until the war was over.

We decided to run any item not budgeted for over three 'hurdles'.

The first hurdle was 'could it shorten the mortgage war?'

The second hurdle was 'is it a health issue?' and if so what was the least-cost workable solution?

The third hurdle was 'could it wait until the end of the three years?'

3) As time progressed we became pretty smart at reassigning money to reward ourselves for enduring the war. This meant we could have a low cost take away sometimes, or spend on an out of budget item we had set our hearts on.

It took nearly four years to knock off the mortgage. Yes, we won the war a little later than hoped, but we won. If it had taken eight or nine years to win, it would still have been worth it.

The legacy of our war against the mortgage is that we have developed great money saving skills for life. And life is great.

How to use leftover potato water

If you've just boiled up a pot full of spuds and are about to tip the water down the drain, stop right now! That water is full of nutrients and vitamins and can be used again.
 
Next time you have potato water, you may like to try using it for soups, gravies, stews, as a base for making stock, liquid in baking biscuits, breads or pancakes, or a broth drink! You can even leave it to cool and pour over your garden plants.
 
I have achieved fantastic results since I started to use the potato water in my home-made bread, rolls and buns. It's a great way to get additional nutrients from our foods and a big water saver.