Priceless personalised gift for teachers

Our end of year teachers' gifts cost nothing and mean more to them than any expensive chocolates or mugs! For each of my young kids' teachers, we print a sheet each year titled "Tell Me About (Teacher's Name)..." It has 8-10 questions on it, with space for the kids' answers to be written in, either by them or dictated to an adult. Questions can be anything. We include things like:

How old is Mr X? What is Mr D's favourite food? Something Miss B always says is.... What does Miss J like to do for fun? Ms P loves it when.... If I had $1000 I would buy Mr H a .... Miss V is a great teacher because.... Mr K gets cranky when... And finish with: A Special Message for Ms A...

Every year it is a massive hit. Teachers love it and when there are multiple teachers, they love to get together and compare answers!

Cheap MP3 download helped me quit nail biting for good!

I found the answer to quitting my lifelong nail biting habit in a $15 app! Over the years I had tried everything from bitter aloes to spending a fortune paying for regular manicures, thinking if I paid someone I would be too embarrassed to turn up with bitten nails. I do not like acrylic nails at all, so that was not an option for me. Now in my 50's, I shudder to think how much money I have spent on manicures over the years! The only thing that worked for me and worked immediately was hypnotherapy - but not the 'go-see-a-hypnotherapist-at-$300-an-hour-for-five-to-ten-sessions', no way! I simply purchased a downloadable MP3 for $15 USD. I listened to it each night as I went to sleep. Normally it takes about 21 days to change a habit, but I found that it worked for me completely after five days. I have no desire to bite my nails at all. I continue to listen to it from time to time as a "top-up" to maintain the cessation of nail biting. I bought my download online from www.stevegjones.com He has MP3 hypnosis programs for everything from weight loss to writer's block. They vary in price and often he has flash sales from as little as $1 per MP3 program. I am not affiliated with his company at all, but can highly recommend!

Bulk liquid hand soap the easy way

I found a way to save almost $50 a year on liquid hand soap with hardly any effort! Just take a bucket filled with four litres of water. Drop a bar of generic soap into it and let it soak for 24 hours. Give it a mix and pour into clean two-litre milk bottles. Just top up pump bottles when needed. For a little added luxury, add half a cup of sorbolene cream and a few drops of glycerine. Works a treat!

Wise decisions enriched our lives

We have saved $500 a WEEK and I've got my life back again! My husband lost his job in October last year, just weeks after I had gone back to work part time to 'supplement' our household. At the time, we had over a dozen payments going out every week, and I really thought the solution was to work more in order to get more money. However, after 6 months of missing my two small children, and working 70-90 hours per WEEK, we made some wise, life-changing decisions. Firstly, we moved house, which automatically saved us $150 per week in rent. the house is further from town but, unbelievably, we now spend LESS per fortnight on fuel than we used to because instead of just jumping in the car now, we plan our trips. This alone gives us a $75 weekly saving. We finally finished paying off our car (another $100 per week), I took our children out of daycare to be the mum I wanted to be (another $50 per week), I on-sold our gym memberships ($26 per week), and we cleared up four other outstanding debts that had been hanging over our heads (totalling $2000) simply through recognising that I had to make the little money we had work for US, not vice versa, and that NEEDING LESS was more important than caramel lattes, trips to Mcdonalds and new clothes. (Oh, and now we have 3 weekly payments, rent, power and insurance- magic!)

My husband is still job searching, and I work 25 hours a week which is what we comfortably live on. I reduced our WEEKLY expenses by nearly $500, which is almost 50 odd hours per week that I no longer have to work. It is SO empowering, and even though we 'have' less, as a family, what we have gained is immeasurable.