Put your nail biting habit to sleep for good

For most unconscious habits such as nail biting, hypnosis is often the best, cheapest and environmentally friendly cure for nail biting. No drugs, no chemicals and usable by any member of the family providing they are receptive to hypnosis. Some people cannot be hypnotised but they are very few and far between. A single personal session might be all that is needed, but there are some very good programs available in various formats for home use. Worth a go!

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!

$2 dinner nights

I am saving around $100 a month on my grocery bills, thanks to a few simple changes to our family meals. I wanted to reduce our food bill and after some thought came up with the idea of making two nights per week a '$2 Dinner Night'. For example, one night we will have something like toasted baked bean sandwiches or stuffed baked potatoes; the other I use up all the leftover vegetables in the fridge to make a self-crusting quiche. This reduces the amount of food we waste and the kids love it. Even the simplest meals can be delicious and filling and the savings we are making from our twice-weekly $2 dinners are well worth it!

Asking for damaged stock saved a fortune

When shopping for large furniture items, it's well worth asking the furniture retailers if they have any damaged stock. We saved over $400 on our beautiful new dining table. Thanks to putting into practice some hints from Simple Savings, my husband and I found ourselves with enough money saved to spend on a new kitchen/dining table.

We shopped around for a long time. We knew we wanted something big - an eight-seater preferably, with a beautiful wood grain and lots of character. We looked at second hand as well as new, then finally found one we loved. But the price, at $930 was still beyond our budget. We sadly let it go.

Several days later I had a thought and I convinced hubby to go with me back to the shop again. We got talking to a sales person and I decided to be completely honest. 'We love this table but we just can't afford it at that price - can you do a better price?' He did a few calculations but the answer came back 'No'. I said we'd even be willing to consider a damaged table if they had one.

He thought for a minute, and then rang one of the guys out in the warehouse. Sure enough they had the table we wanted, in the eight-seater size, with a scratch on it. He arranged for us to go and look and - we got our beautiful mahogany table, imported from India, for half price (a saving of $465).

We don't mind the scratch at all - in fact, when people admire our gorgeous table (which they do all the time), I proudly point out the scratch to them (which they would probably not even notice otherwise) and tell them the story of how we would never have got the table if it weren't for the scratch!