NLP means great nails for me!

If nail biting or picking is an issue for you or someone you know, you may like to consider Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). I had just one session and it made a fantastic difference for me. I was sceptical throughout the session, until the end of the session when the problem had completely gone away. I was really surprised and completely pleased! Would definitely recommend.

Tomato paste doubles as cheap puree

Tomato paste saves me valuable dollars on buying puree! Whenever a recipe calls for tomato puree, I just use a sachet of tomato paste and then add water to it to make it up to whatever quantity of puree is required. It works as well and tastes just as good. I like to buy the Delmaine concentrated tomato paste, which comes in four little tubs of 70gm each. It is so versatile, and compared to tomato paste takes up far less room in the pantry!

Keeping track of spending is as easy as 1,2,3

Instead of adding up when you do your shopping, why not deduct? This hint explains all.

I no longer use a calculator when I do my grocery shopping. Something to do with always pressing the wrong button and clearing my calculations!

Now, I simply write how much I can spend on my shopping list and when I put something in my shopping cart, I subtract a rounded amount from the total. For example, if I have $100 to spend and I buy milk for $3.89, I subtract $4.00, leaving me a total of $96 to spend on the rest of my groceries.

By making these deductions with every item, you always know how much you have left to spend. Makes it easier to budget and certainly beats using a calculator!

A Challenge for life

After reading The $21 Challenge, I thought I would see which other areas of my life I could apply the Challenge to.

First, I opened a separate bank account and now deposit $21 every week before I do anything else with my money. I see this as a type of retirement fund – it will be nice to see the funds in 30 years time!

My next $21 Challenge is to only put $21 worth of petrol in my car each week. I will park my car further away from where I need to go; this will save money and improve my fitness and wellbeing.

When my phone contract ends soon, I am going to challenge myself to spend no more than $21 on pre-paid phone credit each month - now that will be a challenge!

There are so many ways we can implement the $21 Challenge in our lives, thanks to Fiona and Jackie's inspirational book.