Eat your way to lovely, strong nails with blancmange!

If biting your nails is a problem, start growing them from the inside out, with this easy coffee blancmange recipe! All you need is:

One x 400g can coconut milk or cream. 2 tbsp gelatin 2 tsp coffee 1/4 cup hot water Sweetener of your choice, e.g. sugar, stevia or artificial sweetener

Stir the gelatin into the hot water and mix well.
In a separate bowl, put in the coffee and sweetener of your choice and stir, then tip in the can of coconut milk or cream. Pour in the hot gelatin mixture and stir all together well. Refrigerate for one hour.

The result? Delicious, smooth coffee blancmange, with the health benefits of coconut, and gelatin for nail growth!

My level headed method helps me reach my goals

My daily book has been helping me save my goals and achieve all year. At the start of the year I bought an A4 meeting book, with section dividers. This gives me a section for my goals, one for 'major lists' that will go through the whole year and lists of different levels. To give you an example, it's this one here: http://www.createl.com.au/buy/meeting-record-book-purple/2578P

I count general housework as Level 1, things like tidying up/sorting, paper cleaning as Level 2 and Level 3 as big things that need other help, such as tax or renovating/new major organisation of the house and so on.

I work full time at a job that has many night and after hour events, so find myself doing a lot of Level 1 on the weekends. However, unless I make a conscious effort, I do not get much of Level 2 or 3 done. Using this book both at work and home helps me to be really organised!

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.

Deluxe hampers for Christmas

Buying Christmas presents for adult friends and family can be both expensive and stressful, especially when trying to match the perfect present to the person.

So one year I decided to make up small deluxe hampers which contained a mini bottle of sparkling wine, two plastic champagne glasses, chocolates, mixed nuts and home-made shortbread. I purchased the gold wire baskets from the Reject Shop for $2.00 each and the glasses (also from the Reject Shop) were $2.00 each. The mini sparkling wines were purchased from Dan Murphy's and worked out at around $3.50 each when purchased in lots of six. The chocolates were a good quality brand, and individually wrapped, so I bought a large tray and then divided them up (which was cost effective as I only needed around three in each basket). I then purchased a large bag of mixed nuts, which I repackaged into small Cellophane sachets, and I made the shortbread, which worked out to only a few cents each.

The overall cost of each hamper was around $10, including the cost of gold tissue paper (also purchased from the Reject Shop) to line the baskets and ribbon for decorating. I suggest sticking to one colour theme for each hamper, for example, gold covered chocolates, ribbon and baskets or silver baskets and accessories.

It's a good idea to look in places like the Reject Shop or $2 shops as soon as you see Christmas decorations appearing on the shelves. That way you get the best selection and can start putting them together early (except for the shortbread or any home-made foods you choose to include in the hampers). This way you'll have plenty of time closer to Christmas to concentrate on the children's presents!

I saved heaps of money, made something original and had heaps of fun doing it!