End ant invasions pronto with Talon gel

I have found a truly fantastic product which gets rid of ants like no other pest treatment I've ever seen. Upon my recent invasion of ants, the faithful old borax and sugar mix was barely making a dent in their numbers. I couldn't use my own kitchen bench, guests were commenting and while I hate killing anything, it was driving the whole family crazy.  Thank goodness for Talon Ant killer gel! It works immediately (I saw ants leaving food and running to this gel), they swarmed it and as the product promises, they are gone in 48 hours. I can leave food out on the bench now and there are none to be seen. The gel works for 14 days, but at $8 for 5ml, it is totally worth it!

Laundry liquid makes the best handwash soap!

I stumbled upon the best hand soap ever by accident! I had a bottle of laundry liquid I didn't like the smell of. The perfume smell was far too strong but I didn't want to throw it away. Instead, I refilled the liquid soap bottle in the laundry with it. To my surprise, I have found it is the best hand wash ever! In fact, once I finished the laundry liquid, I bought some more, to fill the hand soap bottle with!

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.

Time-saving tips for working mums

For many people juggling work, family and study, time is the most important saving they can make. I work four days a week, have a three-year-old and studied part-time for a diploma for a year. I got by with these time-saving tips:

1. Lowering my expectations for the house. I don't need a spotless house, but a tidy and lived-in home.

2. Doing my housework little and often, rather than spending huge amounts of time tidying up. I do things like:

- put my little one's daycare bag together for the next day as soon as we get home in the afternoon.
- cook my lunches (pasta and sauce, muffins and so on) once a week and freeze them.
- put my lunch box together from the freezer in the evening.
- clean the toilet by putting a teaspoon of Napisan in it each night. It soaks overnight and the bowl is clean with the next flush.
- do laundry when enough for a load accumulates so we don't have a sudden clothes drought, then an avalanche of laundry to do and put away.

3. Exercising on a stationary bike in front of the TV in the evenings after my little one is in bed.

4. Programming our DVD recorder once a week (Sundays when we get the new TV guide) so I don't miss my favourite shows.

5. Filling cereal bowls with water if I am rushing and have to leave the breakfast things. This makes them easier to clean later and stops ants.

6. Trying not to double handle things. Rubbish goes straight in the bin, meat is put in meal size portions in plastic bags and frozen as soon as it gets home, magazine subscriptions go straight to magazine rack when they arrive in mail.

7. Leaving rooms better than when I arrived, so the need to tidy doesn't build up. It only takes five minutes to put laundry from the floor to the hamper, make the bed, wipe a bench, replenish the toilet paper.

8. Recruiting my little one to help - she's only three but she can put dirty dishes in the sink, put toys away in her room, dirty clothes in the hamper.

9. Shopping for groceries by myself in the evening so hubby can watch his TV shows in peace and I am not tempted to go to other stores as only the supermarket is open. Also many things are marked down at that time.

10. Trying to do three things for myself that make me feel happy each day, like listen to podcasts while I do the housework.

11. Writing the shopping list progressively through the week so I can pick it up and go when it's time to do groceries.

12. Storing the bedding in storage containers under each bed so it's quick to make the bed, especially when changing my little one's wet sheets in the middle of the night.

13. Shopping for presents at sales during the year (online or in stores) so I don't need to go to crowded stores during the Christmas rush.

14. Not beating myself up if I find lifestyle changes tricky at first - I am afterall human!