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!

Sock it to draughts with cheap 'door snakes'

With every winter, it's important to make our heating systems as efficient as possible. Draughts under doors (both to outside and to rooms not currently being used) let heat escape, driving heating costs up. Door snakes are often advertised at around $10 each. This means for a whole house you may be looking close to $100. Instead, you can use a pair of men's long, knee-high socks! These can be filled with rice (or sand if you have easy access to it). Either tie a knot or see the top to seal. You can purchase ind the socks at cheap shops or ok shops, use the cheapest rice you can buy and you can make a house-full for less than the price of one commercially produced door snake.

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!

Tackling one bad habit a month

I am putting an end to my bad habits for good! I decided to give up one bad habit a month this year - something that costs me money and is not good for me. At the end of each month, I can reward myself have that thing again but I find after not having it for a month I no longer crave them any more!

For January I gave up chocolate. It was hard at first and each time I wanted a chocolate I had to deny my cravings. I also made sure that I did something positive, such as going for a walk until the craving passed. I also made sure that I didn't buy something more expensive to replace what I was giving up. The idea is to save money and look after my health.

When February came I allowed myself chocolate again but found I didn't want it any more! For this month I have given up fruit juice. I am finding that I actually enjoy drinking water and if I need more flavour I just squeeze some fresh juice into it.

In March I plan to stop catching the bus. Instead I am going to walk the 40 minute trip to and from work each day. Although it will take an extra 20 minutes of my time each trip, I will get 40 minutes of exercise for a cost of 20 minutes. Again I hope to continue this indefinitely.

In April I will give up alcohol. When I am out I will order a soft drink or lemon, lime and bitters, which will save me money and be good for me.

Each month I plan to give up something that is small but costly and not so good for my health. By the end of the year I should end up with a lot more money in my pocket and be far healthier too!