Keep nail biting (and vampires!) away with garlic

My mother put an end to my nail biting using this inexpensive trick. She simply rubbed a freshly cut piece of garlic onto my nail tips. Whenever I would be tempted to nibble my nails I would get a raw garlic taste in my mouth. Gross! It didn't take me long to be cured!

Find the reason behind nail biting online

If you are spending money on solutions to put an end to nail biting, it could pay to instead get to the bottom of WHY you are doing it! Nail biting is associated with anxiety, because the act of chewing on nails reportedly relieves stress, tension, or boredom. People who habitually bite their nails often report that they do so when they feel nervous, bored, lonely, or even hungry. For more information, visit this link:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/onychophagia-nail-biting

Big savings on seeds

We have saved over $150 in seeds alone this past year. Instead of paying up to $5.00 for packets of seeds which may or may not sprout, we have started grabbing packets of seeds from the herb sections of Woolworths, Coles and IGA. Most mustard, coriander, fennel, cardamom or celery whole seeds that you get as a spice for cooking will sprout for you in your garden. These normally cost around $1.05 per packet and you will get a lot more seeds than if you bought them from a gardening shop. We also get the full dried peas (not freeze dried) from the soup section and have planted these successfully for three years now. They give us the sweetest sugar snap peas ever! A packet normally costs $1.53 and you get close to 100 seeds. In comparison to buy 'packet' seeds it would cost you over $12.

We also cut the ends off shallots and replant them, it takes about three weeks before they start to recover, but then you have an endless harvest of shallot leaves to use in salads. We do the same with old onions that have hidden themselves away in our cupboards and have sprouted. Plant them in your garden, let them go to seed and you will have a great seed stock for the next few years. No need to buy more!

Garlic can be done in the same way. Grab a clove and plant it flat end into the ground. After about four months you will get a great bulb of garlic from your original clove. Be aware that garlic from China or Mexico has been treated with Bromide (cancer causing agent) so only use Australian grown garlic.

Old potatoes and sweet potatoes that start sprouting can be replanted and will give a good yield. Just cut a 3cm piece around the sprouting part of the potato and plant it, from one potato alone you could get up to seven new plants.

Pumpkin, cucumber, capsicum and other vegetable seeds can be cleaned, dried and then planted out to give you more seed stock to play with. Try planting two different types of pumpkins near each other and you might get a hybrid created which tastes great. Our family had a butternut mix with a jap pumpkin and it was the sweetest tasting pumpkin we'd ever tried. We also let one or two of each vegetable go to seed so that next years planting will cost us even less. Our goal is to go totally self sufficient in the garden. So far we have an abundance of butter lettuce, silverbeet, rocket, mint, corn, tomatoes and sugar snap peas all from previously saved seeds.

New year, new challenge

Christmas 2009 was the worst I ever had, having just separated from my husband. At almost 50 I found myself homeless with no money. On the 16th of December I found a share accommodation but had to borrow money from friends to pay for my bond and two weeks rent so that I could have a roof over my head. The only job I was able to do to keep me going was as a housekeeper, yet I could hardly pay for the petrol to get to work.

For four weeks, I avoided going to the shops. I am 90% vegetarian so decided to grow all the vegetables I like to eat at my rented home. I collected some seeds, seedlings and cuttings from friends and customers and decided to spend my last $10 for chicken wire to protect my homegrown herbs and vegetables from possums and bush turkeys. I am spending time tending my garden every day and I now have lettuces, beans, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, herbs and so on for salads and stir fries every day. I even have enough to give some to my friends and customers to thank them for helping me to stand on my own feet and living a healthy life. This week I only spent $16 for organic eggs, milk, a tin of pink salmon and a loaf of bread. These with my homegrown herbs and vegetables will give me a healthy diet for the whole week. I am saving heaps to pay my debts as fast as I can.

At soon-to-be-50 and with no savings, I bought The $21 Challenge book to challenge myself. I am so excited because I spent years of feeding a family of four and now I am alone I have absolute control of what I spend and what I put in my mouth. I feel liberated, I feel young and full of energy. Having less money in 2010 is more enjoyable than my stressful life in 2009!