A 'glovely' way to stop nail biting

If you're a nail biter and want to stop, get your gloves on and leave them on. Don't knock it until you've tried it! It's impossible to get past a fleecy woollen layer, no matter how hard you try. If you can leave them on long enough, (maybe get the kind with fingertips so you can still use your phone!) the habit is broken and before long, your nails will be strong and long (er). Give it a go!

Priceless personalised gift for teachers

Our end of year teachers' gifts cost nothing and mean more to them than any expensive chocolates or mugs! For each of my young kids' teachers, we print a sheet each year titled "Tell Me About (Teacher's Name)..." It has 8-10 questions on it, with space for the kids' answers to be written in, either by them or dictated to an adult. Questions can be anything. We include things like:

How old is Mr X? What is Mr D's favourite food? Something Miss B always says is.... What does Miss J like to do for fun? Ms P loves it when.... If I had $1000 I would buy Mr H a .... Miss V is a great teacher because.... Mr K gets cranky when... And finish with: A Special Message for Ms A...

Every year it is a massive hit. Teachers love it and when there are multiple teachers, they love to get together and compare answers!

'Nothing' feeds us for weeks

My husband is self-employed and over Christmas and New Year we were waiting on a payment that had been due in November. I had not done any shopping for over a month, and we felt like there was nothing in our pantry, especially my five kids who repeatedly moaned ' there's nothing in here!’

Of course, that wasn't the case. It's amazing what you have stashed away in containers or hiding at the back of each shelf. On a closer inspection, we found dried beans and lentils, flour, sugar, cous cous, rice and lots of other bits and pieces.

We managed to feed our family of seven on the 'nothing' in our pantry for another two weeks. We are lucky enough to keep chickens, and have a very basic vegetable garden, so all I really needed to purchase was milk. We made pancakes, pikelets and scones, and even a chocolate cake with the cocoa we found - these snacks kept the kids, and hubby, very happy!

We survived until our very overdue payment finally arrived. We have now decided that we will eat the cupboard clean every month, as this encourages us to save money by using what we already have and by not allowing things to go out of date.

Wasteful teenagers get a dose of reality!

I have two daughters who live at home with me who are both university students. They both work part-time and pay me $50 a week each for everything. (And I mean absolutely everything!) I had begun to get sick and tired of their wasteful habits! I would find half eaten muesli bars lying around, week-old uneaten fruit, discarded shampoo bottles and toothpaste tubes with enough in the base for three or four more uses, soap in the bin which still had plenty of use left in it and the list goes on! Quite frankly, I'd had enough! I told them to keep their $50 a week and instead they could buy everything for themselves (snacks, lunches, toiletries and so on). I would provide their one evening meal and that was it. I even made them buy their own toilet paper. Well after two weeks they have decided to mend their ways! They just did not realise the costs involved in running a household and admitted they had taken things for granted. I only wish I had done it much sooner, for their benefit and also mine! One daughter can only afford to give me $50 still and her older sister has increased her amount to $70. However, I think things around here are going to be very different from now on as my Sad Sallys strive to become more like Happy Hanna!