You can heal your life - and your nails!

A book by Louise Hay helped me to put an end to 45 long years of nail biting! According to her book, 'You Can Heal Your Life', biting your nails may represent 'frustration, eating away at oneself, or spite of a parent.' It wasn't until I made the conscious connection to my unresolved feelings and nail biting that I stopped. What I found really helped me was downloading some free meditations from YouTube. These cost absolutely nothing to help relax and unwind. I also repeated some daily affirmations such as 'I enjoy having beautiful, long and strong nails'. I have also used homeopathic remedies such as Brauer's Nerve Tonic, which in my opinion is the best thing since sliced bread to calm a stressed nervous system!

Cheap MP3 download helped me quit nail biting for good!

I found the answer to quitting my lifelong nail biting habit in a $15 app! Over the years I had tried everything from bitter aloes to spending a fortune paying for regular manicures, thinking if I paid someone I would be too embarrassed to turn up with bitten nails. I do not like acrylic nails at all, so that was not an option for me. Now in my 50's, I shudder to think how much money I have spent on manicures over the years! The only thing that worked for me and worked immediately was hypnotherapy - but not the 'go-see-a-hypnotherapist-at-$300-an-hour-for-five-to-ten-sessions', no way! I simply purchased a downloadable MP3 for $15 USD. I listened to it each night as I went to sleep. Normally it takes about 21 days to change a habit, but I found that it worked for me completely after five days. I have no desire to bite my nails at all. I continue to listen to it from time to time as a "top-up" to maintain the cessation of nail biting. I bought my download online from www.stevegjones.com He has MP3 hypnosis programs for everything from weight loss to writer's block. They vary in price and often he has flash sales from as little as $1 per MP3 program. I am not affiliated with his company at all, but can highly recommend!

Confessions of a stay at home mum

I can hardly believe it but we have an extra $2000 sitting in our savings account! I have been a stay at home mum for 18 months. My husband earns a slightly above average salary, which allows me to stay at home with our son. We have a modest home, with modest furnishings and modest tastes. We haven't really had a financial plan since we got married two and a half years ago and have just been cruising along, saving a bit some months and spending it other months.

When I first left work I had full intentions of making a budget, planning our meals, organising our lives and generally being on the ball with our finances. Each month when pay day rolled around, I would say 'this is the month where I get organised!' But it never happened. I am the first to admit that I have been lazy, unmotivated, complacent and ostrich-like. I have been a member of Simple Savings for over a year and always thought we were doing OK and didn't really need to know all these ways to save money. I had heard of the $21 Challenge but wasn't really motivated to try it and we were ticking along as usual - until last month.

With baby number two arriving in three months we needed extra storage space so we extended our garage to make room for all our stuff. This extension made a dent in the savings account which although we knew it would, was quite depressing to see the balance dropping and dropping and not going back up. Lo and behold, motivation began creeping in!

I downloaded all our bank transactions for the month and was horrified to find that I had spent an average of nearly $260 per week on groceries for two adults and one toddler. There were lots of other things I was also horrified to see but I started with the groceries as it seemed easiest. Motivation knocked harder. I decided to take charge!

I read the first two chapters of the $21 Challenge on the website, put a copy of the book on my library request list and did a stocktake of my pantry, fridge and freezer. Imagine my shock when I discovered I had enough ingredients to plan meals for the next 19 days! That's not counting meals like scrambled eggs, pumpkin soup and the emergency baked beans on toast. We had enough food in the house to live on for over three weeks! We just needed fresh fruit and veges and that was about it. I didn't quite make $21 but my first grocery shop after doing the stocktake came to $61, down from $258 per week the previous month.

From then on I watched the bank account like a hawk and knew where every cent went. In previous months when the bank account got low, I would simply pull out the credit card and pay it off on pay day but not this month! This month it stayed in my wallet.

It's pay day again tomorrow and guess what? I have spent an average of $160 per week on groceries, saving us nearly $100 per week. By being aware and thinking to myself 'do I really need that?' and deciding 'no', the savings account has increased by a whopping $2250! That figure makes me weak at the knees! I can’t honestly say where the money has been going before now. We don’t have the latest gadgets, appliances or clothing. I am truly at a loss BUT I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself right now! At the same time, I feel a bit sick that I didn't do this 18 months ago, or even 12 or 6 months ago, but I've done it now. I am motivated to change my ways. I have goals. I have the energy to do this and I have Simple Savings to thank for giving me the tools to continue saving. THANK YOU!

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!