My uni studies STOPPED me biting my nails!

I've been enjoying long, beautiful nails for 30 years, thanks to a method called behaviour modification! I was required to do it as part of a psychology unit at university. It is a method which rewards good behaviour and punishes bad behaviour. This is the method:

1. You determine what you want to change: I want to stop biting my fingernails.
2. You determine what would be a good reward. I will give myself $1.00 coin.
3. You determine what would be a good punishment. I will give $2.00 to charity. Note: It is best that the punishment is worse than the reward, so you can obviously achieve your positive goal ASAP. The simpler your rewards and punishments are, the better. I used the money to purchase a scarf but you could do it for anything.
4. You work out what you need to motivate yourself to achieve that positive outcome. I used hand cream daily, I used oil to massage the cuticles daily, I painted my nails with nail hardener and once the nails grew past my fingers, I got manicures regularly.
5. Draw up a table as shown below, to keep track of your progress daily to get to your eventual goal:

Day 1 – Outcome: I put my fingers in my mouth So you put a cross in the negative box and take the punishment. Negative Positive Punishment Reward x $2.00 paid to charity

Day 2 – Outcome: I didn’t put my fingers in my mouth So you put a cross in the positive box and take the reward Negative Positive Punishment Reward x $1.00 paid to myself

From memory I stopped biting my nails after the second week and kept going until I grew my nails to the length I wanted them. I found that it took about 10 weeks to achieve the outcome I wanted. I didn’t think I would get long fingernails, but I did and continue to do so!

Make every cake of soap last twice as long

To make a cake of soap last twice as long, simply paint the top or bottom with some PVA wood glue and let dry. Doing this means only one side of the soap dissolves, enabling the cake to last double the time. I paint the top side of the cakes of soap when we bring them home. Sometimes my granddaughter even glues a pretty picture to the side!

Eucalyptus oil for cleaning

I used to buy a large can of air freshener ($42 per year) plus a can of Glen 20 each month ($71.52 per year) for my home and bathroom. On top of that I would also buy a large spray bottle of Febreeze quarterly ($54 per year). That is a total of $167.52 just for freshening the house each year.

On top of that, there was the additional cost of $9.00 a week on floor washing cleaners and disinfectant ($468 per year). A grand total of $635.52 per year.

Now I buy two large bottles of eucalyptus oil ($22), plus I have bought two very sturdy two litre capacity spray bottles (at a once-off cost of $18).

One bottle is reserved for carpet, bathroom and fabric deoderising and freshening, which now has us enjoying the additional benefits of no fluorocarbons or chemicals being used in our home, and eucalyptus oil is twice as effective when it comes to fighting bacteria. I use two tablespoons of eucalyptus oil per two litres of boiled, spring or filtered water.

The second spray bottle is used as a floor sprayer. I now don't use a bucket and mop. I just sweep the floors, wet the mop, spray the floor as I go with the eucalyptus and, hey presto, clean, deoderised and disinfected floors in one easy go. I use four tablespoons of eucalyptus oil per two litres of boiled, spring or filtered water.

The total cost saving for an entire year has been $448, which is now being spent on music lessons for our children. The house always smells fresh, the floors are cleaner and we've had fewer colds than ever before.

Hubby accepts money troubles after wife resigns

Swapping roles with my husband forced him to start budgeting and to learn to take control of our finances!

My husband and I are happily married and are about to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, but there was a stage in our lives when we were raising three children and our finances were incredibly stretched, yet he refused to accept it.

One day there was no bacon for his breakfast (he likes bacon every day) and he lost his temper. Rather than get angry back, I wrote him a letter resigning as housekeeper, mother and wife and gave it to his secretary.

He finally agreed to talk and I got him to agree that for one month he would take responsibility for running the house on the budget I had been working on. It wasn't long before he asked 'How on earth do you manage? We need to reassess our finances'.

Since then we have always cooperated when it comes to getting through a tough period.