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!

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.

Positive thinking lifts pressure

My husband and I are soon to become parents and our income has been cut in half. Now that we're on a tighter budget, I have realised how much we were caving in to outside financial influence from friends and family. From innocent dinner invitations to suggestions on 'must-have' products for the new baby, the dollars were being seduced right out of our pockets. At the same time, it quickly became uncomfortable saying 'We'd love to, but it's not in our budget' in almost every conversation. It made me feel constantly deprived and I would actually end up spending money to make myself feel better. My husband stopped wanting to talk about our finances at all because he felt stressed out.

After thinking long and hard about our spending habits, I decided there were three main ways that outside influences were sabotaging our budget: social invitations, gift giving, and pressure to buy. Once I specifically identified these influences, it became so much easier to combat them.

Instead of declining every dinner invitation, and feeling bad about constantly telling our friends we didn't have the money, we organised a monthly dinner party for the entire group. We rotate hosting duties, and guests just bring a bottle of wine. Instead of eating out once a week with one or two friends, we now have a festive gathering once a month with everyone all at once - but only pay for a home-cooked dinner a couple times a year! It puts us back in control of how much we spend. I've also realised that people essentially just want to spend time with you, so you can feel free to counter suggest a cheaper and more creative option than going out to dinner. Instead of 'it's not in our budget', I now say 'Would you be up for a picnic on the beach instead? The weather is supposed to be beautiful'. If the plans are set in stone, I say 'We already have a commitment for dinner, but can we meet up with you all for a drink afterwards?'

I also noticed that giving gifts was really adding up. It was so simple to start making my own gifts instead. My favourite is to make chocolate covered strawberries and wrap them up in a beautiful gift box.

To stop caving in to pressure to buy, I've had to change the way I go shopping. It used to be a leisure activity to go with friends on the weekends, but I know I am too easy to influence. It's just inevitable that they will say 'You look great in that, you should buy it', or 'I had this with my first baby, you definitely need it'. Now I shop alone, with a list! I've also stopped taking the bait in conversations. If someone is recommending a $700 mountain buggy stroller, I ask if they know of a more economical brand of similar quality.

The most important way I've stopped outside influence from wrecking our budget is to talk openly about things with friends and family. Through this I've learned that most people are in the same situation. A friend confided that she was deeply in credit card debt and didn't know what she was going to do. Now instead of meeting her for a weekly manicure and lunch date that costs at least $60, we have opened up and become a real support system to each other for reaching our financial goals. It's often perceived as taboo to talk about money with people, but I think our friends have been just as relieved as we are!

26kg lost - $910 found!

A few simple lifestyle changes have helped me lose 26.5kg AND slash my food bill by $35 a week! Over the past six months I have developed my own healthy eating and exercise regime. I began by pushing my one-year-old for an hour a day to the park and around the shops at a brisk pace, using our $20 eBay running pram. I also invested in some second hand hand weights and after extensive research on the Internet, I started my own regime of weight training exercises.

Food-wise, I began buying in bulk and made my own nutritious meals, rather than relying on 'ready to eat' microwave health meals. This way I knew exactly what was in each meal and there was never any waste. I started making my own meal plans and eating smaller portions, going from a 3000 calorie-a-day diet to 1500-1600 calories per day.

Under my new regime I soon began to lose the weight, but the real bonus for me has been in the savings I have made. Changing the way I ate and my portion size has resulted in me saving $35 a week over the past 26 weeks! A win-win situation all round. No personal trainers, fancy diet shakes, pills or supplements - I simply used what I had. I feel fantastic and have the energy levels of a teenager! If I can do it, anyone can!