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!

'Gentle reminder' can lead to a lifetime of saving

Often all it takes is the smallest reminder to make a huge difference. Having just turned 65 and now "eligible" to retire, I am not ready to do so either physically, emotionally or socially. I'm also frequently with younger people, who don't necessarily have the same basic foundation of budgeting that I was brought up with. With that in mind, I have taken to carrying around a subtle reminder of the cost of living which not only works for me, but will hopefully rub off on those around me.

My card wallet has a 'sticker' reminder, which says "$20? Is it worth one hour of work?" It's small and discreet, but effective! It also serves as a talking point when I am out and about with some of the younger ones and buying coffee or lunch. It's simple to make the label on the computer or by hand, then clear tape to the card wallet. Here's to some improved lifestyle options as I age further!

Devious savings

Changing circumstances and a growing familly all added up to us paying a whole lot less off our mortgage than we would have liked. Pretty soon we would have started to go backwards. It was crunch time!

Using the Simple Savings calendar I identified our most expensive habits, and was astounded to see the amount of money that could have been saved. Our grocery bill was always around $200 or more per week. This amount did not include meat or bread that we get from the butchers and bakery.The trouble was, my husband loved all the expensive name brands for items such as chocolate biscuits, lollies and savoury snacks and was convinced that the cheaper or no name products would be tastless and boring. Week after week I would just automatically reach for these items, without even glancing at the alternatives. I knew as soon as my husband saw the packaging, the goods would remain in the pantry unopened, and he would then go and buy the brand name items anyway.

One week I kept mentioning to him that I was going to do a big clean up of the pantry and I was finally going to utilise all those assorted Tuppaware containers that I had never used. That week I substituted his expensive brand of snack foods with cheaper versions, emptied them into the assorted airtight containers and threw the plain packaging out before he could see them!

I also applied this technique to several other items; I would fill cheaper dishwashing liquid into Morning Fresh bottles, no-name hand wash into saved Palmolive dispensers, you get the picture. Our grocery bill went down from $200 to $140 per week - a saving of $240 a month!

When I finally fessed up to what I had been doing, my husband admitted that most of the snacks were just as good as the name brands, you just have to try a few out. All it took was some creative (OK, and somewhat deceitful) way to present the changes, but we have never looked back. Why would we, with a saving of $3120 a year? Plus of course, one very neat pantry!

Oven cleaning made easy

I wanted to share this excellent method for cleaning your oven.
 
Heat your oven to 250C and place two casserole dishes filled with water on each oven rung. Leave for one hour, ensuring the casserole dishes do not boil dry. Turn oven off, remove dishes and let the oven cool for a few minutes. Remove rungs, then wipe oven clean with a soft cloth. The rungs may need a light rub with a Scotchbrite cloth.
 
The new cloth I used was black in no time but my oven was sparkling clean without the use of chemicals, and only for the cost of heating the oven! An impending visit from the oven repair man motivated me to clean the oven. He commented on how sparkling clean it was – he even wrote down the cleaning instructions!