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!

Replace nail biting with horsetail herbal capsules

A tried and true way to prevent nail biting is to take horsetail herb capsules. Nail biters seek silicone and this herb supplies it. I am a naughty nail biter from way back (and still do because I am hopeless at taking pills!). However I swear horsetail capsules work and my nails grow like wildfire whenever I remember to take them!

$2 dinner nights

I am saving around $100 a month on my grocery bills, thanks to a few simple changes to our family meals. I wanted to reduce our food bill and after some thought came up with the idea of making two nights per week a '$2 Dinner Night'. For example, one night we will have something like toasted baked bean sandwiches or stuffed baked potatoes; the other I use up all the leftover vegetables in the fridge to make a self-crusting quiche. This reduces the amount of food we waste and the kids love it. Even the simplest meals can be delicious and filling and the savings we are making from our twice-weekly $2 dinners are well worth it!

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.