The other reason for checking your receipt is that you will often get offers printed at the bottom of them. This could be for a few pounds off your next shop or a percentage off a particular item. I never even bothered looking for these in the past but they have saved me a bit on most of my shops. You should use them in combination with other coupons you might have found on the Internet.

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Obviously there isn’t much of a market for second-hand plastic bags - unless the shops all follow Marks and Spencer’s example - but for many other items there is. If like me you have a stash of DVDs that you have only watched once and may never watch again then why not sell them. The same goes for books, unless you like reading them over and over it is usually pointless keeping hold of them. eBay makes it so easy these days to sell your unwanted items but old fashioned car boot sales are an alternative. There are many other ways to get cash for your unwanted items too. You won’t believe the stuff that you can sell either. Car boot sales in particular are great for getting rid of stuff you can’t believe you ever bought in the first place.

The only thing to be careful of is to make sure you aren’t selling something you think is rubbish that is actually worth a fortune. So before you sell your entire record collection for £2.80 make sure there are no limited editions in there that could be worth hundreds of pounds. Not only can selling your unwanted items make you a bit of cash but you will free up so much space around the house. Perfect for filling with new rubbish!

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Think About MPG
The biggest aspect to consider probably is the MPG the car can do. If you choose a car than can achieve 50mpg then your petrol bill is going to be half that of one that can only do 25mpg. The easiest way of getting a car with high mpg is to buy a diesel engined car. However as diesel is more expensive than petrol be sure there is a significant difference. Buying a car that will get high mpg doesn’t have to mean you buy a boring and dull car. Many of the top brands offer a diesel version of some of there more performance orientated models. For example the VW Golf offers a very quick diesel powered model. The other advantage of buying a car that will do more miles per gallon is that it will usually mean emissions are reduced. This is not only good for the environment but in the UK it will also mean your road tax is lowered. You can cut your road tax in half by choosing a car that falls in to a lower emissions band.

Don’t Forget Maintenance
When you are buying a car you should also consider how much it will cost to keep it maintained. Makes such as Toyota, Honda, VW etc are notorious for being more reliable than some of the others. However when things go wrong it can be more expensive to get them right again. Makes such as Ford which haven’t always had the best reputation for reliability have improved greatly and the cost of fixing problems can be much lower.

Smaller Engine
If you have already picked a car without considering the cost of ownership then you can consider choosing the same model with a smaller engine. You should get increased MPG and lower tax if you do this whichever car you have picked. It is nice to have a quick powerful car but you can save money by giving up a bit of that performance. Plus you hardly ever get to feel the benefits of a fast car using it on the road anyway.

Where To Buy Your Frugal Car
The biggest expense with cars is obviously buying them in the first place. It is always wise to buy as new a car as you can afford as they are likely to be more reliable and should cost you less to run. You also need to consider whether you are going to buy privately or from a car dealer. Buying privately is usually cheaper, about 5-10% in most cases but you are taking more risks. If you buy from a dealer that is trusted locally you will pay a little bit more but you can usually be fairly sure the car is going to be ok. Car supermarkets are very popular and some of them have a bad name and over value their cars but the good ones are one of the best places to buy a car. They will often come with a small warranty included in the price. Be sure to have a good idea of how much you should be paying before you go car shopping so you don’t end up paying too much. There are a number of websites that will show you car prices but I use Auto Trader as it gives you a real feel for the market.

Our car is usually our second biggest expense after our house so buying a frugal car can give you some of the biggest savings.

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A number of providers are offering very high rates subject to a number of conditions. These may look like a good deal but be sure you fully understand them fully before signing up. HSBC are heavily advertising an 8% interest bank account which sounds great but if you look at it more closely it isn’t such a good offer. There is a monthly fee attached to the account, the special rate only applies for the first year and it only applies to balances of up to £1000. This may be good for some people but it definitely isn’t ideal to use as a savings account.

A couple of providers tend to always have a fairly good rates, these are Abbey and Alliance & Leicester. You should have a look at the whole market though before you pick your high interest savings account. A good place to start is Money Supermarket’s savings section where you can compare a big selection of different accounts and match them against the criteria that are important to you.

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If you use a service such as Skype and the person you wish to call can also use Skype then you can make completely free calls. There are a number of providers of similar solutions one of the most popular is Google Talk. These services usually allow you to call normal telephones too at discounted rates. If you would prefer to use a normal phone but still take advantage of the savings that can be had with VOIP then a service such as the one offered by Vonage may be suitable. You pay a monthly fee of around £7 and can make unlimited calls using your broadband connection. These services also allow you to make free local calls too.

Possibly because of the new VOIP services, the traditional international call market has also become very competitive. Lots of providers will allow you to pay an extra monthly fee for discounted or no charge international calls. In the UK this started to become more common when you were able to start using companies other than BT for your calls. As with any market, increased competition usually means reduced prices. Telephone services is definitely becoming an increasingly congested market which is usually good for the consumer.

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Have a look at Frugal Living for some cheap recipe ideas or come up with your own. You will be surprised how much salad and vegetables you can get for a couple of pounds. Rice, pasta or potatoes are great for filling you up and are very cheap. A couple of jacket potatoes with beans or tuna will cost less than a pound. This should be enough to fill you up and it is reasonable healthy. Not ideal for winter but in summer you can quickly make a meal with a selection of salad and some cooked meat. Again it will only cost a few pounds and it doesn’t get much healthier than salad!

If the convenience of ready meals and junk food is what makes it appealing then there are a number of ways you can combat this. Cook up a some meals at the weekend that can be heated up during the week for a very quick meal. Things like curry, lasagne and chilli are ideal for this. You can even freeze most things to so you can do huge batches for even bigger savings.

An alternative to batch cooking at the weekends it to use a slow cooker. This is basically a large electrically heated dish that cooks things at low temperatures over a long period. You can set it going in the morning and come home to a nice hot meal. You can make a whole range of dishes, curries are particularly good in them. They are also excellent for cooking meats. You can fit a whole chicken in one and leave it to cook during the day, or even leg of lamb. The slow cooking also makes the meat very tender. Lamb cooked in a slow cooker was some of the best I have ever tasted.

On top of this there are huge number of meals that can be prepared in a few minutes when you get in on an evening. Something like a stir fry only takes about 5 minutes and the ingredients are very cheap. Pasta is another idea for a super quick meal. This can be made in less than 10 minutes and if done with a tomato sauce is pretty good for you. Just make sure you don’t have too much carbohydrate in the week.

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I know we all know about libraries really, but when was the last time you went to one? I haven’t been for ages. I don’t know why, they even have free Internet in most of them. It sounds like just the type of place I would like, and the price is definitely right. We moved house recently and there is a library just down the street. I really must go and sign up and start getting some free books.

They used to be really popular but in recent years it seems fewer and fewer people are going to them. I know I said it was free but we do pay for them in our council tax. That makes me want to start going even more. It is something I am paying for and not using! I suppose the reason I don’t go is that I never seem to have the time. If I want to find something I mainly use the Internet at home. Perhaps this is one of the main reason they have become less popular. The Internet is to blame for everything!

• Morning Coffee - Having a coffee on the way to work is very nice but at most of the coffee shop chains you will be paying £3 for a coffee. You can miss it out and have one at work instead, maybe have one occasionally as a treat!
• Water - Do you drink bottled water? If so that is probably at least another pound. You should be able to get water from a cooler at work and tap water should be fine at home.
• Lunch - The biggest expense of the day. If you buy your lunch every day you will typically spend about £5 if you take sandwiches and fruit from home it shouldn’t cost you more than 80p. It should be healthier too as you know exactly what is going in to the sandwich you make.
• Petrol - Take a look at petrolprices.com to find the cheapest petrol in your area to make an instant saving. It may only be a few pence a litre but it will add up over a year. The biggest way to save though is to drive a bit slower. I commute about 30 miles each way to work, mainly on motorways. If I set off a few minutes earlier and drive a 10mph slower I save about £2 a day. Over a year that is too big a saving to miss out on.

Some of these ideas may seem small but work it out over a year and it it really adds up. Most people work at least 230 days in a year. The above savings save me £9 a day, multiply that by 230 and it is £2070. That is too much money to miss out on it. Obviously you don’t want to cut every daily expense out as there is no point saving money if you have a lousy time every day because of it. There are a lots of things though that you do as part of your routine and are really just a waste of money. One final bonus tip - if you buy a daily paper consider viewing it online instead. Nearly all the papers have a website that has all the same stories.

• Children’s Picture Calendar - Ideal for grandparents is a calendar made with picture of your kids. If not actual pictures then maybe things they have drawn themselves. You can print them off the computer and then take them to be bound and laminated at your local copier.

• Giant Cookie - We have all seen those massive cookies at the local shopping centre but they can be made very easily at home. Just make a large batch of cookie mix using a normal recipe. Then when it comes to cutting them out use a cake tin rather than a normal biscuit cooker.

• Personalised Recipe Book - Make copies of your own recipe cards or type up your own ideas on the computer. Then decorate them with some pictures suitable for the person you are making it for. Print them out and put them in plastic sleeves in a nice photo album. For a few pound you can have a really nice gift that any budding chef will love.

• Personalised Towels - Just buy a cheap set of white towels and add the initials of the recipient using a small piece of fabric. You can add some ribbon near the top and bottom of the towel too. These would cost a lot from a shop but won’t cost a fraction of that to make yourself.

• Gift Hamper - These are really expensive to buy but don’t have to cost the earth if you make your own. By a nice basket and fill it with things you know the recipient will like. You can stick to a specific theme such as chocolate or coffee or put in a variety if items.

Now you have got the idea you can probably come up with some ideas for your own inexpensive homemade gifts. Pick something personal to the recipient and spend a bit of time on it and they will like it much more than something bought from a shop.

It isn’t all good news though as a number of companies don’t seem to be doing a very good job of providing a reliable broadband service. A good website for find the best deals and getting genuine user reviews is Think Broadband formerly ADSL Guide. Here you can pick your new provider with confidence. You may also be limited to the number of companies that operate in your area. LLU requires the provider to place their own equipment in your local exchange so it is taking time for them to get round the exchanges. Also they won’t put their equipment into exchanges that they don’t think will make them a profit. Another good website is Samknows this will tell you which LLU providers are available at your local exchange. Another benefit of LLU is that many companies are offering ADSL2+ which isn’t currently available from BT. This typically allows speeds of upto 24mb compared to the standard 8mb normal ADSL can achieve.

If you aready have a mobile with O2 or TV from Sky you can take advantage of special deals that they offer their customers. There are a number of other companies doing this too. With Sky if you local exchange has their equipment and you are already a Sky TV subscriber you can get free 2mb broadband, pay £5 for 8mb broadband or £10 for 16mb broadband. This is a great deal and most of the reviews of Sky’s LLU offering are pretty good. Lots of companies have similar cheap offers but be sure to check out the reviews on the sites above before committing. You should also make sure you are aware of any tie ins that may keep you with the same company for a year or longer.

In summary if you are paying more than £20 for upto 8mb broadband you can probably find a better deal elsewhere. With increased speed and a lower cost. You should check with your TV or mobile provider to see if they offer any deals and if they don’t you should consider moving to one that does.

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