Make your home pay for itself

• Rent out a spare room
• Renting out your garage or driveway.
• Turn your thermostat down.
• Have a programmer that sets your heating and hot water to come on only when required rather than all the time.
• Is your water too hot? Your cylinder thermostat should be set at 60 degrees celsius.
• Close your curtains at dusk to stop heat excaping through the windows and check for draughts around windows and doors.
• Always turn off the lights wehn you leave a room.
• Don't leave appliances on standby and remember not to leave laptops and mobile phones on charge unnecessarily.
• If possible, fill up the washing machine, tumble dryer or dishwasher: one full load uses less energy than two half loads.
• Only boil as much water as you need (but remember to cover the elements if you're using an electric kettle).
• Fix leaking taps and make sure they're fully turned off.
• Use energy saving light bulbs.
• Do a home energy check.

Save on food bills

With inflation and food prices still rising, the weekly shop is getting to be an expensive business. But there are loads of ways to cut down your food bill each week.

• Meat is very expensive so attempt to introduce more vegetarian meals into your diet.
• Use all the food you have; wasting food is as good as throwing money away.
• Watch out for the supermarket trick at the tills - toffees and crips are places there for a reason.
• Buy 'own-brand' products; they're much cheaper than branded goods and the quality can be good.
• Don't buy pre-packaged products whenever possible - you're paying for all that packaging.

Cut your car costs

• You can make big savings just by checking you ahve the best deal on your car insurance.
• Don't pay over the odds for fuel; find your cheapest local petrol station
• Check tyre pressures regularly
• Keep to the car maintenance schedules
• Keep windows and sunroof closed: there's less 'drag' and less fuel is used
• Remove any unnecessary weight that you may be carrying around.
• Drive smoothly and less aggressively.
• Check emission levels, mpg and running costs when buying a car.

Use Loyalty Cards

• If you're going to spend money you might as well get something back for it. If you use loyalty cards, make sure you get the most out of them.
• Remember to use them ever time you shop, and be sure to check their websites for special offers. Often the deals on there will give you more value for your points than if you were to use them in the shop.

Shop around to save

• It goes without saying that you could save hundreds of pounds on your insurance, utilities and other bills by using comparison sites.

Buy second-hand

• Now that VAT is so high, the vest way to avoid the hike is to buy things second hand, particulaarly big-ticket items like cars, furniture and electronics. Use eBay, Gumtree, your local paper. Quite often, items just a few months old can be half price.