It’s getting chilly already, even though we’re only just getting into October. I passed my neighbour yesterday who was dressed from head to foot like an Eskimo, complaining about the cold, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the cost of energy is preying on your mind. Prices have soared this year and a gloomy report commissioned by Centrica back in the summer reckons they could jump by another 60 per cent in the next two years.

This is a horrifying thought, especially considering the 3.5m UK households already in fuel poverty (spending more than 10 per cent of their income on fuel), according to government figures released last week. Recent research by the National Housing Federation predicts that almost 25 per cent of UK households will end 2009 owing money to their energy provider, and that many people on low incomes will be forced to choose between heating or eating during the winter. What’s more, energy watchdog Ofgem has this week warned companies to stop charging customers different prices if they pay by different means. Currently customers on pre-payment meters – often people with credit problems or in fuel poverty – and those paying by cheque pay more for their energy than those settling their bill via direct debit.

So this month MSN have set me a new challenge - to cut my energy bill and investigate ways of saving energy around the home. During the task I will be finding out where DJ and I are wasting precious energy every day around the house and introducing measures to combat this, examining the government’s new insulation initiative and energy companies' social tariffs, as well as investigating alternative energy sources and life without gas and electricity.

I used to consider our household as reasonably green, but since I began working from home and started using the heating during the day in the winter our fuel bills have risen considerably, in addition to the energy price hikes. Only recently I was shocked by receiving a bumper bill from my old energy company NPower. So it’s clear that something has to change. And while we can’t necessarily control international coal and oil prices, with which our energy prices are linked, we can do something about our own consumption and examine alternatives. Sometimes it frightens me just how reliant we are on gas and electricity these days and how helpless we seem to be whenever there is a major power outage.

Are we too reliant on gas and electricity? What do you think is the answer to our fuel price woes? Leave a comment and let me know.

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Thanks for your suggestions this week for frugal luxuries. They demonstrate that credit crunch or no credit crunch, you don’t have to spend a fortune to pamper yourself now and then! Here are some great ones to try out over the weekend:

1. 1.  Give yourself a home beauty treatment. Fill up the bath with cheap bath salts or make your own using Epsom salts or sea salt – here’s a great recipe. Put some music on, light some candles and relax. Why not take a book into the bath with you, as long as you don’t mind getting the pages soggy?! Then afterwards spend some time moisturising or painting your nails (guys –Brad Pitt moisturises so you’re in good company – nails are optional!). Make yourself a face mask too. Isla Marie likes to mix some aloe vera with a cheap moisturiser, rub it in and then relax in front of a borrowed DVD.

2. Borrow a good DVD from a friend or if you have a VHS player pick up a cheap old movie from a charity shop (our one sells them for 25p). Curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and enjoy.

3. Get nostalgic. Spend a few hours going through old family photos or make up a scrap or photo album. Isla Marie loves to do this with her fiancé. A photo album of old pictures makes a great cheap Christmas present for family members.

4. Linger over a coffee in your shopping centre café with a friend. The staff probably won’t hurry you. Christine says there are so few customers in the credit crunch that the staff don’t mind if you outstay your welcome. They need some punters inside to tempt other customers in.

5. If you have countryside, the seaside or a nice park nearby enjoy a leisurely stroll there with friends or family. Turn your mobile phone off so nothing can disturb you. It can be chilly now, but if you have a back garden sit out there for an hour and watch the birds. Borrow a library book about meditation. There is nothing more relaxing than quietly meditating in a green space – don’t worry, you don’t have to sit cross legged and hum - no one has to know you’re doing it! But it gets rid of workplace stresses and strains.

6. LGreaves enjoys watching a roaring fire on a cold night. They’ve had their gas fire removed and replaced with a fire grate bought second hand for a fiver. LGreaves says: “I love looking everywhere for logs and watching them burn. There is nothing nicer than a roaring fire on a cold night. Especially when it is completely free!”

7. Cook one of your favourite meals for you and your partner or friends at home. Get dressed up as if you were going to a restaurant and make the table look pretty so it feels really special. If you’re feeling decadent then pick a night when everyone is out and cook a special meal for yourself! DJ likes to do this when I’m out.

8. Go to a busy WHSmith’s – ones by big railway stations are always good – or your library and read the magazines there for free at your leisure. This is one of my luxuries. If you like celebrity gossip, buy – or borrow - the National Enquirer. It’s only 99p and it’s packed with great stories, there’s no boring cosmetics adverts or fashion photos padding it out and there’s always plenty to read about movie stars. Lots of the stories end up in the UK gossip magazines a week later so you’ll be getting them first. It’s trashy but I love it.
9. Take down that book from the shelf that you've been meaning to read and take the time to enjoy it. Few things are as great as a really absorbing book.

10. Got pets? Spend time enjoying their company and their funny ways. Take your dog for a long walk or give your cat a good grooming session. Pet owners are thought to have lower blood pressure so let Fido help you to chill out! I love sitting in our back garden watching the chickens run about, it always brings a smile to my face.

Have I missed any out any other frugal ways to relax? Leave a comment and let me know.

Have a great weekend, Piper xxx

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If you’re a keen gardener, how has your veg crop fared with the poor summer we’ve had? I’d be interested to know. As I said yesterday, our tomato crop was mixed due to the rain and lack of sunshine, although it’s fighting back and we’re trying to make the most of it.

DJ’s brassicas – kale, broccoli and cabbage - were a bit of a washout too. He put netting over them to keep out the cabbage white butterflies, but they managed to get in there anyway – and probably stayed there because of the netting - and decimated everything. Thankfully they have made a tactical withdrawal and the kale and cabbage are recovering. DJ was also excited about growing basil from seed this year, but he found he didn’t like the flavour of the variety he grew, so it was a bit of a waste of time!

But he’s had his successes too. The house is overflowing with potatoes and I keep being told to cook with them as often as possible to use them up. DJ grew pink firs and Anyas, which I thought turned out well. He estimates he’s produced £60 worth of them, which is no mean feat! But he thinks he probably won’t bother to grow them again next year. He grew them in a raised bed and they overshadowed everything else. Plus while they're good tatties, DJ reckons they’re nothing special and he prefers to use the space to grow something better than what you can obtain in the supermarket. I’m still lobbying for him to stick a few in a separate container as it’s useful to have a few around, not to mention cheaper than buying them.

We had a bumper crop of garlic and there are lots of courgettes in the fridge, which we are planning to make courgette pickle from. DJ’s aubergine plant has also been a trooper, producing loads of very cute little fruits. The sweet corn was another highlight, as are the parsnips which we’ve recently started harvesting. Although they grow so far down into the ground that you can give yourself a hernia trying to pull them up. There’s also beetroot on the way, tonnes of borlotti, dwarf French and runner beans and – something I’m excited about – a beautifully formed butternut squash. It’s the first time we’ve grown one, so I’m looking forward to trying it out. We were waiting for it to colour up, but apparently it’s a variety that doesn’t go golden. And with Hallowe’en not far away, next year I want to grow pumpkins!

What have been your gardening successes and failures this year? Got any good frugal gardening tips? Leave a message and let me know.

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After a week of testing Asda Smart Price products, some of which were fantastic, others I’d prefer to live without, I have to say that it was seriously good to tuck into some of DJ’s fresh produce from the vegetable patch over the weekend.

The summer having been disappointing, his tomato crop was fairly mixed. Generally they turned out nice and red but some had a rather watery flavour thanks to too much rain. But recently with the warmer weather their flavour has been improving, so DJ made a gorgeous roast tomato soup from a recipe he found in Grow Your Own Magazine, actually from Waitrose.com. It was delicious, especially with fresh homemade bread. You just can’t beat simple homemade soup.

That combined with reading a top 20 list of money saving tips from readers of Glamour Magazine – including a home-made spa treatment a lady who used to spend $10,000 on pampering at spas now uses - got me thinking about frugal luxuries.

It may sound like a contradiction in terms – surely the frugal life is all about self-denial? Stopping yourself from spending cash on things you don’t need and scrimping and saving? Well, it can be, but as some of you have pointed out in your blog comments it should also be about enjoying a simpler, better quality way of life - if possible - by scrimping in some areas of your finances so you can spend money – or time - wisely on other things that matter to you. That might be working fewer hours, and surviving on a smaller salary, so you can spend more time with your kids or on a project you care about. Or saving the cash you used to spend on cigarettes towards a holiday. Although it’s clear from your comments on the blog that everyone’s circumstances are different, and for some people frugal living isn't a lifestyle choice but a necessity.

But even in the depths of the credit crunch – perhaps especially so, because life right now is stressful for many people - we all need a little pampering now and then. For some it might be good home-cooked food, for others it might be a home pedicure or curling up with a favourite old film on TV or a gripping book. I’ve realised that one of the most pleasurable things in life for me is enjoying the company of good friends or just going for a walk in the woods. And it sounds bonkers, but one of the most decadent things DJ and I enjoy is tucking into a warm sweet corn cob, freshly picked from the garden. If you’d told me ten years ago I’d list that as a luxury, I would have laughed in your face! Back then I was more used to treating myself by going on a clothes shopping spree paid for by credit card which usually came back to haunt me later.

So what I’d like to know is – what are your favourite cheap ways to pamper or treat yourself? Please get in touch and let me know, and I’ll put a list of the best ones up on the blog.

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It may have been the rain or the quick blow dry I gave my hair, rather than the Asda Smart Price 14p shampoo and 27p conditioner, but my crowning glory was like something out of a horror movie all day on Wednesday. In the end I put it in a bun to save myself from a nightmare of static. Although, as a dry skin sufferer, my scalp was a lot less itchy than I’d expected. Not to be deterred,  I persevered with sampling my Smart Price food products this week.

I forgot to mention in my shopping list that I’d also purchased the Smart Price spaghetti – a steal at 22p for 500g. And I was a happy customer. DJ used it in a prawn chilli pasta dish and I couldn’t taste the difference between that and the 84p Napolina spaghetti I sometimes buy. I’ll definitely be purchasing that item again. The 41p mayonnaise was also good quality – a bit fattening as I normally try to buy a reduced calorie mayo - but very tasty.

This morning I tried out the 74p (for 750g) cornflakes. These don’t come in a cardboard box but a plastic bag - presumably to save on packaging costs, but possibly because the real cardboard was inside the packet. The flakes looked like Kellogg’s cornflakes so I was surprised they had so little flavour. They weren’t inedible but after a few minutes of munching away on them and listening to gloomy tales of the credit crunch on the radio I felt a bit depressed. Not the greatest way to start your day! But after I cracked and sprinkled a few Crunchie Nut Cornflakes on top they became surprisingly more palatable, so perhaps that’s a solution to economising on breakfast cereal. Mixing and matching budget and conventional brands.

The chopped tomatoes (21p) tasted exactly the same as any mid-range brand I might buy. I’m a bit fussy with tomato pasta sauces, though, so I probably wouldn’t use them in one, but I’d happily throw them in a casserole or chilli. The baked beans (20p) also got the thumbs up.

As for the sweet corn (19p), it obviously wasn’t as tasty as the cobs DJ grows on his vegetable plot but it wasn’t bad and the chickens were quite happy with it. The tomato soup (18p) was a bit bland but nothing some salt and pepper and a handful of dried herbs couldn’t sort out.

I expected the washing up liquid (44p) to be runny but it was actually fairly thick and I didn’t need to use much. Another good buy.

All in all, while with my sensitive skin I probably wouldn’t buy the Smart Price toiletries again - apart from the 14p soap and 37p loo roll – I was impressed with the staple food stuffs, the chopped tomatoes, beans, sweet corn, pasta, etc. and the washing up liquid and will definitely be stocking up on them.

Have a great weekend, Piper xxx

Would you buy budget food brands? Or do you get what you pay for? What can you recommend?

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