Finance

Food prices are in the news again, for all the wrong reasons. Some are pointing the finger at retailers, but we reckon the best way to beat higher prices is to shop smarter and grow your own.

By Frank and Muriel Newman - The typical New Zealand household of four uses around 12,000 kW of electricity a year. This costs around $2,800.

The clocks have gone back, the days are shorter, and the nights are cooler. That means it's time to turn a frugal mind to cutting electricity costs.

The winter chill has come early again this year so the monthly electricity bills will be soaring.

Living cheap… it's a family thing.

By Frank and Muriel Newman - We have had a tremendous response to the article about growers markets so we thought readers might be interested in a couple of the stories.

"Free" is a word everyone living off the smell of an oily rag loves to hear. It is surprising how many things are free - everything from buses to sofas!

There're always lots of odd jobs to do around the home but even odd jobs can add up to thousands of dollars in costs. Fortunately, many of those costs can be avoided.

Well, we got thinking about the tills ringing so we thought we would look at oily rag ideas for a cashless Christmas.

We receive lots of letters from readers sharing their low cost cleaning formulas and concoctions but we have come across an excellent summary produced by Bin Inn,