Smart Spending and Smart  Saving  Tips
with  Jane  Furnival

'Queen of Thrift'  The Guardian

Jane Furnival
1957-2012

The Tribble family announce with deep sadness the death, on 14 May 2012, of Jane Furnival.

Obituary:
UK Press Gazette

We have decided to leave this website as a tribute to her memory and to enable those who wish to obtain copies of her books.

Jane Furnival presented the prime time BBC 1 series Smart Spending and has recently been seen on GMTV. She is the author of two best-selling books on how to save money. Mr. Thrifty's How to Save Money on Absolutely Everything is now in its fifth edition. Smart Spending with Jane Furnival was published in 2005.

You can buy both books on this website - see below.

About Jane | Books | Jane's tips | Planner | Links

An updated and cutdown version of the classic Smart Spending is available for £6.99 in the shops, or available direct from Jane here for £5.50 (inc. p& p).

How to order

Send cash or cheque payable to Thriftyworks Ltd to:

68 Kings Rd.,
Aldershot
Hants
GU11 3PQ

or by PayPal

From http://www.paypal.co.uk pay by credit card  to thriftyworks@googlemail.com

Other books by Jane Furnival

First and foremost, the cheapest way I know to save money is to buy a copy of my book, Smart Spending with Jane Furnival, from me personally. It costs £8.99 in the shops, or buy direct for £6.75 (inc. p& p).
 

Jane's classic Mr. Thrifty's How to Save Money on Absolutely Everything  is still available in a limited number of copies. Price in shops: £4.99. Available direct for £4.50 (inc. p& p).

I have a few old copies of Mr. Thrifty, which I will happily sell for £3 (inc. p& p) to clear.

This light-hearted guide to gentlemen's wear is full of funny old illustrations and makes a great gift, especially for men and boys. £5 including p& p signed.

How to order

Send cash or cheque payable to Thriftyworks Ltd to:

68 Kings Rd.,
Aldershot
Hants
GU11 3PQ

or by PayPal

From http://www.paypal.co.uk pay by credit card  to thriftyworks@googlemail.com

Don't forgot to tell us which book you want.

'This book contained the short, sharp shock I needed to change the way I was spending. It has helped me get out of debt within one year and gave me the confidence and advice I  needed when speaking to nasty debt collection companies. Her amazing saving tips helped soften the blow too. Jane Furnival has a no-nonsense approach which makes everything very easy to understand and apply to your own circumstances. A book on this subject could so easily be dull and full of facts and figure but this book provides straightforward, practical advice with heaps of humour.'

J. Calvert (London, UK)

'Found a copy of your book Smart Spending with Jane Furnival in my local library, have not been able to put it down for the last few days. Am finding it so useful that I will buy my own copy.'

Mark Flury

'I already have a copy of Mr Thrifty and find it very beneficial - it certainly has changed my approach to spending.'

Janice Price

'Thank you so much for your reply and advice on our problems,I showed my husband last night when he got back from work and for the first time since this all kicked off he  smiled.'

Hi. I write books on how to save money. I'm sorry that I don't put loads of tips on my website anymore, as other 'experts' on this subject reproduce them!

However, I do hope that you will buy my books. You'll find them useful. whether you want to save a few pounds or a few thousand. They are not full of tips which are only valid for the week. Nor are they so general as to be pretty meaningless. They are there to help you to change your life, and live more happily and comfortably, for ever.

I use my money-saving skills to the full every day - and learn new ones constantly. Because, unlike any other person writing about saving money that I know of, I’m a full-time working mother with a husband, a big house that I make earn its keep, and sons aged nine, 17 and 22, plus pets including a flock of rescue hens.

See Jane's top tips on the VideoJug website: Cheap Cooking Ideas, Saving Money On Your Shopping, Budgeting Tips, Identifying Shop Tricks, Reducing The Cost Of Air Travel, Saving Money On Mobile Phones, Saving Electricity, Offers And Bargains Explained, Cheap Cleaning Alternatives, Reducing Your Car Costs

I never give advice that I haven’t followed myself. I help you for life, with simple suggestions you can follow again and again. I haven’t time for fiddly tips like ‘swap credit cards every two weeks’ or ‘get six extra points on your supermarket loyalty card this Friday by buying shampoo between 2 and 5pm’. I give sensible ideas, facts, figures and contact details, which you can do at two in the morning when you wake up, worried about tomorrow’s postbag. (Yes, I’ve been there too.)

I was never interested in saving money until 1991, when my then-employer, The European newspaper, went bust leaving me heavily pregnant and owed thousands in pay and expenses. It was Christmas, my husband had recently started his own business, and we had no spare money. We were on the verge of bankruptcy. To find a gift for our eldest son, then a small boy, we went to the local dump. An old pram found there transformed my life. We made it into an old-fashioned go-kart – and I found then that there are ways living cheaply without living miserably.

Christmas 2006 brought back that time to me. My husband lost his job when his business partner fired him. It was a shock to be ousted from one’s own successful company after 16 years – a business started in an attic with such egalitarian ideals and hope, when we had all put our houses up as guarantees for a bank loan and I had worked for nothing as receptionist periodically.

We got through that time - it really was back to basics! Once I picked mushrooms in a wood and nearly poisoned my husband in the name of thrift! I know what I'm talking about. I live the life.

I LOVE passing on the stuff that no one else will tell you. It’s my ‘thing’. For instance, a friend of mine, a senior forensic scientist, was researching whether you could trace the route someone had travelled in a car by analysing what kind of petrol they put in their tank along the way: ecological, super-clean, go- on-longer or whatever. He analysed what went into tankers at refineries and what came out of pumps at various petrol stations. He confided to me that he had now given up both his original idea and, personally, buying premium petrol: he had found too many things that went wrong. I merely pass on this story as an interesting one. I am sure that things have changed since, and that all petrol suppliers are duly diligent. You’ll find petrol-saving hints later in this book.

    See Jane telling her secrets about  how to save money on video 

My style of money-saving is summed up by this approach. You CAN have the things that really matter to you, if you understand that you can’t have it ALL.  Concentrate on the core things you really want, and don’t waste money or effort on anything else. Focus. Play as a sportsman does, to win. For instance, I love a nice home where I can live all the time. I am not so interested in long haul holidays as I don’t want to spend a month’s mortgage to travel for a day then cram into one or two rooms with my family. YOU may feel the opposite. It doesn’t   matter what your goal is – just that you know it and pursue it.  

What my readers say

‘What you do is truly liberating.’

‘I’ve been off work on maternity leave, so money is tight. I’ve saved hundreds using the suggestions in your book.’

‘I find the way of life you recommend is very creative.’

‘When I have difficulty in saving money, I go back to your book and find it inspires me.’
 


Here are some general bits of advice to kick off

  • Don’t confuse money-saving with buying the cheapest all the time. Buy a few things that last a long time.

  • Never confuse saving money with meanness to others who have less than you. Be mean to yourself, privately. We use salt in the bath, but leave gift bath stuff for guests.

  • Don’t swagger-shop – that means show off how much you are spending, as if money is no object and spending loads makes you think you’re a more important person. It is bad taste and also unfashionable. Quiet good taste is the thing to aim for.

  • Swap shopping lists with a friend and compete with each other for who can bring in the whole   Smart Saving Tips Smart Saving Tips    list for under the given budget. If you want to be savage, agree that the loser does the winner’s washing up or other boring chore. THAT should sharpen up your will to win next week...

  • If you think you are addicted to shopping, carry a small notepad around. If you buy anything, write down what it is, the price – and how you felt at the time. Happy? Sad? Alone? What had happened to make you that way? After a week, analyse your crunch-points. To know yourself is to be able to control yourself, with any luck. (Sorry, in this book, we don’t buy into the ‘silly me, I’m so loveable but I just can’t control my handbag habit’ school of behaviour and neither do the bankruptcy courts. Do you want to save money or what?)

  • Book yourself up solid in advance, at times when you are tempted to go shopping.

  • Never: buy extra stuff in a filling station shop when paying for petrol (average spend on nothing much, nearly £30) go to bargain outlets just because you think that spending ‘doesn’t count’ or go to a supermarket before 2pm when they start marking stuff down.  

  • Guys, don’t buy tools.  Use the ones you have, or sell them.

  • Girls, before being tempted to buy a new outfit, check your wardrobe – you probably have something similar.

  • If shopping, take Uncle Mort shopping or any grumpy old man who can’t stand shops. Failing that, take a baby or toddler shopping as you can’t manoeuvre the buggy up and down stairs and they soon get bored. These are enough tips to be going on with....

I was never interested in saving money until 1991, when my then-employer, The European newspaper, went bust leaving me heavily pregnant and owed thousands in pay and expenses. It was Christmas, my husband had recently started his own business,and we had no spare money. We were on the verge of bankruptcy.

To find a giftfor our eldest son, then a small boy, we went to the local dump. An old pram found there transformed my life. We made it into an old-fashioned go-kart – and I found then that there are ways of living cheaply without living miserably. Christmas 2006 brought back that time to me. 

My husband lost his job when his business partner fired him. It was a shock to be ousted from one’s own successful company after 16 years – a business started in an attic with such egalitarian ideals and hope, when we had all put our houses up as guarantees for a bank loan and I had worked for nothing as receptionist periodically.

But, after a struggle, we survived, and still love in our beautiful rambling home which we make pay for its keep with all sorts of things like ghost walks! And I've a stack of jam jars in our cellar for my prize-winning home-made marmalade... So I know what I'm talking about. I live the life.

Since then, I have coped with a traumatised husband, our sons, a dog, two cats, and a beautiful rambling home which we had recently bought with the aim of doing it up.

So I know what I'm talking about. I live the life.

 


© Copyright Estate of Jane Furnival 2014-