Smart Spending and Smart  Saving  Tips
with  Jane  Furnival

Jane's Tips

An updated and cutdown version of the classic Smart Spending will be available from November 2007, £6.99 i n the shops, or available direct from Jane here for £5.50 (inc. p& p).
 

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 lim ited 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.

How to order

Send cash or cheque payable to Thriftyworks Ltd to:

The Old Rectory
15 Malden Rd.
SM3 8QB
Sutton
Surrey

or by PayPal

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

Don't forgot to tell me  which book you want and whether you want it signed or dedicated, and if so to whom.

Some of my favourite tips are listed on the left  here.

The essence of my kind of thrift is to cut costs on life’s boring bits and have fun with the rest.

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....

• www.littlemissthrifty.com is a site worth visiting before you do your Christmas shopping, as it carries discount vouchers to download for everything from major giftshops to virgin wine.
  I can only admire the site's discrimination and taste in choosing a name so similar to my own trademark, Mr Thrifty! As with the 'Money Saving Expert', who must be my most avid reader, I take copying my ideas to be a compliment!!

• Craigslist.org is an online noticeboard and classified ad site, with local sites in 450 cities worldwide, including London (http://london.craigslist.org) and 19 other UK cities.
  It doesn't charge for ads, carries offers for bartering and most important, free things like furniture and fridges, on the 'buyer collects' principle.
  [On this subject, we were sad when a free chest freezer, lovingly towed home on our old trailer, exploded when plugged in. It had belonged to an old lady and was working when we saw it. A friend said that fridges and freezers get 'upset' when moved and the thing to do is either let them calm down for a few days before plugging them in, or she turned her malfunctioning freezer upside down for a few days, then the right way up and it has worked for many years. I am NOT giving you electrical or appliance repair advice, nor can I be liable for the results of passing this information on!]

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© Copyright Estate of Jane Furnival 2012-2013