Okay, that works for me. According to the Post Chronicle, you can catch Suze Orman give Oprah a few financial tips like not maxing out the credit card, saving tips and planning for retirement on January 8th.

When times are fine and money is rolling in, it’s easy enough to fork out on the latest electronic pet or membership of this month’s hottest activity club, pay for childcare, pay for anything, in fact, that will soak up a little of the kid’s free time and leave the parents free to … To what? Make more money? Have sex?  Watch a movie?

Who knows - anything except spend time with the kids, I guess.

Now, though, when every expenditure is going to have to be carefully considered, money spent on kids sports activities, childcare or expensive toys is hard to justify. Fair enough, if Johnny loves his tennis, money will often be scraped together even if it means sacrifices elsewhere. But what if Jane goes along to hockey camp twice a week but really hates the game and you are only sending her there because she has to do something.

Perhaps the whole lean economy deal will result in increased communication between parents and kids; more time spent playing, talking, walking and being together than we were able to squeeze in while we were all frantically trying to keep up with the pushy consumerism that has been shoved down our throats over the last ten years.

What about if I told you there was a place online where you could find things for FREE? On the day I stumbled across freebootr.com, a website that appears to be run by a mad pirate, I found items as diverse as a box spring double bed, a handcarved wooden rocking chair, a Sundance Spa, set of classical music CD’s for babies and a Persian rug.

Freebootr works according to location so you type in your postcode or city and you can scroll through or search listings specific to that area. You can see why it would be worth it to some people to advertise large bulky items for free rather than have to pay to dispose of them but it is also nice that so many are getting into freebootr because they enjoy the thought of other people getting pleasure out of what would have otherwise ended up as landfill.

So whether you are looking for furniture, clothes, toys, garden equipment, kitchenware or any other kind of booty, save some money and look it up on freebootr.com first. Don’t forget you can list your own unwanted items there and have the pleasure of seeing your own trash being turned into someone else’s treasure.

The newspapers are full of fat cat bankers and their golden handshakes, the greed and power lust that dragged us innocents here to this shaky spot but are we not at all to blame? Did you overspend on any luxury item or items in the past few years that impacted on your credit exposure? Were those items necessary? Could you have managed with a smaller, more efficient car? Did the expensive overseas holiday fill a gaping hole in your life or on your return did you find yourself as dissatisfied and restless as before?

The last decade has been one of over-indulgence. Setting sights on a desired item and saving like a maniac towards its purchase seems to be a thing of the past. Today we splash out on things NOW and perhaps appreciate them less and for shorter times. Instead of working towards a goal, carefully planning our route to success and each step towards its fulfillment, we rush out madly waving our credit cards and boot the ball into our own net at the same time.

Wel,l check out this brilliant list of good wines for $15 or less. Given the overall quality of the wines I am rather jealous of the writer that was charged with this research and who obviously collapsed in a giggly heap after a job well done.

Listing restaurants by city and/or zip code the search engine even lets you narrow down selections by day of the week and will soon include a food type option. Kids Meal Deals is the place to go before choosing the venue for your next family outing.

(Kids Meal Deals are currently on a recruitment drive and so are encouraging sign-ups to their monthly  newsletter by entering new subscribers into a monthly draw to win an ipod Shuffle.)

As a kid I found the whole idea of rummaging around in someone’s left-overs to find something that I might possibly wear to bed on a cold night completely lame and embarrassing. As I got older the idea of scoring a ‘lucky’ grew on me and of course today it is not older, geeky cousins that pass along their secondhand clothes its my trendy working gal pals. We all do it. Maybe you are bored to tears with that mauve sweater that you snatched up at a sale last year while your friend might have put on or lost a couple pounds. Hey, time for a clear out.

Nothing helps this process better than a bottle of wine by the way.  Call the girls, get in a couple of bottles of plonk and a good movie and have a pre-movie swap-meet. Remember as you sort through all those second-hand goodies that yesterday’s treasure is tomorrow’s trendy and when you are talking fashion there is no such thing as second-hand. Think gently used, pre-loved, retro or vintage and you’ll soon get in the spirit.

Unless you are forced into that most horrendous of situations where you are entertaining to impress a boss or prospective client, then the thing to remember is that the people you are entertaining are friends. They do not want you to get into more debt than your average third world nation simply to have them over for dinner.

The tastiest and trendiest of dishes often started out as poor mans’ cuisine, soups or stews or combination dishes made from leftover or common local ingredients to feed the hungry bellies of the working class. Not all of the ingredients traditionally seen as low value have remained that way. Salmon was once thrown on fields in Scotland as fertilizer and lobster was a staple of the poor but base your dinner party round either of these today and you’ll be looking at spending a pretty penny before you even start.

Your final selection of dishes will depend on where you live and what you can easily source locally of course but look for inspiration at Chinese, Indian, Thai, Scottish, Irish and Moroccan/Middle Eastern recipes. Each of these cuisines are famed for being full flavored and varied and yet the ingredients need not be particualrly hard to come by or expensive. Think of the fabulously warming Irish Colcannon and Irish Stew, Scottish Cock-a-Leekie or Cullen Skink soups, Indian curries and Chinese noodle dishes. The fabulous aubergine or chickpea dips of the Middle East make great starters simply served with salad and you can’t beat seasonal fruit dipped in chocolate for a delicious but cost effective dessert.

When inviting guests it is normal for them to enquire what to bring. The standard answer may be ‘…just bring yourself.’, but these are not standard times. Do not be shy to suggest that your guest bring a bottle of wine or a piece of cheese, a bunch of grapes or after-dinner mints. Be specific with each request and each guest will be more than happy to participate leaving you free to concentrate on the main dishes.

While I might be persuaded to indulge in tip number one - share a bath with a very good friend - I don’t think I’ll be changing my bathing habits to incorporate tip number nine - pee in the shower to save the toilet water.

The shake-a-printer cartridge tip is not so strange as the costs of printer ink are so ridiculous I think everyone in their right mind must try to shake the last atom of juice out of the cartridges but re-using tea-bags, ah… now that is beyone the pale.

One tip that Fool seem to have neglected is the well known Scottish way of saving money on address books. SImply use the free telephone directories and cross off everyone you don’t know.

The EST website is very good with lots of easy to implement tips and interactive whatsits including the pictured Energy Saving  Clock.  Click on any of the numbers on the dial and you will be treated to tips and statistics which will help you save money and motivate you to do so.

For those who live in the UK, the Energy Saving Grant Finder helps source potential funding or subsidizing of energy saving home improvements.

Other items of interest include the Energy Saving Checklist with which you can see how much each energy saving initiative might save you over the course of a year (in Pounds Sterling and related to UK households of course) and 10 Simple Saving Tips that you can do today.

So while I would encourage you to make every week an Energy Saving Week why not get in the spiirt of things with the Energy Saving Trust. Have a prowl round their website for new tips that you can apply in your daily life and save a few more pennies today.