I have found a low-cost wedding gift that will last throughout any marriage. While it does not cost much, each part of the gift has meaning and it is great to give a close family member or friend. You will need to put together a nice bunch of candles, in pairs of the following colours: white, green, dark blue, pink, cream, red, purple, light blue and silver.

Wrap the candles up with a ribbon or put them in a decorative box or basket, with the following poem attached (author unknown):

A basket of candles that come in a pair
In all different colours, for you two to share
The white ones burn first
They are wrapped in white lace
To celebrate your first married night
In your new chosen place.
The green pair is taller, and also much thinner
Burn with the first company you have over for dinner
The dark blue candles are for after your first fight
Use them to burn while making up all night
Pink candles set the mood and pave the way
For your first married Valentine's Day
Now, when your first year of marriage is through
the cream anniversary pair will light for you two.
Red candles aflame, both your futures are bright
Celebrate promotions you've worked toward with all of your might.
By this time we hope, maybe, just maybe
You can light the purple ones, on the birth of your baby.
And just when you thought you'd put these away
Take the light blue ones out for your fifth anniversary day.
Now just one more pair left for the big 25
The anniversary pair that will keep your love alive.
Congratulations Bride and Groom (insert name here)
On the start of your forever
May the two of you always be happy together
And burn these candles
Just the way we said
But please don't forget - blow them out before bed!

I was usually a pretty prudent shopper but was always looking at the money I saved as potential cash for more purchases. This meant that in the long run I didn't really save anything and ended up with a heap of things I didn't really need.

I started taking a 'savings purse' with me to the supermarket when I did my grocery shopping. Instead of buying the product I would normally have bought, I would choose the cheaper alternative. For example, I would purchase the 'home brand' biscuits for $1.00 less. That $1.00 would go into my head as a saving. At the end of that shopping trip I would put any 'savings' into the savings purse. I was stunned. After two weeks of shopping and 'saving' this way, my savings purse contained $100.

I began to use my savings purse in other ways. If I managed to refuel my car with cheaper fuel, I would put the difference in the purse. If I wanted a chocolate bar, and I resisted buying it, I would put that money in my savings purse. Even with those small amounts, the savings became huge. Doing this began to be fun; it was a challenge to find extra ways to put money into my savings purse!

To top it all off, not only was I saving money but, by 'resisting' the sweets and chips so that I could put the money into my purse, I was also eating healthier and losing weight. I am so happy with the results.

Transforming myself from a shopaholic to a smarter consumer has enriched my whole life. Not only am I saving money, my life has become deeper and more meaningful since I decided to live by the following rules:

• Keep away from the shops.
• Buy only what you need.
• Buy second hand if you can.
• Be stylish, not fashionable.
• Don't buy what you can borrow.
• Stop reading glossy magazines that encourage shopping.
• Borrow books and magazines from the library.
• Read about simple living.
• Do it slowly.
• Spend more time with your family and friends.

These rules may sound simple, but they have changed my life. For as long as I can remember, I have loved shopping. I could easily do it all day, every day and never tired of it. I enjoyed the quest to find bargains or something I had 'always' wanted or didn't yet have.

When I felt angry, sad, lonely, fat, old, poor, disappointed, rejected, embarrassed or simply 'not good enough' - I went shopping. It made me feel better.

When I felt happy, confident, rich, delighted, loved, appreciated and 'on top of the world' - I celebrated by going shopping.

Although I work full time, I had never paid off my credit card and financially I was always struggling. Then I heard about climate change and the impact my shopping was making on the environment. That's when I decided I would stop shopping all the time.

At first, this decision left an enormous vaccuum in my life. I used to be very busy - 'Never enough time in the day' was my mantra. Then suddenly I had lots of free time! I didn't have many really close friends, except my mother and sister. We often used to meet for a coffee and a chat while we were out shopping. But with all the free time I now had, I realised I had been too busy to make other meaningful friendships because of my constant shopping.

I don't meet my mum or sister at the shops any more. We now get together in each others' homes and, although I have always enjoyed their company, I rediscovered a deeper connection with them. We talk, laugh and cry for hours and hours. I am learning so much more about them. I have started to deepen the friendships I have with people who were just 'acquaintances' before. Instead of shopping, I invite them over for a cup of tea or lunch or for a walk along the beach. I'm even starting a book club.

Due to the money I was able to save from not shopping so much and because I wanted to entertain more, I rented out my small unit and moved to a lovely old house. However I soon realised I needed more furniture, so I bought it all very cheaply, secondhand from eBay. Everyone who visits my home says how wonderful and stylish it is. I love making cheap, affordable meals for my friends. I had my first party on New Year's Eve and 35 people came, each bringing their own meat, drinks or salads. To any shopaholics out there like me, it IS possible to change - I'm living proof!

Here's how we saved $3160 on our food and grocery shopping in one year!

With two kids, it's difficult to find time to shop every week, so I now plan a month's meals in advance and do one big shop each month for basics and weekly shops for fruit, vegetables and meat.

We used to spend $150 a week ($7800 a year) shopping, then find we were throwing away fruit and vegetables because they had gone bad, and that we never had enough ingredients in the house for a full meal. We now spend a total of $170 a month grocery shopping, and $50 a week on fruit, vegetables and meat, if that. This equates to a yearly total of $4640 - a saving of at least $3160!

Planning the month's menu takes a maximum of 20 minutes, and each week we have two fish meals, two meat meals and three vegetarian. Recipes come from 'The Destitute Gourmet Cookbook', the Safeway magazine, magazines from the library and from friends. Each week has a mix of easy/quick recipes and more involved ones so that if I have a busy day, I can make something quick. I also plan the 'snacks' such as oat cake, date loaf and banana muffins.

I have a spreadsheet on the computer which helps me to plan how much pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, and so on I need (four kilograms of rice, five packets of pasta, and so on).

After planning the menu, I write the shopping list and then hit NQR, Safeway and Coles while my husband looks after the kids. It takes only an hour if you're organised with a list and go at a quiet time of day! I prepare separate lists for the weekly fruit, vegetable and meat needs.

We are all now eating in a healthy way and always have cakes and biscuits on hand for guests - and we always use what we have before it goes off.

Other advantages are that other people can consult the menu to see what to cook if I'm not around. Because I'm only doing one big shop, I'm not buying as many impulse items - especially since the husband and kids stay at home! We're also finding that we have enough leftovers from one meal to last another, even after using some for lunches.
And we don't live on baked beans! Tonight we feasted on vegetarian sushi with pickled ginger and Asian dips. Last night was a Moroccan chicken casserole with couscous. Tomorrow night may be a tuna curry, home-made vegetable pizza or grilled balsamic lamb salad!

Doing this, we're saving more than $3000 a year for the family - and don't have the stress of shopping each week with two active children!

Making potato wedges at home is much cheaper than buying them frozen from the supermarket. I use my OXO Good Grips apple divider (bought from a kitchen shop) to cut up a 5kg bag of spuds. I give the spuds a wash before cutting them up into eight wedges and one cylindrical wedge (the kids all fight over these ones). After popping them in boiling water for a couple of minutes I put them onto paper towel to dry, then into freezer bags. These are quick, economical and you can vary the seasonings in different bags, and have them on hand in the freezer for a quick snack or side dish.

A great way of enjoying a fun activity while learning a valuable skill is to teach your kids to cook. I set up cooking lessons once a week after school for my two girls and their two cousins in our kitchen at home. The focus is on one recipe each week, something they can bake and take home. It's all about the kids having hands-on fun and there is a lot of chatter and laughter. The kids love it!

I make this vegetable pasta sauce for three reasons - it's cheap and healthy and it uses up leftover vegies (cooked and uncooked) so I save three times!

Whenever I serve up a dish of vegies for dinner (usually broccoli, carrots, beans and zucchini in my house) and it isn't all eaten, I put the leftovers in a ziplock bag and throw it in the freezer. Then, when my fresh vegies are starting to get to that 'oh dear' stage, I start cooking!

In a big pot, with a bit of olive oil, I fry onion and garlic and add all the 'oh dear' vegies - sometimes there is a fiddly bit of broccoli that is too small to use in a meal or carrots that are starting to wilt. Other vegies I have added include celery, cauliflower, broad beans, spinach, cabbage and capsicum. I chop and cook all of this - in summer I add fresh tomatoes, in winter I throw in a couple of cans of Home Brand tinned tomatoes. To this I add the frozen leftover vegies, a squeezie stock concentrate or stock cube and some water.

I cook the whole lot until everything is soft, and then I blitz it in a food processor or with a Bamix until it looks like pasta sauce. I then freeze this in meal-size portions and use it for everything - I add it to mince for bolognese, or just use it neat. My kids don't know it's full of vegies - they just think it's another jar of commercial pasta sauce!

I took on the $21 Challenge, and won! However, my husband was a rather grumpy participant; he loved the savings but not the lifestyle during Challenge week. As he goes away regularly, I decided that every night he's not home for dinner would become a $21 Challenge night for the kids and I - all meals must be made from ingredients I already have at home, and I can only use ingredients that have not been allocated for other meals. This saves money and gives me a night off cooking, as my Challenge meals are usually simple affairs, sometimes as easy as pancakes or toasted sandwiches.

The true value of the $21 Challenge became apparent when a friend was recently diagnosed with a severe form of leukaemia. She is a married mother of four boys and is embarking on a long therapeutic journey that will hopefully lead to a full recovery. As a way of helping her family, the parents at our school have banded together to make all their meals for the next three to six months. As they are a large family, with an above average food requirement, I was unsure how I could afford to help feed them each week. Thankfully, my husband was away the week my friend was diagnosed, so the kids and I lived off the $21 Challenge that week and all leftover money was put into making meals to freeze for my friend's family.

We now do the same thing whenever my husband is away – it's a great gift over the Christmas break to know that I can afford to cook and freeze meals for my friend's family, and look after my family at the same time. Thank you.

Instead of paying for one expensive doona, and the dry cleaning costs that come with it, buy two or three cheap doonas, pin them together at the corners, and put them into the same doona cover.

Because cheap doonas are thinner, you can wash them one at a time in your washing machine, and you can also adjust the warmth. When the weather starts getting warmer, just take one doona out of the cover and put it away in the cupboard.

I’ve saved countless dollars on expensive gourmet ice cream by getting creative with the cheaper varieties. My kids love it when I buy them what they call 'special' ice creams. These are the expensive varieties that come in exotic flavours and cost between $7.00 and $9.00 for a two-litre tub! Needless to say, they really are a rare treat. However, during the school holidays, my kids and I became gourmet ice cream chefs! Using a four-litre tub of Home Brand vanilla ice cream (that cost $4.59), we scooped it out of the tub and let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes. Then we mixed green food colouring, a couple of drops of peppermint essence and some chocolate chips into the softened ice cream to create our very own Mint Choc Chip flavour! We placed it in an airtight container and popped it back in the freezer to enjoy later. The kids were so excited to have made their own special ice cream that we have since concocted many different ‘gourmet’ flavours just by adding ingredients from the pantry.