Saving dollars with little effort

Jackie Gower was dreadful with money. She admits that, and five years ago decided she needed to do something about it.
Jackie, who recently shifted to Whangamata with her family, is co-author of The $21 Challenge, a book with a squillion tips about how to live on a tight budget.
She saw a website five years ago when she and husband Noel found they weren't making ends meet after some major changes in their employment status.
When Jackie checked various financial websites and found Fiona Lippey's Simple Savings site it changed her life.
"It was such a practical site. It showed how to save on the little things of life. Fiona created the site and invited people to add their tips for saving money.
"By the time I found it there were about 1800 tips, and we found they changed the way we thought."
Now there are 13,000 tips in www.simplesavings.co.nz and they are categorised into many sections.
Jackie became so taken by the website she contacted Fiona and was soon working full-time for the site.
Her work includes contributing a regular blog.
Readers often respond to the blogs.
A few years ago a woman outlined how she had fed her family on $21 a week, by using foodstuffs in the house and buying a few things.
"When she told me about it, I could see how the scheme was so possible. It was easy. I tried it with our family and it worked.
"Then I put it on the blog and it took off. People started sending in more tips and recipes.
"It started with website members and by 2006, 50,000 people had tried the challenge. People found they could use the $21 to fund unexpected expenses in their lives."
Then TV3 got hold of the concept and Fiona and Jackie decided to write the book, because there was so much interest, "and lots of misconception".
The book has become a best seller. It's second print is virtually sold out, and work is well under way to make some changes before the next run.
It's the same story in Australia, where Fiona created the original simple savings website.
There are plans to distribute the book to England. "We've got to think of the right title as $21 doesn't work there and we're looking at the pound equivalents."
The $21 challenge is not something a family would do each week, says Jackie.
"We're saying if you do it now and then you can save a lot. There are also tips to reduce living costs each week."
Jackie, Noel and their sons, Liam, 14, and Alistair, 12, are thrilled to have been able to move to Whangamata.
"It's where I have wanted to live for ever. I moved to New Zealand from England in 1992 and it was one of the first places Noel took me to visit and it's dear to our hearts.
"Noel [a livestock agent for PGG Wrightson] got an opportunity to look after the Coromandel Peninsula and we jumped at it. The nature of my work means I can operate anywhere."
Now writing fulltime for Simple Savings, Jackie has two books in the pipeline with the first offering suggestions to make annual savings of $5000 on food.