A holiday or hot water?

It's not going away. We first found out that the UK had slipped (rather plunged) into recession in 2009 and though technically the economy is no longer receeding, the effects are still very much being felt. In times of economic struggle most households have to make serious choices about how they allocate their budget. Though its perhaps not as bad as the great depression of the 1920smore and more families are having to choose between holidays or being able to pay to fix the hot water when it goes off.

DIY jobs have long been a source of couple comedy: man tries to fix own wall with cellotape, wall falls down, house falls down - everyone laughs, man cries. But times have changed. With a bit of nous and belief you can save thousands on keeping the home in order - leaving enough left over for that all-important foreign holiday.

Tip one: Fitting your own shelves on timber-framed walls

Choose support brackets whose arms are at least three-quarters of the length of the shelf itself. Each bracket should be screwed in a quarter of the shelf's length from the ends. Check for cables or pipes hidden inside the wall using a battery-powered cable detector. Decide on the maximum weight you will be putting on the shelf and if it will be substantial screw the brackets straight on to the vertical frame members (the studs), the cable detector will help you find these too. Then simply line up the brackets to match the stud spacing and fix with 50mm screws. You're done! What would have cost you around £80 in builder's charges has only been £20 or so. And every further shelf you put up gets more cost effective as you offset the initial cost of the tools.

Tip two: Bathroom tiles

Your beautiful tiled bathroom has been ruined after you smash a tile with your tea mug during what should have been a relaxing soak in the bath. It'll cost £300 to retile the whole bathroom with a professional. Instead you scrape the grout from around the damaged tile and use a small cold chisel to ease the tile from the wall. Wear goggles to stop any flying bits of ceramic from getting in your eyes. Clean out any scraps of old adhesive, then cover the back of the replacement tile with new adhesive. Let the adhesive set and then renew the grout all around the new tile. A huge saving all in all, as long as you keep hold of extra tiles!

Tip Three: The ecological touch-up

Keep your house energy efficient and save loads in heating bills. Draught excluders may sound more like the domain of the elderly but you'll be glad of them in the harsh midwinter. Likewise, get some reflective cladding and seal draughty lofts shut to stop precious heat escaping out of the roof.

Tip Four: Best prices for tools

It's all very well saving on the cost of professional labour but if you splash out on expensive equipment your savings will be squeezed and even wiped out completely. The internet is a fantastic place to quickly and accurately understand a market's prices. How much should be paid for a jiffy hanger? You won't know until you do some research. Comparing prices across several online stores will give you a good idea of what you should pay. For bigger - more expensive - pieces of kit sourcing prices is even more essential. You don't want to find out you could have saved £100 (think a flight to Spain) on the latest Bosch tool if you had only shopped around.