When cash is tight, haggling to get a better deal from anyone from a retailer, to a travel agent or mobile phone company can help you to get considerably more for your money.

So we've come up with a haggling guide that should help you pay less for everything from holidays to clothes and household goods.

So read on to find out how to become an expert haggler.

Fancy this MASSIVE bag of crisps for a quid? There are enough to make you really ill for days. How about a mop? You can never have too many staple guns, that's what my mum always told me.

For at Poundland you can get a simply bewildering range of items for, well, a pound. And it's great news because it's forcing down mainstream shop prices.

For the organised among us, now is the time to start planning and booking our summer break. Though the internet is a wonderful resource for booking holidays, it can be a bit of a minefield knowing exactly which websites really do offer the best deals.

Here's my pick of the best out there to help you get started.

Tesco launched its range of Buy One Get One Free...Later deals recently.

The promotions are supposedly to cut food waste, but there have been accusations that it's really just a marketing ploy like any other and all the supermarket chain cares about is your cash.

For long time Tesco watchers, this isn't going to come as a huge shock.

Today is said to be the most depressing day of the year. Known as 'Blue Monday', it's apparently the time when we feel the most gloomy after Christmas, we've broken our resolutions, the weather's horrible and we're all in debt.

If, like me, you want to combat the worst of the January blues I've come up with a bunch of things that'll cheer you up. Best of all, they won't cost you a thing!

Looking forward to going sale shopping? Me too! With unwanted gifts to exchange and special sales going on, it's important to be aware of your rights as a consumer.

Make sure you're up to speed with exactly what you are and are not entitled to, and check out the set of golden shopping rules over the jump.

Daily Candy is a wonderful little email newsletter. As the name might suggest, every day they pop into your inbox with wonderful things to do and see and ways to save money on fabulous deals. All totally unique and interesting. And now they've come up with a brand new email. Welcome, Swirl.

Swirl concentrates on sample sales, which was a huge part of the Daily Candy popularity. Sample sales are wonderful things if you have sharp elbows and know where to find them. And that's the difficult bit - not knowing where they are. Sometimes they're flagged up in the local press, but most of the time they're in warehouses and completely pass people by. If you know where they are in advance, you could be saving up to 80% on retail prices. And if they're online already, well that just makes life easier for everyone.

So Daily Candy have gone down the Outnet route and the the sample sales are online. Giving you the pick of the pick of the bunch without having to even move from your sofa. Brilliant. At the moment they're concentrating on US designers and sample sales, but give it a month or so and I'm sure they'll be jumping across the pond.

As a book lover, I have the lovely task after Christmas of lugging a small bookshop back home with me on the train. Because books are easy gifts to give, aren't they?

But what do you do with your books once you're done? Put them on the shelf and forget about them? Me too. There's only a handful of books that I reread. So the rest are there just gathering dust (and possibly making me look clever to anyone who comes for tea).

I'm excited to discover Read it, Swap it. It is, like the very best ideas, very simple. You upload the books you're willing to play swapsies with. Find one you like and message the owner, they'll nose through your stuff and pick what they want, and then you'll swap! You can that book you've been meaning to read, or find something new, and you didn't have to go and spend £6.99 in Waterstones.

Once you've got the book, you can rate the other user like you would on eBay. That way if someone is getting lots of books but not sending them out, they'll be outed very quickly! You can also swap more books if you have more positive feedback so it's a great way of stopping bad behaviour.

If you've got a lot of great books you know you'll never read again, this is a great way to exchange them for something you'll use. Postage will only cost you a pound or so, and you'll get hours of happy reading time while it's cold outside.

The festive season brings with it a heck of a lot of spending pressure. And if you're already operating on a tight budget, it can be the straw that breaks the camel's back and pushes you into a spiral of debt.

Don't let that happen to you. Here are seven top tips on how to save money this Christmas...

I'm sure you've heard me mention it plenty of times in the past, but Alliance & Leicester's Premier Current Account really is worth considering. Naturally nothing is perfect in the world of money, but if it suits you, this account could do you some real favours.

So what's on offer?