Twenty money-saving tips for these straitened Irish times

NEWTON'S OPTIC:Worried about the recession? Not sure where your next sundried tomato is coming from? The Irish Timespresents this handy cut-out-and-keep guide to the Top 20 Middle-Class Money-Saving Tips.

1. Stop eating. Two-thirds of Irish people are overweight and two-thirds are worried about their grocery bills. Coincidence? Hardly.

2. The average house loses 10 per cent of its heat through its cavity walls. Once you have lost enough weight (see Tip 1), move into your cavity walls and cut your heating bills by 90 per cent.

3. A widescreen television consumes 50 per cent more power than an ordinary television. Using a hacksaw, carefully remove six inches from either side of the screen.

4. Even in standby mode, your wife is still draining energy. Switch her off completely by talking about work.

5. Connect the outflow pipe on your dishwasher to the hot water inlet on your washing machine. At the end of the day it's all dirt, isn't it?

6. Grow your own food at home. The mould around your bath provides as much nutrition as an entire mushroom. Serve raw and garnish with some hair from the plughole.

7. Only keep long-life milk in your holiday cottage.

8. Drink the expensive wine first, then move on to the cheap stuff once you're too plastered to notice the difference.

9. Switch your mortgage to an American bank. They might shred your paperwork before the Feds arrive.

10. Use second-hand websites like eBay and Freecycle rather than risk being spotted in Cash Converters.

11. Cut down on the cost of evenings out by shopping at Lidl. You will soon be too depressed to leave the house.

12. Always use the maximum 300 characters when sending a text message. If you do not need all 300 characters, wait until you have something else important to add.

13. Insist that keeping a chicken qualifies you for green diesel, at least for the lawnmower.

14. Only drive downhill.

15. If you have teenage children, ask them where they got their fake over-18 ID for the off-licence and get yourself a fake over-65 ID for the bus.

16. If you have 20-something children still living at home, charge them market rents, add hotel rates for meals and laundry, and take a 10 per cent cut on their drug deals.

17. It is not strictly necessary to pay for the following items: sugar, salt, ketchup, napkins, cutlery, soap and toilet paper.

18. Take a night class in DIY, car maintenance or horticulture. Even if you don't learn a thing, it will still be cheaper than sitting at home with the heating on.

19. Plant tobacco in the garden. Seriously, why don't people do this?

20. Never fill up the whole kettle for a cup of tea. Nobody actually does this, of course. Nobody has ever done it. Why would you fill up the whole kettle for a cup of tea? It would be a complete waste of time. You wouldn't even do it if electricity was free. But we'll include this tip anyway. It fills up the article.