10 – cheap batteries – Packs of 20 batteries from your dollar or pound store. Wow! Normally batteries are so much more expensive! Well actually the cheap batteries are fine for low power consumption devices like remote controls, but don’t think about putting them in your camera, torch or just about anything else that uses a lot of power. Unless you’re happy changing your batteries every ten minutes, just find a good deal on Duracell or Energiser.

9 – cheap tools – Screwdrivers, wrenches, even garden tools. Made of cheap metal and plastic. Watch as your superhuman strength bends the metal and snaps the plastic just by using the tool for its intended purpose. I’ve had garden shovels snap on the first dig, screwdrivers separate from their plastic handles and cheap metal screwdriver bits just sheer off when you apply any pressure. Save yourself lots of money by buying decent tools in the first place.

8 – supermarket offers and Discount coupons – Travel to the supermarket by car just to save 50p? Surely it costs more than that in Petrol of even your time? Also offers can be so confusing that you buy the wrong thing, so you have to go back to the supermarket to sort it out. Some of the multi buy offers save you about 3 pence. Is that worth it?

7 – cheap washing up liquid – doesn’t clean well or last nearly as long. Might as well just buy the good stuff

6 – Cheap paint. You’ll need a thousand coats to get the same coverage as a normal tin of paint, so you might as well spend a bit more and save yourself the time and get a better quality finish from fewer coats. Some brands are changing the ingredients in their paint which is changing its properties, so do your research before you buy to see what people are saying about the finish.

5 – Cheap curtain rails – So this isn’t just about curtain rails, this is anything that just makes life harder because of the cheapness. My example is the cheap, telescopic curtain rail. It has a notch in it which is surprisingly difficult and frustrating to get the curtain to slide over. When I’m feeling particularly tetchy, this almost gets ripped off the wall. A few pounds more would have bought me a normal curtain rail.

4 – Cheap Kitchen towel or toilet paper – It might seem like a bargain, but you often get fewer sheets in the cheaper brands. Whats more,cheaper brands can fall apart very easily when mopping up spills or wiping… areas. Cheaper kitchen towels are less absorbent, so you end up using twice as the proper stuff.

3 – Cheap shoes – Uncomfortable and give you blisters or hurt your feet, they’ll split, they won’t be waterproof, your feet will get too hot, they wear out quicker, they can be unsafe on certain surfaces (you could slip over), they look rubbish. Apart from that, they’re great!

2 – Not buying insurance – I don’t need breakdown cover, travel insurance or boiler cover do I? It’s really not a risk worth taking. If you get ill or have accident on holiday, hospital bills are astronomical. Of course, some insurance is a waste of money, like the insurance they try to sell you in every shop when you buy anything from a ballpoint pen through to a fridge, but think about how likely it is you’ll need the insurance. If you’ve got an old car, you’re more likely to break down.

1 – Second hand items – Household appliances like fridges, washing machines and ovens are expensive to buy new, and there are plenty of cheap or free alternatives on places like gumtree. Apart from not knowing what’s been stored in these items, they tend to have reached the end of their lives and people are giving them away so that they don’t have to dispose of them. Such items are usually costly to repair and once one thing goes wrong, a lot of other repairs usually follow.