Perhaps it is taken for granted that people should go without, that unemployment means they'll forgo the snowfields holiday, the new massive television, the three-star lunch in France, but that, I say, is not frugality. Going without is not necessarily being frugal.

Rather, I see frugality as measured, considered consumption rather than no-questions-asked extravagance and waste. The generations of Australians who have most recently left us made frugality an art form, and many of you will remember the tail end of those frugal times - the pressing of slivers of soap to make a new cake, the keeping of fat as lard, dishes using stale bread, and squares of newspaper impaled on a nail in the outside dunny.

We won't return happily to those days but there are many ways we can avoid waste and save money. Managing the fridge's vegetable crisper, which I call the rotter, is one such way, and others include circulating the tins from the back of the cupboard to the front, keeping bread in the fridge, having chilled water on hand to ward off temptation for bought drinks, buying cheaper cuts of meat and cooking them appropriately. It's true, too, that some processed foods cost much less than the made-at-home version, quality aside.

Let's have your frugality tips.