Guardian Bookshop Notes:

Designed and illustrated throughout with a retro 40s/50s feel, this guide proves that looking and living glamorously needn't cost the earth. If you want to save money and the complete eco-maniac, then learn how to make nice meals on a budget, how to grow things, how to dress well without going into debt, how to holiday in new ways and make your own fun. Knight is the author of 4 previous books, and is a columnist for the "Sunday Times".

Publisher's description:

Feeling poor because of recession? Feeling like you'd quite like to tighten your belt, but aren't quite ready to embrace DIY macrame handbags? This book shows you how even a dedicated consumer and child of the more-is-more 1980s can mend her ways, embrace the New Thrift, and find her life improved in the process.

India Knight, born in 1965, is a British journalist and author born in Brussels, Belgium. Although she has written about Belgium in scathing terms, she is a descendant of former Belgian prime minister Henri Jaspar.

India Knight is known for her contribution to the British media, as well as her books: My Life on a Plate, Don't You Want Me?, The Shops, Neris and India's Idiot-Proof Diet and The Thrift Book (2008), all of which are published by Penguin books. Her novels have been translated into 28 languages.