I'm frugal, not penny-pinching, says the woman who's cut back the cost of living

Ilona Richards doesn't have hot running water, central heating or a television, she grows her own veg and knits shopping bags from video tape. Sarah Freeman gets a lesson in moderation from arguably the most frugal person in Britain.

At Ilona Richards's house, guests are always told to keep their coats on.

It's not that she doesn't like visitors, but ever since the central heating broke a couple of years ago, the temperature in the modest two-bed semi regularly fails to get into double figures. During a recent cold spell, the 59-year-old was forced to wear three pairs of jogging bottoms. And a woolly hat.

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"Friends have offered to get someone round to have a look at it," she says, pushing aside a duvet from the sofa. "But to be honest, I'd rather live without it. Knowing it worked would be too much of a temptation. People flick too many switches these days without thinking of the consequences.

"Very occasionally, when it gets really cold, I'll put the gas fire on low for 10 minutes, just to take the edge off, but I don't like doing it. The key to living frugally is about knowing the difference between what you need and what you want."

Nothing about Ilona's home, in the quite village of Burton upon Stather, near Goole, could be described as luxurious. The furniture is second-hand, the patterned carpet doesn't match the floral curtains, and instead of ornaments, there's a stack of empty cat food boxes waiting to be put to good use.

An early experiment to turn them into a coffee table hasn't been entirely successful '“ the wallpaper paste has made the surface uneven. It's also unlikely to win any design awards. But then Ilona, who freely admits to wearing men's underpants, has never worried too much about appearances.

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"They're so much cheaper and they last so much longer than the skimpy things they make for women," she says by way of explanation. "And if you're small enough to wear teenage boys' pants, you don't have to pay VAT.

"People see it as a real hardship not to be able to have a hot bath or shower, but I wash my hair in the kitchen sink. I have a strip-down wash when I need to. It's how people did it years ago, and they survived."

They did, but today there are few who could make a bottle of shampoo last eight months. Even fewer prepared to save their dirty washing-up water to flush the toilet.

llona says that the roots of her financial modesty can be traced back to her childhood. Growing up in a family which had little spare cash taught her the value of money early on, and while she went on to earn a decent wage during 30 years as a HGV driver for B&Q, an operation to remove a cyst on her ovaries last year made her rethink her priorities.

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"I've been what I call downshifting for the last 10 years," she says. "I was fed up with working so many hours and after I was off sick for 12 weeks, I just decided there had to be more to life.

"It's not been difficult to cut back because I was never particularly extravagant. My mum had quite a hard life. My dad preferred to give his money to the local pub so she never had much housekeeping to feed and clothe the three of us kids. She taught me how to get the most for your money."

Ilona was clearly an attentive pupil. Last quarter, her gas bill was just 15, and for much of the winter she survived on home-grown vegetables. There are only a few sprouts and a couple of lettuces left from last year's crop, but, come spring, the makeshift greenhouses, built with wood

off-cuts salvaged during her days at the DIY depot, will come into their own again.

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"It wasn't all free. I had to pay for the plastic sheeting," says Ilona, appalled by her own extravagance. "It cost me 3.50, and those tubs there were 75p each.

"When I was little, I had a patch of garden where I grew flowers. I don't plant flowers any more because you can't eat them, but it taught me not to be afraid of getting you hands mucky.

"Not everything thrives. Some of this year's tomatoes didn't ripen, but while most people would have chucked them away, I cooked them up and put them in the freezer. They're perfect for bulking out stews."

The Good Life idyll seems a little less appealing when Ilona, a committed vegetarian, reveals the secret of good natural fertiliser.

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"I pee in a bucket and then put it on the compost," she says, adding for good measure that she flushes her toilet only once a day. There are not many people who could describe their toilet habits with such enthusiasm, but then Ilona's every waking hour is devoted to trying to beat a system which has turned the rest of us into hardened materialists. Supermarket shopping is only done after 5pm when prices are more likely to be slashed. Should she hear of a buy-one-get-one-free offer, Ilona, who has recently added a black marker pen to her armoury, wastes no time.

"When I get back from the supermarket, the first thing I do is write the price on everything I've bought," she says, holding up an 18p tin of rice pudding and a 14p can of peas.

"I set myself a budget of 1 a meal. Often it's less than that, but I like to know what I'm spending. When you go shopping you forget what individual items cost, and this helps me see when they put their prices up."

Income and outgoings are recorded in a small notepad, but, for the most part, there's little to get excited about. In the previous seven days, Ilona's biggest expense was a job lot of cat food '“ half price, of course.

"I buy what's important to me," says Ilona. "I won't get

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rid of the car (never driven above 55mph to conserve petrol) and I couldn't imagine life without my broadband connection. That's the difference between being frugal and being penny-pinching.

"I won't deny I've made mistakes. A few years ago, I bought a catering trailer. Every morning I'd drive it up to the nearby industrial estate, but no-one was interested. It was winter, totally the wrong time of year to be starting a new business, and I knew within a couple of weeks that it wasn't going to work.

"It cost me a bit of money, but at least I got out quickly. People get into a mess because they are easily led and they can't see where they are going wrong."

On her blog, Ilona, who calls herself the Mean Queen, details the minutiae of frugal living. Recent postings include the news that Asda had reduced its two-pack of salmon fillets from 3.34 to 1.67. There was also a stop-press concerning an irresistible offer on mature cheddar.

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While Ilona enjoys the regular feedback she gets from like-minded souls, she had hoped to convince a television company to use her talents for a bargain basement equivalent of Kim and Aggie's How Clean is Your House?

Sadly, she recently discovered that the idea, with another money-saving expert, is already in the pipeline, so for the moment she's busying herself knitting old videotape into handbags and making growbags out of old cat food pouches.

Being lonely, she says, isn't something she worries about. Her last relationship with a member of the Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain, ended some years ago, but she still has her three cats and a life-size poster of Will Mellor in the hallway to keep her company.

"Who did you say he is?" she says. Without a television, Ilona is unaware of Mellor's victory in the first Celebrity Fame Academy.

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"I just saw the poster in a shop window and asked if I could have it when they'd finished with it. I have no idea who he is, but he's a nice looking young man to have around the house."

Ilona is planning to celebrate her 60th birthday in May with

a party in the village. She's already worked out that she'll qualify for the full state pension, and while she's open to offers of work, if they don't come, it will be more than enough to survive on,

"People feel sorry for me," she says. "They think I'm a sad old lady, but I like making my own decisions and looking after myself. People say they need to go to work to earn money, but

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if you don't spend money, you don't need to work. Now living frugally is my job, and it's a pretty good one."

ILONA'S DIARY OF A FRUGAL WEEK

Day One: Spent nothing.

Day Two: Went a bit mad. I had my hair cut at the local college for 4.50 and bought five sets of knitting needles from the charity shop for 1. Filled up the car for 29.88, but that will last ages, probably months. I also saw some discounted cat food, so I bought 10 boxes for 8.90.

Day Three: Walked up the road to smallholding and bought six eggs for 1.20.

Day Four: Spent nothing

Day Five: Another cat food offer, so another 17.80. It sounds a lot, but in the long term it will save me money.

Day Six: Spent nothing.

Day Seven: Spent nothing.

Week's spend: 53.28

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