Jane Furnival, BBC1's thrift expert, wrote her cult book, Mr Thrifty's How to Save Money on Absolutely Everything (Pan, 1994, Michael O'Mara Books, 2003), after The European newspaper went bust, owing her thousands for writing and travel expenses.
For Jane, then eight months pregnant and with a five year-old son, the experience proved a crash course in the art of living comfortably - but without being comfortably off. Before becoming a journalist, she had been creative director of an ad agency, so thriftless that she once sent a bike messenger to Habitat to buy her a bucket.
Jane has written for many newspapers and magazines, especially the Daily Mail, for whom she cooked a complete feast from Mrs Beeton for the Millennium issue. Less dignified assignments were a probing feature in which she had to call Hoover and pretend her hamster was stuck in the vacuum cleaner.
Jane also devised the outspoken Daily Telegraph shopping column, 'What you Want?' and the popular shoppers' agony column 'Happy Shopper'.
