This fabulous little store in Cooroy caters for your office supplies and your scrapbooking/cardmaking supplies. They conduct regular classes in both scrapbooking and cardmaking, and two of their instructors have been published in the Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft magazine. Although only a small store, they have a reasonable range and what they don't have in stock, they will get for you. They're very competitively priced, being significantly cheaper than the much larger Daisy Chain scrapbooking store in Nambour. The staff are really friendly and helpful, and it's truly a delight to shop there.

I've been a gold member of EmailCash for some years now and can't fault them. I've won one of their auctions, received free gifts, and received cheques. You receive points in exchange for shopping with their partners, doing surveys, browsing their classifieds, reading email, viewing websites and answering quick questions, and the points equate to $0.01 each. They have an eBank where you can bank your points for up to six months and accumulate interest on them at quite significant rates, certainly considerably higher than you could expect to get on your regular cash. I tend to collect enough points to get me a $100 cheque and then start again. It's good fun.

Approximate cost: $Free

A really easy survey site on which to earn some cash. In addition to being paid to do surveys, you also accumulate cash simply for viewing websites. I've only been a member for a short while, but was selected for a phone interview, for which I received a cheque for $75.00, and have accumulated a little over $20.00 for short surveys and web clicks. They pay out when you reach $25.00.

Approximate cost: $Free

I've been a member of FlyBuys right from the start and have redeemed thousands of dollars of rewards over the years. If you're going to be shopping in those participating stores anyway, why wouldn't you flash your card, accumulate points and get something for nothing? I also have a linked Coles Group Mastercard and a linked NAB Visa, so it doesn't take any time at all to collect enough points to earn a reward. Lately I've been a bit on the skint side, so I've been redeeming my points for credit on my Visa card, which is just great when money's a bit tight.

Abebooks sources books from around the world, both new and secondhand. It's an easy to navigate website and the search function is quick, listing all matches with their prices. You actually deal with the bookseller, not with Abebooks, and postage costs vary dramatically (if they ship to Australia at all), so be sure to factor this in before committing to buy any books. I have, on occasion, contacted a seller who did not advertise as shipping out of the US and asked if they would send a book to me here in Oz and they were only to happy to oblige, so don't necessarily be put off if they don't ship internationally.

The bistro at the Kedron-Wavell is pretty much what you'd expect from this type of venue (loud, crowded and the usual fare), but the restaurant has a surprisingly high standard of food and service. It doesn't come cheap, but neither is it inordinately expensive. I had my wedding reception in one of their function rooms and the food and service here were also very good.

On the whole I think the comfort of Qantas flights is probably higher than that of budget airlines, in terms of leg room, but I don't think this is justified by the extra cost, unless on a longer flight. For the short hop I'd sooner pay less and be a little cramped, but if I was flying to WA, I'd certainly consider Qantas. Also, they don't fly into or out of the Maroochydore airport, which is my closest.

I've been involved in several accidents since being insured with RACQ, and have found their service to be generally excellent. They're happy for you to go to your own repairer and on one occasion, actually sent me to the more expensive quote as he'd included items the other hadn't. Only once did I have a problem with them, and that was when I was involved in a three car rear-ender, with me the front vehicle. They initially tried to assert that because there were more than two cars involved, they wouldn't pay my claim in full, but when I insisted, explaining that as the front vehicle I couldn't be held responsible, they saw sense and paid out.

If you need to stretch your dollar, and let's face it, who doesn't, then this is the website for you. Thousands of money-saving tips and tricks in an easy to access format, and weekly emails with the best tip of the week. The only down side (if you could call it that) is that there are so many tips that you can lose yourself in their site; the time just flies as you marvel at the inventive ways people have of saving money.

ING are simply brilliant! A no-fuss way to earn good interest on your money without locking it away for an inordinate length of time. Very easy to access and navigate the website, and ready access to your money. The only down side is that you have to transfer your money to another bank account in order to access it, and this can take up to two business days. They have no ATMs.