Acting the rich bitch

Even the poshest shops and most exclusive brands are quietly cutting their prices, says Susan Daly

In September last year, an extraordinary party hit the headlines. Around 300 employees of the London branch of Lehman Brothers gathered in a bar near their offices. The bank whose $600bn (€460bn) collapse triggered the global financial crisis then treated its remaining staff to an evening of expensive wine and pink champagne -- a toast of sorts on the anniversary of the crash.

Few of us non-bankers are willing to be seen swilling champagne in public but there are signs that the demand for luxury products is warming up. LVMH, the world's largest luxury goods firm, recorded a 13pc jump in sales for the first quarter of 2010. Asia is a big market now for the status symbols LVMH purveys -- Louis Vuitton handbags, Tag-Heuer watches, Moet et Chandon, Krug and Don Perignon champagne -- but the firm reported that their European sales are also on the up.

"While I wouldn't say we are out of the woods, there is a lot more confidence around," says Stephen Sealey, managing director of high-end store Brown Thomas. "The accessories business is quite strong."

Some consumer watchers say we are indulging a pent-up desire for nice things. We've paid down some of our personal debt and we're bored of deprivation.

Sealey says that his well-heeled customers have snapped up premium-price items like Victoria Beckham's clothing range without hesitation (and you won't get change from €1,000 for an entry-level dress in that collection), or to-die-for wrist candy like the Mulberry Alexa, named for celebrity clothes horse du jour, Alexa Chung.

But while Sealey says that Brown Thomas "will never go down the route of cut-price and lower-end lines", there is evidence that looking and living like a millionaire has never been more accessible for the average Joe and Josephine. Brands and service providers have been forced to find ways of drawing us back in after 18 months of starving for custom.

"I would say that 90pc of retailers are committed to special offers and extra value packages," says Alan Gilligan of onoffer.ie, which has an online forum for consumers to tip each other off to bargain discoveries.

Brian Sargent, director of luxury holiday company Tropical Sky, says it is on track to double business this year over 2009 because punters are finding such value at the luxury end of the market. "We're talking a week in the Maldives at a four-star hotel, watersports, all-inclusives at €1,700 -- that kind of package would have been €2,800 last year," he says.

Fortune -- or saving one -- favours the bold, says Sargent.

"Many customers will now come in and say, 'What are you going to do for me for that price?' In the vast majority of cases now, you can negotiate another extra in there, maybe upgrade their hired car and so on. This year is a great one for travellers because the airlines have softened their prices and hotels are even more aggressively discounting."

Many areas of the luxury goods and services industry prefer the euphemism of "extra value" -- discounts are so crass, darling. So luxury hotels will offer extra nights of accommodation free, or include spa treatments in the overall price.

But there is no denying that in some cases, prices have simply been chopped.

Gilligan mentions one "very nice restaurant" in Dublin was recently offering a lunch deal that invited customers to toss a coin: heads, you pay; tails, lunch is free.

Golf clubs, too, the source of much snobbery and bragging rights in the Celtic Tiger years, are lobbing huge lumps off their prices. To take an extreme example, joining the exclusive Druids Glen club in Co Wicklow a few years ago would have involved finding a spare €50,000 for the joining fee. That fee has now been scrapped entirely and the annual membership costs €4,000.

An acquaintance tells me that he recently joined his local club for €5,000. His friend, who joined it in 2007, is raging because he paid €14,000 for his membership at the time. He feels like a Celtic cub who was sold a pup.

Were my acquaintance to toast his one-up-manship, he might plump for one of the many fine champagnes currently on special offer. Around Valentine's Day, a time when traditionally demand for bottles of bubbly kept prices at a premium, Bollinger was selling its Special Cuvee for a bargain €50 in O'Brien's off-licences. Bolly, one notes, is the only brand of bubbles that James Bond and Queen Victoria would allow tickle their tongue.

Pascal Rossignol, owner of Le Caveau speciality wine shop in Kilkenny city, says: "There have been some big discounts from the grands marques (the high-end champagne houses), fairly good discounts that we have been able to pass on to the customers."

We'll say cheers to that, but if you're going to look the Ab Fab part, you'll need to dress it too.

Kildare Village designer outlet opened in 2006, at the height of the spending frenzy here, but has managed to prove recession-resistant because contractually, everything has to be at least 33pc cheaper than recommended retail prices.

On a weekday morning, the newly opened Juicy Couture store there is packed with young, poker-haired women rifling through the plush velvet sportswear made famous on the pert backsides of stars like Eva Longoria, Paris Hilton, Jennifer Lopez and Madonna. This is not end-of-line, factory rejects stuff: Review kits itself out in a pair of on-trend, straight-leg DKNY dark denims for €69 and toys with a pair of classic Tom Ford aviators (one-third off the normal €300 asking price), as sported by the likes of Brad Pitt and Jessica Simpson.

The assistant in the sunglasses shop says that the Tom Ford line is proving particularly popular because they are understated and don't scream bling.

"People like their designer hit but they don't want to be seen flashing big logos any more. It looks fake," he confides.

And therein lies the key to tapping into the millionaire lifestyle: by all means look for the bargain but never, ever wear your labels on your sleeve.

TEN DEALS TO MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE A MILLIONAIRE
LIVING THE DREAM: The fact that it’s a buyer’s market out there is nowhere more obvious true than in property. Belmayne, a housing development near Donaghmede in north Dublin, tried to sell itself as Millionaire’s Row in 2007 when it jetted in football star Jamie Redknapp and his wife Louise to promote their apartments and houses.
A new developer has since taken over the latest phase of Belmayne and representatives Hooke and MacDonald tell Review that “we’re not selling a dream – everything is on the ground and looks a million dollars”. Nonetheless, a two-bed apartment in Belmayne is now up for grabs for e175,000 (a one-bed cost e275,000 in 2007) and a three-bed house now costs e220,000 (it was e365,000 in 2007).
MICHELIN MUNCHING: Even Michelin-starred restaurants are having to tempt diners. Bon Appetit in Malahide is one such spot and is offering three courses and a bottle of wine for two people for e75.
If it’s the drama of fine dining that appeals, you could always head to Conrad Gallagher (he of Peacock Alley infamy) in his new Salon des Saveurs restaurant on Aungier Street where set menus start at e24.
CHEERS! Moet et Chandon’s most recent glossy campaign had movie star Scarlett Johannson balancing a champagne glass between her perfectly manicured toes. Try re-creating her pose with a bottle of the brand’s bubbly for e38 from lecaveau.ie. “The same bottle of Moet was closer to e50 in mid-2008,” says wine importer Pascal Rossignol.
JEAN GENIES: A strange phenomenon of the Noughties was designers charging over e300 for the humble pair of jeans. Now, Rock & Republic denim, Victoria Beckham’s old favourite, has filed for bankruptcy. Paper Denim & Cloth brand, once worn by everyone from Cameron Diaz to the Olsen Twins, is relaunching as a reduced-rate line (around e80).
At the Kildare Village outlet of 7 For All Mankind, the ‘premium-denim’ brand favoured by Angelina Jolie, Reese Witherspoon and Ben Affleck, you can buy 3 pairs for the price of 2 (handy if you team up with two friends) and one e229 line is marked down to e69.
READY FOR YOUR CLOSE-UP? The modern equivalent of the oil painting over the mantlepiece is the photostudio session. If airbrushing is good enough for celebrity cover girls like Kate Winslet on GQ and Demi Moore on W magazine… The Photography Studio in Harold’s Cross, Dublin is offering a professional photo session for e220 (this service would have cost upwards of e400 three years ago according to onoffer.ie)
SLEEP ON IT: You might not be able to afford your own personal pillow-plumper, but Irish five-star hotel breaks are increasingly good value. The 5-star Hayfield Manor in Cork has in the past hosted the King of Jordan, the King of Malaysia, Mary Robinson and Mary McAlees, Pierce Brosnan, Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie. Now they’ll put you up for two nights B&B, plus one 4-course dinner and a e50 voucher for spa treatments costs e228 per person. The same package was e350 in 2008.
ART ATTACK: When the financial crisis hit in late 2008, the market for expensive art sagged. While a Picasso might still be out of range for most of us, Dolan’s art auctions, the biggest provincial sales house, is now conducting their auctions without reserve prices. “I figure art should be accessible to a broader spectrum of the population,” says Dr Niall Dolan, “You should be able to come in with e300-e500 and come away with an interesting painting.” Dolan’s next auction is at the Marriott Hotel, Galway on Sunday, May 16.
GREENS WITH ENVY: Is there anything as civilized as a round with the boys, followed by steak and a fine Bordeaux in the club house? Golf club membership has dropped in price sharply at all levels. Luttrellstown Castle for example sported a mid-range annual fee of e7,000 in 2007, but is now asking for only e2,500 a year and is currently running a special rate of e1,500 for membership through the peak playing months of April to September.
AFRICAN QUEEN: Forget the Seychelles. Kenya, with its mix of beach and safari activities, is particularly popular with the likes of Bill Gates, Naomi Campbell and Bono. Lest we forget, it was in a villa in the south coast of Mombasa, Kenya, where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie first ignited their passion.
A combination of lower air fares and ‘added value’ accommodation deals have knocked down prices in the last year. “It’s not that it’s inexpensive exactly,” says Brian Sargent of tropicalsky.ie “but Kenya and Zanzibar are coming in at e1,000 less per person, to about e3,000 all in.”
JOIN THE CLUB: There was whining from some members of Residence private members’ club on St Stephen’s Green, Dublin last year when it was suggested that the ailing business might be offering cut-price membership deals. It is the case that many of these private members’ clubs have cut fees in a bid to refresh member numbers in the past few years. The thing to ask yourself though before trying to haggle your way past the velvet ropes is: Would I join any club that would have half the Law Library as members?

FIRST PUBLISHED HERE: http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/its-never-been-easier-to-live-like-a-millionaire-2172358.html

The money-happiness index

This was an interesting subject for the time that's in it - how closely linked are your levels of happiness with the bottom line of your bank balance?
Could have written a book on it - and might still do! - but here's a small overview from Wednesday's Irish Independent...

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/issues/can-having-too-much-money--really--make-you--miserable-2086198.html

Can having too much money really make you miserable?
Susan Daly ponders the question as a millionaire gives away his fortune

For those of us not rolling in it, the idiom that money can't buy happiness brings a certain comfort. But the notion that riches can make you actively unhappy? Would that we could all test that theory.

An Austrian multi-millionaire has done just that -- and claims his fat bank balance made him miserable. Karl Radeber has sold all his worldly possessions: his home; his luxury cars; his collection of glider planes; his €4m interior furnishings business -- and donated the proceeds to charity.

The process has left him feeling "free, the opposite of heavy", he says. "Money is counter-productive -- it prevents happiness to come."

Radeber is no bored trust-fund baby, playing at being penniless for kicks. He came from a poor family and built his business from scratch. The accumulation of money, he says, made him chronically dissatisfied.

"I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need."

Radeber's story seems to back up what is known in the literature on human happiness as the Easterlin Paradox. In 1974, economist Richard Easterlin found that once income was sufficient to meet a person's basic needs, happiness did not necessarily increase incrementally with income. It reaches a plateau.

That research was challenged by a 2008 study that linked higher incomes to higher happiness -- but it did add that once a certain point was reached, the rate of increasing happiness slowed.

"I think that what is happening in the economy right now is leaving people more open to the concept of what is enough," says Dr Anne B Ryan of NUI Maynooth, author of Balancing Your Life and Enough Is Plenty. "The Irish phrase 'go leor' has the dual meaning of 'enough' and 'plenty'. There is an optimum and more than that isn't necessarily helpful."

Dr Ryan's first book, Balancing Your Life, was written at the height of the Celtic Tiger in 2002. What she discovered from her case studies was that working harder for money generated a "treadmill" effect.

"People were so tired by their hectic loves that they spent money to compensate for it," she says. "They bought themselves 'treats', massages, retail therapy, ate out or bought expensive ready-meals.

"The people who said they had satisfying lives were often living on what would be considered smallish incomes. The pay-off for them was free time to do voluntary work, work that really interested them or time for loved ones."

It would be glib to suggest that someone facing foreclosure on their house or someone on the poverty line in a slum in Guatemala is happier than Richard Branson. Yet even in dire poverty, the key to happiness is not necessarily money.

Research in Costa Rica between 2004 and 2006 found that not all people who were considered poor recorded low levels of life satisfaction.

Those who came out of poverty were as likely to be unhappy if they were dissatisfied in other areas -- family, health, how much they liked their job.

A famous 1978 study pitted the happiness levels of a group of lottery winners against a group of people who were paralysed in accidents. Both groups experienced a drastic shift in happiness in the initial months after the event -- those paralysed were often thrown into deep depression, while the lottery winners existed in a state of euphoria.

After that period, the injured's state of happiness returned to levels akin to those they experienced before their accidents. The ecstasy also wore off for the lottery winners but most seemed unable to find happiness in the mundane things that had previously brought them joy.

That is not to say that money can't bring happiness -- it's just a case of spending it correctly.

In what the field of positive psychology would dub 'pro-social spending', spending money on creating memories brings a long-lived joy that buying goods just can't match. Bringing your partner out to dinner or buying a ticket to see a concert with friends is a good emotional investment: buying a designer dress doesn't have the same psychological return.

Richard Branson is a good case of one who spreads his billions to bring maximum joy. His extravagances are in sponsoring football teams, buying a Caribbean island retreat for friends and family, and indulging his love of adventure sports -- the purchase of experiences over things.

He is also a prominent philanthropist, something which Jordan Campbell of Philanthropy Ireland says brings satisfaction when the donor is inspired by the causes to which they give.

"I think it is part of our human instinct to look after each other," says Campbell, "and that has the side-product of making us feel good."

Philanthropy is not just for billionaires -- any regular contribution of time or resources is the kind of sustained giving at which ordinary Irish folk excel.

"Money in itself can only bring you so far. Chuck Feeney (the Irish-American billionaire who transferred the bulk of his fortune to his Atlantic Philanthropies) says that his philosophy is that once your basic needs are met, well, what are you going to do with the rest of it?"

Economically we might be devastated, but emotionally we might just recover.

"We are becoming more financially intelligent and not calling it penny-pinching," says Dr Anne B Ryan.

Should our economic circumstances improve, Frances Feeney (no relation to Chuck) of Social Capital Ireland suggests we might be wiser to how to enjoy it.

"Companies are starting to look to invest in interesting projects that might yield a blended return, financial and social. People still want to make money -- but they want it to count socially too."

All profits from sales of Enough is Plenty by Dr Anne B Ryan (see www.enoughisplenty.net) go to sustainable economics foundation Feasta.

• “People ask why I don’t charge for my expertise – where’s the fun in that?”
Landscape gardener PETER DONEGAN

“I’m not stupid with the euro in my pocket but some of the things I most enjoy I do for free. Recently I took a group of people around the war memorial gardens in Islandbridge. My wife made country apple pie and we had coffee in flasks, and we have another trip coming up to Ireland’s Eye. But what people kept bouncing back to me afterwards was: Why didn’t you charge for it?
I don’t get that. I competed at the Irish Conker Championships last year just for fun. It’s like I won’t put a shop on my blog (www.doneganlandscaping.com) because that’s not why I do it. I’d say 50 per cent of the phone calls I get are for free gardening advice, and I’ve been on the garden side of things on the Niall Mellon trips. I’m going to sound like a martyr but for me, it’s just not the point of life to always have to tie in everything you do to paying the bills.”

• “Our baby has shown me that family, love, joy give a life its value”
Ice-cream maker KIERAN MURPHY

“During the Celtic Tiger people talked about money all the time, and now we’re past it people still talk about it all the time. There are all these other things that give a life value: family, love, joy.
I know budgets are shrinking – we’ve just had a baby so I’m quite aware of it. But compared to what joy the baby has given me, the financial stresses pale.
My brother and I didn’t get into making ice-cream for money exactly – we did it because we love sweet things. No-one actually needs an ice-cream but it transcends that. People come into us because they are either happy to start with or they want to be cheered up.”

• “I never worked for the money – but now I’m very aware I need it”
TV and radio producer/director PAT O’MAHONY
“When I was a nipper, I did stuff because I wanted to do stuff. In the ’80s we were living in one big recession but I left jobs I was making good money in because I hated them.
Now I’m not that fussy – I can’t afford to be. I’ve never, ever worked for money but now I’m very aware I need money. There is a minimum basic amount that people need and it varies from person to person. I have a young lad now in college and this is not a good time to be broke.
I’m nearly 49 and for the first time, I’m thinking, Come back that money I used to earn! I left Head2Toe (RTE fashion show Pat presented) after five years because it was time for something else.
I know people who are extremely money-driven and I don’t understand that attitude of ‘I need loads of cash and I need you all to know that I have loads of it’. But I will say I’m no longer the footloose and fancy-free kid I was. It’s very easy to be a middle-class hippie when you’re young.”

Refusing Residence

From Thursday's Evening Herald
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/susan-daly-please-save-residence--or-these-braying-champagne-charlies-might-end-up-in-my-friendly-local-boozer-2003195.html

Please save Residence -- or these braying Champagne Charlies might end up in my friendly local boozer

By Susan Daly

Thursday January 07 2010

What a frightful palaver over at Residence. For those without a butler to keep an ear trained for the word on the street, allow me. It seems the private members' club on St Stephen's Green is experiencing some cashflow difficulties.

I know, I know -- what's the world coming to when an establishment which initially charged members a €1,600 annual fee for the privilege of crossing the threshold is forced to 'restructure' its finances? And that didn't include the €250 joining fee.

Clearly any lapsed members have their priorities entirely wrong. Who chooses to keep up with their own mortgage repayments over unlimited access to a haven of exclusivity, sophistication and gilt-edged mirrors? Bleedin' riff-raff.

Of course no one should gloat when any Irish business totters on the precipice of life and death. An examiner has been appointed to Residence but the doors haven't shut yet. For the sake of the 58 staff employed there, it would be churlish not to hope that they find some way of staying open.

The club rules -- keeping the hoi polloi firmly outside with their noses pressed to the window -- are going to have to change if that is to happen. Residence claimed to fill a niche that existed in Dublin for an upmarket members' club that was as luxurious but not as stiff as the old-guard establishments in the area.

The nearby Kildare Street club, for example, once turned down Mary Harney as a member because she was a woman. (She joined when they reversed their ban on the skirts, which was nice of her).

Yet Residence was/is as ruthlessly selective, making cash the must-have credential. How elitist on one hand, and on the other -- how very crass.

The other difficulty of trying to fill a niche is that it can only ever cater to a small number of people.

I'm sure there's a niche market too for smoking jackets for labradoodles, but I wouldn't throw the family silver at the idea.

Focusing on a small number of big spenders means that you risk everything on their loyalty (and solvency).

If it is the case that Residence reduced their annual fees drastically in the past year in an attempt to attract members, then they must have alienated a few of the Champagne Charlies who fancied themselves part of an elite.

You can't be all things to all men. Especially when your USP was to be one thing to a select few of them.

And just who wants to belong to a club that would have members like that? Not as many as Residence presumed, I suppose.

I interviewed someone there last year, not at my insistence I might add. The swag-and-tails decor was very nice if you like that kind of thing, although I'm not sure I'd have blown a few mill on it. As it turned out, the club was the perfect venue to record an interview. Nothing rings out as clearly on a dictaphone as the sound of one's own voice booming around the corners of a near-empty room.

It was actually a bit sad -- the lunch was delicious, but there's not much point in producing the perfect tarte tatin if there's no one there to taste it.

Most bars have trouble getting bums on barstools midweek these days but you'd think that wouldn't be a problem for a club whose members effectively pay their cover charge in advance. If it were me, I'd be living in the lounge 24/7 to get full value for my moolah.

But perhaps I have more sense than cent. For one thing, I refuse to take up Residence in any bar that lets Eamon Dunphy and Eamon Keane commandeer the piano room. Possibly even at the same time. Good heavens -- has the VIP club fallen asleep and woken up in Lillie's circa 2004?

I do have one concern should time be called on Residence's tenure and its brass knobs (on the door, people, on the door) are polished for the final time.

Does that mean the contents of No41 St Stephen's Green will be evacuated into the nearest 'public' houses?

The last thing I want to hear in my friendly local is some hee-haw Henry braying loudly about how it's impossible to get a bellini made with fresh peach pulp in this town.

The credit munch

The number of calls I got from radio stations looking to get in touch with the woman I interview in the article below is a pretty strong indication of what people are obsessing over at the moment. (Money, or the lack of it). Or, it could be that we media are obsessed with the idea that it's what people want to hear...

Here it is anyway - from Tuesday's Indo: http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/food-drink/how-i-can-feed-a-family-of-five-on-less--than-8364100-a-week-1862244.html

How I can feed a family of five on less than €100 a week
This mum knows how to plan ahead, writes Susan Daly

Tuesday August 18 2009

Cooking has become a spectator sport. At a time when we are being advised to cook purse-friendly meals at home to beat the pinch, celebrity chefs are still crowding our TV screens.

Even Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep has gotten in on the act, with her turn as Julia Childs in new movie Julie and Julia. Childs was a TV chef credited with popularising sophisticated French cooking among convenience food-obsessed Americans of the 1960s.

Food campaigner Michael Pollan has pointed out it is ironic that Streep resurrects Childs' achievements at a time when the art of home cooking has almost died out.

"How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen, but so much less eager to brown them ourselves?" he asked.

Other foodies are taking a more constructive attitude to the loss of cooking skills. The BBC has begun a new series called Economy Gastronomy (BBC2, Wednesdays, 8pm). The aim of the series is to show families how to assemble simple, nourishing dishes using good-quality, affordable ingredients. Waste nothing is the key phrase.

Yvonne Rosenkrantz, who runs a cookery school for children from her house in Blackrock, Co Dublin, is a keen advocate of cheap and healthy family cooking. She and her husband have a 12-year-old son, Caelum. They also take in Spanish students for the summer. Here Yvonne makes a menu she would use to keep her food bill under €100, feeding 4 to 5.

BREAKFAST:

"Porridge is my cupboard staple, nutritious and cheap. I sometimes make pancakes using brown flour and if you make muffins, they can be used again for lunch. Once a week, we might have a special breakfast, honey, yoghurts, small Canadian pancakes -- it's not much effort and it breaks up the rest of the week."

LUNCH:

"Half-brown and half-white bread sandwiches cost no more than usual but look more interesting to kids. It doesn't blow the budget to use little pitta breads from time to time. I toast them, fill them with leftover chicken and wrap in foil. I empty a fruit yoghurt into a bigger spill-proof cup and add chopped fruit. Homemade fruit cake is a big hit with us, as are homemade crisps -- just throw some thinly sliced root veg on a roasting tray with olive oil and a pinch of salt."

TREATS:

"Fizzy drinks are a waste of money. I keep squash concentrates like Robinson's, where a little goes a long way when diluted with water. Kids get used to what they are given. I make a batch of flapjack bars at the start of the week and keep in an airtight container. They are a doddle and full of things in your cupboard; nuts, oats, honey, seeds."

EVENING MEALS:

MONDAY:

"It's normally a roast on Sunday so I make a white sauce, add mushrooms and the leftover chicken to pasta for an easy carbonara.

Chicken pies are good too -- puff pastry is tricky to make so I don't mind buying frozen. It's only an expensive option when people roll it out too thickly. I get 14 squares (one square per little pie) out of one roll of pastry. It's only really a cover for the pie. Leftover pies can be kept frozen."

TUESDAY:

"I never buy vegetables on a Monday because most fresh ingredients don't go into the shops until Monday evening. Do a shop then if you can because your veg will last much longer at home. It's a mince day today. Irish people tend to use too much meat in our mince dishes like spaghetti bolognese, so I would bulk up the veg content with celery, onion and garlic and stretch the mince over two days, maybe to a lasagne."

WEDNESDAY:

"The other half of the mince is gorgeous in tortilla wraps -- kids always love this meal. Use the same spag bol sauce, stuff your wraps, top off with a little cheese in the oven and it's just divine. I give the mix an edge with different spices I keep in the store cupboard."

THURSDAY:

"If my son has had meat at lunch, I would maybe use up eggs in a Spanish omelette. You can throw anything into it you want so that nothing goes to waste at the bottom of the fridge -- potatoes, onions, bits of rashers, carrots, and so on."

FRIDAY:

"Salmon is expensive but there are lots of cheap fish out there. I like hoki, which is very good value and has no bones, so it's great for family meals. I make homemade fish and chips by cutting the fish fillets into strips, rolling them in flour, egg and breadcrumbs (or I use up stale cream crackers by crumbling them up very finely) and frying.

"Forget bags of oven chips -- it only takes a minute to scrub a few spuds, chop them in eighths, toss in olive oil and mixed herbs, roast, and you have lovely potato wedges."

SATURDAY:

"Instead of a takeaway, there is a simple sweet and sour chow mein that I get kids making from the age of four up. You stir fry chicken and whatever veg you have -- frozen or fresh, I always have a bag of peas in the freezer.

"For the sauce, mix a tablespoon of runny honey, garlic and ginger, 2tbs soy sauce, juice of half an orange, 1tsp of cornflour, and a little chicken stock and toss everything in it before cooking. It's a cheat Chinese. I really begrudge paying €40 or €50 a head to eat out these days."

SUNDAY:

"Generally, I have potatoes left over for the roast so this is just the price of a good chicken or meat joint, and a few veg."

For information on courses at Yvonne's Junior Chef cookery school, visit www.juniorchef.ie or ring 01 2780382.