I was really sad to read that www.wrapit.co.uk, the on-line gift registry has folded. As a wedding guest, I thought that it was a very user-friendly site and I know several couples who are in that awkward situation of having to inform their friends and family that they never actually received those gorgeous glasses or smart kitchen scales.

For guests who bought on credit cards, there is some protection under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. This covers purchases between £100-£30,000 (well, someone might have a very generous great aunt!), although excludes certain cards such as Diner’s Club (does that still exist??) and American Express. However, I’ve just called the Amex disputes line and the very helpful gentleman on the other end said that they would refund all purchases, regardless of how long ago the item was ‘purchased’.

To claim for compensation, guests should directly write to the dispute/refund departments of their credit card company. In the letter, just detail the nature of the problem and include a copy of the original order confirmation and a letter stating that these goods will not be delivered. It is possible to request this letter from the administrator; in this instance KPMG who can be contacted at: The Administrator, Wrapit plc., c/o KPMG LLP, 8 Salisbury Square, London, EC4Y 8BB.

Guests who paid by Visa Delta will also be eligible for full compensation under their ‘charge back rights’. In this instance, consumers who have not received items within 30-days of ordering, can call the company to find out why it has not turned up, then call their bank to have the transactions reversed.

Unfortunately, guests who paid by cheque and other debit cards (Switch/Maestro) have less legislation on their side. However, it seems that there is enough publicity on this issue (and enough people affected) to embarrass HSBC/KPMG into action. Please contact KPMG on the above address or on the dedicated hotline (0844 770 1301) for more information.

I feel the need to confess that at a quiet moment last night, I ‘googled’ myself. OK - that’s not really the guilty secret. The guilty secret is that I was outraged that I didn’t find myself on the first three pages! I mean, how many ‘Sarah Fongs’ are there?? Oh and I guess that if we’re doing confessions, I admit that I have ‘googled’ myself a few times before and each time, I used to comfortably make an appearance in the top three entries. Admittedly, it was normally some banal press release or comment on the US housing market but I’m with Oscar Wilde on the only thing worse than being talked about..

However, things took a radical turn for the better when I found myself on a stranger’s blog! Even more gratifying is the fact that it said good things about this website. http://www.misscrew.com/blog/2008/07/25/ating-cake-a-girls-guide-to-surviving-the-credit-crunch/#more-2737

Could now write something insightful on viral marketing and the powerhouse that is the Internet, turning our vast planet into a veritable global village. However, am more interested in the fact that someone I have never met has an opinion on me. I know that celebrities deal with this on a very intense and intrusive level but it’s truly weird when it first happens. And I guess that’s the real guilty secret - I like it.

Last day of the sale - music to my ears! Not only do lots of shops go for one final markdown but managers are even more keen to get rid of the surplus so that there is less to catalogue and ship back to storage. Popped into Linley and managed to get another third off a clock that the husband has been admiring. There was another couple in there hoovering up all the ‘gift items’ for crazy prices. I do wish that I was organised enough to do that. However, the really nice thing about doing ‘last day’ shopping in the lovely boutique-type shops is that their customer service is still impeccable - quite a different experience from the mammoth bun fight that is the shoe department in Harrods! However, those red patent sling-backs had my name all over them and my nails are as sharp as the next girl’s…

I know - books - how very ‘old media’! However, I did read that the sale of bonkbuster fiction (you know the stuff - Jackie, Jilly, Judith et.al.) goes up during recessions because we are all desperate for a bit of escapism; not to mention some vicarious high-end shopping. Sadly, my book recommendations are not of this ilk but maybe that’s because I never need an excuse to re-read Polo.

Rich Dad Poor Dad - by Robert T. Kiyosaki: One very simple concept imparted in a very powerful way: ‘don’t work for money, make money work for you!’ Consumer societies want you to buy liabilities, which Kiyosaki defines as anything that costs money to maintain, e.g. holiday homes, super cars etc. Instead, you should be buying assets, e.g. buy-to-let (more tricky in this banking-crisis environment), shares etc. An asset is something that generates income for you, even when you’re sleeping.

The Money Diet - by Martin Lewis: Rather than making you rich, this book aims to make you ‘less poor’ and is absolutely packed full of ways on how to save money. The author claims to be able to cut the average household bill by £3,000, which seems to be a pretty good investment for the £5.99 Amazon charges. An accessible book for everyone.

The Four Hour Work Week - by Timothy Ferriss: Not only is the title seductively fabulous but it’s an easy read about how to get the most from your life. Like ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’, the focus is on honing your entrepreneurial spirit but in a more risk-neutral way than this genre normally calls for.

Vegans eat vegetables. Freegans eat free food. This is clearly one of the most effective strategies of weathering the credit crunch and the younger members of my family have been at it for years. I wonder if it was sibling affection or Sunday roasts that convinced both my sisters to move to the same neighbourhood. But my sisters aside, freeganism is a growing movement and as I’m normally happiest when clinging onto the bandwagon du jour, it seems like the obvious choice for my first investigation.

In principle, freeganism sounds rather fabulous in a Good Life meets Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall kind of way. However, throw South-East London into the equation and it becomes a bit more challenging. Since moving to proper grown-up house with garden, the husband has planted a decent looking salad bowl and some potatoes that suspiciously look like Triffids. However, I really am one of those people who don’t think they’ve eaten unless there’s substantial quantities of protein involved. Blame my father - he could never quite work out the ratio for the formula, so started me off on liquidised steak and eggs. So, what to do? London roadkill doesn’t bear thinking about, chicken keeping is quite chic these days but not if the size of your garden prevents them from being free range, and poaching the neighbour’s rabbits seems deeply anti-social, not to mention unethical.

Looking around, it appears that there are three options for the urban freegan: bartering, fishing, dumpster diving.

Bartering sounds the least scary but the question is what to barter with? I have no known history with a meat cleaver and it’s a nightmare getting all my hair into one of those little hygiene nets. Fishing is fine in principle and there are some reasonably clean London waterways - the Serpentine doesn’t look too disgusting and I’ve heard that it’s full of crayfish. However, without buying a rod license that would effectively be poaching from the Queen, which I imagine isn’t looked too kindly on. I think that if you’re going to trespass, don’t choose royal property. Certainly, media coverage of supermarket ‘dumpster diving’ has even reached Channel 4 and The Telegraph, which probably puts it on a par with stealing post-it notes from the office stationery cupboard. However, despite the fact that I think it truly scandalous that so much food goes to waste (can’t they take it to soup kitchens and refuges?), I’m not sure if I could bring myself to climb into a dumpster. For a start, it’s not very ‘Marie Antoinette’ and perhaps more pertinently, I’m not very agile - I may get stuck!

Channelling the court of Louis XVI, there has to be another route to urban freeganism. If I were still a single girl about town, it would be a breeze. Actually, the husband (and household breadwinner) points out that I am a de facto freegan - for someone who likes the quiet life, he does know how to start a fight. To calm myself down, I breathe deeply and sift through the ‘happy memory’ box: when we met, our first New York shopping trip, a 2am piggyback when my evening’s footwear choice proved to be the wrong one, visiting potential wedding venues and being plied with free champagne and canapés… Of course! The chic side of freeganism is good old-fashioned freeloading.

There is the obvious route of inviting yourself over for dinner but is freeganism possible without the help of your more generous friends? Over the next three months, I intend to find out. London establishments beware!

Went to see the new Pixar film last night. They’re a company I used to invest in and I’ve always been in awe of their creativity. WALL-E is no exception and rather than stick to a seamless formula of animated gags and action, the film explores the damage of mindless consumerism in a thoroughly entertaining way. OK, it’s been done before and the Japanese animé director, Hayao Miyazaki is truly the genre’s master but WALL-E not only has a conscience and overwhelming aesthetic sensibilities but it has the heart and humour to get its message out to the masses. In fact, the film took more at the U.S box office in its opening weekend than An Inconvenient Truth took globally in two whole years. And although there will be plenty of families walking straight out of WALL-E and into the nearest Disney Store, change is an iterative process.

Speaking of which, we tried Saki at West Smithfield for a post-movie supper. The sushi lives up to its 2006 Restaurant Magazine award and was of the melt-in-the-mouth variety (raw fish is one of the few things that I don’t buy on special offer - it just has Hep C written all over it). The restaurant also boasts the country’s first paperless lavatory, courtesy of Aspen Bidets. These things are all the rage in Japan and I read with interest that the penetration in Tokyo households is around 70%. It looks like an ordinary loo, apart from a small side panel with a bunch of scary buttons to control water pressure and temperature. I did consider its merits and although I am all for using less resources, I’m afraid that I’m not ditching the Andrex yet.

This is my first foray into the world of blogging. I wonder how many blogs start off like that but it’s a useful explanation for those thinking that my etiquette is a bit off and wondering why I’m not making the most of the amazing functionality this software has. Bear with me, I hope to get better!

I intend to make this blog specific to clever ways of weathering the credit crunch - partly in the interests of relevancy and partly to avoid excessive navel gazing. I am also happy to use it to address any specific situations, so if you’re getting married, moving house or doing something else that you wish wasn’t quite so expensive, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

I would also like to provide a loose commentary on certain key financial and economic issues without boring everyone to death! Despite having worked in the industry for 8years, I am one of the first people to zone out when the dreaded ‘f’ word is mentioned. However, I do believe that finance shouldn’t just be about pension plans and overdrafts. At its finest, finance teaches us how to best use our resources to live the life we want.

I hope that you enjoy reading this.

Sarah x