2. The Gone Fishin’ Portfolio by Alexander Green (Wiley, $30.95): Green wants people to stop worrying about money. So he’s devised a smart, simple way to invest. It consists of building a low-cost, diversified portfolio of index funds. Our take: There’s nothing new here, but we like what Green has to say, perhaps because his approach so closely resembles our own Couch Potato Portfolio. While his book is written for U.S. investors, its overview of the markets can be read with profit by just about anyone.

3. Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, $29.95):Everyone complains about traffic, but few of us do anything about it. Vanderbilt delves into the secret world of highways to find out what causes traffic jams, who’s most at risk, and how to build safer roads. Our take: A wonderful book with implications even for people who ride the bus. You will be surprised to discover that building more highways does nothing to relieve traffic stress and that most accidents occur in sunny, dry weather. Believe it or not, the key to safer roads may be fewer signs, more roundabouts and greater apparent danger.

4. The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort (Bantam Books, $16.50): Belfort made millions by dumping dubious stocks on gullible investors. Then his drug addictions and his increasingly complicated scams blew up and he was packed off to prison. This tell-all memoir delights in recounting every detail of his excesses. Our take: OK, so all the sex and swearing is a bit over the top. But if you can get past the boasting and rutting, this book provides a glimpse into a certain narcissistic personality type that is all too common among our Bay Street acquaintances.

5. Outliers: the Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown & Co.; $30.99): What enables a handful of people to become billionaires, famous hockey players or immortal composers? Gladwell examines the roots of success and concludes that stardom isn’t so much about self-made heroes as it is about environment and luck. Our take: A glib, fun book, but a frustrating one. Gladwell argues that small advantages in birth date and practice time among kids can result in huge disparities in performance as adults. But he never challenges his thesis or explores its implications—which, among other things, would seem to involve heavy funding of early education for every child.

Home prices across Canada slid more than 10% over the past year and the slump shows no signs of ending soon. Homeowners shouldn’t panic, especially if you’ve lived in your home for years and have built up substantial equity, but you should realize that sellers are no longer the ones calling the tune. Tsur Somerville, associate professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, says home buyers can afford to take their time and be aggressive about price. If the downturn deepens, bargains will appear, particularly in two areas.”High-end homes and vacation homes are historically the most volatile in a recession,” says Somerville. “There are a lot fewer buyers for mansions during a recession and people under financial pressure are eager to get rid of their vacation homes, so you may see some very attractive prices in both sectors if the economy gets worse.”

Our advice to buyers? Be patient. It takes a year or two for economic distress to be reflected in real estate prices. So wait for 2010. That looms as prime time for mansion shopping or cottage buying.

Take the vow of poverty. Many monasteries and religious hospices, particularly in Europe, take in guests for a modest fee starting at $35 or so a night. A continental breakfast usually comes with your room. These religious retreats provide a peaceful atmosphere and you don’t have to be Catholic to grab a bed. For more information, check out www.monasterystays.com or Google “monastery lodgings” and the country you’re interested in.

Trade spaces. You can avoid hotel fees entirely by swapping homes with someone in a foreign country for a week or two. To see who’s looking to exchange and when, check out websites such as www.homeexchange.com (US$99.95 a year); www.homelink.org ($130 a year), or www.intervacus.com (US$95 a year).

Be their guest. Hospitality exchanges are networks of travelers who are willing to put up fellow members in their homes for free. The “exchange” part means that those who have hosted others get to stay in the spare bedroom of any other network member when traveling themselves. You can see what’s available at www.affordabletravelclub.net. It spans 2,000 members, and charges a membership fee US$65 . If you’re a woman, consider www.womenwelcomewomen.org.uk. It has 2,600 members in 80 countries and a membership fee of $75.

Go camping. You can treat your family to swimming, hiking, fishing and marshmallows around the campfire for less than $50 a night at many campsites. The best deals of all? Campsites near big cities. Bruce Armstrong, a 53-year-old Torontonian, took his wife and three kids to New York for next to nothing by staying in a campground in New Jersey. The next morning the Armstrongs drove to the Jersey side of the Hudson River and took a train into the Big Apple. “It was an inexpensive way to show our kids New York,” Bruce says.

Bargain for a bed. Surveys by Consumer Reports show that almost half of people who bargain for a hotel room succeed in negotiating a lower rate. For the best rates, call the hotel directly—staff who are on the spot may have more discretion to offer a a deal than a website does. Start by asking for the lowest rate and then do some polite bargaining. Questions such as, “What if I arrive a day earlier? How about a day later? Is there something a little less expensive on a lower floor?” often get good results. If all else fails, simply stating “that’s beyond my budget” can work. “Tourism is struggling and hotel occupancy is down considerably,” says Patrick Dineen, editor of Travelweek. “There are good deals to be had everywhere. So negotiate.”

Resist the urge to load up on tools. You won’t save money if every repair job starts with you plunking down a hundred dollars for gear. Try renting instead. For example, you’ll pay about $30 a day for a professional-grade hammer-drill that costs over $300 to buy. As a bonus, staff at the rental centre will show you how to use it.

Attend free seminars. Hardware chains such as Home Depot hold weekly classes on everything from tiling floors to installing toilets. The classes are great starting points, says home improvement expert Jon Eakes in Montreal. Don’t depend on what you read on websites and blogs. “A lot of their information is just wrong,” he says. Instead pick up Reader’s Digest Complete Do-it-Yourself Manual or DK’s Do it Yourself (Canadian Edition).

Ask a contractor for help. It sounds crazy, but some professionals will teach you how to do jobs yourself. For instance, you can hire a contractor to replace your faucet, watch how he does it, then replace other faucets on your own. “Contractors know it’s ridiculous to pay someone $50 to install a faucet,” Eakes says.”If they teach you, they know you’ll give them the bigger jobs later, like renovating the entire bathroom.”

Shop at a specialty store. The people behind the counter at your local lumberyard, flooring store and plumbing shop know more than staff at big hardware chains. So when you buy a few hundred dollars in laminate flooring, ask staff for advice on how to install it.

Practice in the laundry room first. It’s the best place to test your skills since no one will ever see your mistakes, says Eakes. “I tell people, if you want to drywall the bedroom and you’ve never drywalled before, drywall your laundry room first—even if it doesn’t need it” Hopefully the second time around you’ll get it right.

Know your limits. Some things really should be left to the experts. Electrical wiring is one. Another is a leaky roof or basement. “A small leak can cause a lot of damage, and finding the problem is more than most people are capable of,” says Robert Koci, editor of Canadian Contractor magazine in Toronto. Also, avoid moving walls yourself. If you cut into a load-bearing wall, your house could collapse. The good news: in a sour economy the renovation business dries up, which means you should be able to negotiate a cheaper rate if you do need to hire a contractor.

Consider a couple we’ll call Domenic and Joanne. They live in Calgary in a three-bedroom, two-storey home. They owe $200,000 on their mortgage at 6.5%. Right now, they are making monthly payments of $1,340 and are on track to pay off their house in 25 years. Based on their current schedule, they will wind up paying more than $200,000 in interest over the life of their mortgage. But consider what happens if they’re willing to pay a little more.

1st scenario: If Domenic and Joanne simply increase their monthly mortgage payment by $180 to $1,520 a month, they can pay off their mortgage in 19 years and save $53,510 in interest costs.

2nd scenario: If Domenic and Joanne split their current monthly payment in two and pay every two weeks instead of monthly, they increase their total mortgage payments from $16,075 a year to $17,415 a year. That means they pay off their mortgage in 21 years instead of 25 years, and save nearly $40,000 in interest costs.

3rd scenario: If Domenic and Joanne keep making their current monthly payment, but add an additional payment of $7,000 once a year, they pay off their mortgage in 13 years and save $107,000 in interest.

In most cases, homeowners can arrange to take advantage of any of these options simply by calling their bank. But whatever strategy Domenic and Joanne choose, they should resist the temptation to choose banks’ latest mortgage deal, which consists of the ability to skip a payment once a year. While that may seem enticing, such a strategy would stretch out Domenic and Joanne’s mortgage payments to almost 31 years. They would pay a whopping $263,000 in interest costs over the life of their mortgage, or $61,000 more than if they had stuck with the original 25-year monthly payment schedule.

Don’t be ashamed. Most people don’t haggle because they think it’s rude, says Deborah Kolb, the Boston-based author of Everyday Negotiation. It doesn’t have to be that way. A quiet, polite question—“Is that the best you can do?” or “Can you come down a bit on that?”—often produces big savings.

Be a store detective. Look for signs a store is willing to discount. For instance, if an appliance display is under renovation, the store manager is probably eager to get rid of floor models. Another smart strategy is to look for an item that has a dent on it and point out the flaw to a salesman. He should offer a discount.

Leave room for a counter-offer. “Novice hagglers ask for too much off, like 50% and say they’ll only buy it at that price,” says Kolb. It’s better to be strategic. If your goal is to get 15% off, start by asking for 30% and indicate you’re ready to dicker.

Be ready for “no.” A common mistake is to have no response ready if your request for a discount gets turned down. You can always walk away, but Kolb’s solution is to ask for add-ons instead of a discount. If you’re buying a new bed, ask for the night table as a free extra. On a stove, ask for free delivery or a four-year warranty instead of two years. “These things don’t cost the store a lot, but add up to big savings for you,” Kolb says.

Step 1: Invest in a good cookbook, preferably one loaded with dinner recipes. You can’t go wrong with The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer; Martha Stewart’s Cooking School by Martha Stewart; How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman; or Baird’s The Complete Canadian Living Cookbook.

Step 2: Choose seven easy recipes from the cookbook that you think your family might enjoy. Make one a night. Some recipes won’t pan out, but that’s okay. At least two or three will be hits at the dinner table. Add them to your own personal recipe book. Pretty soon you’ll have a dozen or more dishes you can whip up on any given night.

Step 3: While you’re learning to cook like a pro, don’t forget to shop like a pro. The secret to no-hassle cooking at home, says Baird, is to make a list of your meals for the week, then buy all the ingredients at once. “A lot of people don’t cook because they don’t shop to cook,” she says. “There’s not much you can prepare with a can of tuna and a Coke from the fridge.”

The payoff from even a small home garden can be surprising. A 10-ft by 20-ft vegetable plot and a couple of fruit trees is enough to keep an average family of four eating free for up to eight months of the year in temperate climates like southern B.C and six months of the year in many other parts of Canada, says Seaman. Here’s how to get the maximum benefit from your personal plot:

Go for maximum yield. Grow plants that produce the largest amount of edible material. Tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, spinach and peppers are all champs in this regard. Ten tomato plants provide enough of the food to supply a family’s needs from July through November and you can double the number of tomatoes you get just by picking off the yellow flowers throughout the growing season. As for lettuce, Seaman plants a new row every two weeks so he always has fresh leafy greens to eat.

Plant “expensive” food. If it costs a lot to buy, it’s worth growing yourself. Garlic, for instance, is pricey, while broccoli costs almost as much as ground beef in a supermarket, so both make sense as home crops. On the other hand, corn and potatoes are cheaper to buy than grow.

Go vertical. Beans, peas, cucumbers and squash are easy to grow on poles and fences, which means you’ll get more food using less of your backyard. If you plan to stay where you are for several years, plant a few apple, pear and cherrytrees to keep your family stocked up on fruit. They take two to five years to come to fruit-bearing age.

Skip the garden centre. You don’t need to shell out big bucks for fertilizers and manure. With the exception of peat moss, everything you need to prepare soil is already in your backyard. Household compost, grass clippings and mulched leaves can provide most of the nutrients your growing plants need. “Some people put so much money into their garden, they’re not really saving anything on food,” Seaman says.

Try blueberries, not begonias. If digging up your yard doesn’t sound like much fun, relax. There are other ways to grow food. Container gardening is one; another option is to add good eats to your existing flowerbeds. “I call it edible landscaping,” says Carolyn Herriot, author of A Year on the Garden Path. Strawberries make excellent groundcover instead of annual plants such as verbena. Gooseberry and blueberry bushes can share space with ornamental shrubs. Not only will you save money on fruit, says Herriot, but the plants themselves are quite striking, with pretty blossoms in the spring and fiery red leaves in the fall. And you don’t have to stop there: vegetables like snap peas, kale and chives not only taste great, but look good too.

Be smart about pests. Don’t plant corn—it’s a magnet for raccoons. If squirrels and birds are an issue, buy a motion-sensing sprinkler.