I'm frugal, not penny-pinching, says the woman who's cut back the cost of living

At Ilona Richards's house, guests are always told to keep their coats on.

It's not that she doesn't like visitors, but ever since the central heating broke a couple of years ago, the temperature in the modest two-bed semi regularly fails to get into double figures. During a recent cold spell, the 59-year-old was forced to wear three pairs of jogging bottoms. And a woolly hat.

"Friends have offered to get someone round to have a look at it," she says, pushing aside a duvet from the sofa. "But to be honest, I'd rather live without it. Knowing it worked would be too much of a temptation. People flick too many switches these days without thinking of the consequences.

"Very occasionally, when it gets really cold, I'll put the gas fire on low for 10 minutes, just to take the edge off, but I don't like doing it. The key to living frugally is about knowing the difference between what you need and what you want."

Nothing about Ilona's home, in the quite village of Burton upon Stather, near Goole, could be described as luxurious. The furniture is second-hand, the patterned carpet doesn't match the floral curtains, and instead of ornaments, there's a stack of empty cat food boxes waiting to be put to good use.

An early experiment to turn them into a coffee table hasn't been entirely successful '“ the wallpaper paste has made the surface uneven. It's also unlikely to win any design awards. But then Ilona, who freely admits to wearing men's underpants, has never worried too much about appearances.

"They're so much cheaper and they last so much longer than the skimpy things they make for women," she says by way of explanation. "And if you're small enough to wear teenage boys' pants, you don't have to pay VAT.

"People see it as a real hardship not to be able to have a hot bath or shower, but I wash my hair in the kitchen sink. I have a strip-down wash when I need to. It's how people did it years ago, and they survived."

They did, but today there are few who could make a bottle of shampoo last eight months. Even fewer prepared to save their dirty washing-up water to flush the toilet.

llona says that the roots of her financial modesty can be traced back to her childhood. Growing up in a family which had little spare cash taught her the value of money early on, and while she went on to earn a decent wage during 30 years as a HGV driver for B&Q, an operation to remove a cyst on her ovaries last year made her rethink her priorities.