Hasn't home energy been a horrible drain on our finances this last two years?

If it isn't rising gas prices, or big bills for winter chills, it's the scandal of 2010 prices that refuse to fall.

There's a nagging sense that the days of cheap fossil fuels are over, but with no affordable alternative. We're yet to have a cheap source of green energy on a national scale. At a household level, you need to invest in the technology and home improvements before you see the savings.

However: what if green energy became a money saver in itself? If there was a way to hurdle the upfront costs, could going green be the ultimate way to beat the energy price rip-off?

There could already be a way - four ways, in fact. If you're ready to act, green energy could really be about to save you cash.

1. Get paid to produce solar energy

Does this sounds almost too good to be true?

It's true. The UK has introduced a feed-in tariff, which means that if you install a solar panel that generates electricity (a.k.a solar PV), you can get paid for ever unit of electricity that you produce. Even for the units you use yourself!

The typical cost of installing solar photovoltaic panels at home will be around £12,500. However, the scheme rewards your initiative by paying you a generous price per unit for every unit you generate, and an additional payment for surplus units that you supply back to the National Grid.

The estimated return on investment is 5 - 8% a year, and of course there's the effect on your bills. You'll still use grid electricity when your solar panels are less productive (winter evenings being an obvious case in point) but your overall electricity costs will be slashed.

It may not actually be all that green a scheme. The government will be paying out a surprisingly large amount for every tonne of carbon saved, which could arguably be better invested elsewhere. But from a personal investment point of view, it's simple: if you've got around £12k to invest, here's a scheme that will pay you back up to £1,000 a year for 25 years — and you can't say fairer than that.

2. Get your walls done

The CERT fund is something every British household has been indirectly paying into for several years, through a levy on energy suppliers — and now it's time to get your money back and save on heating as you do!

This means means grant money towards helping the country meet its Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (hence the initials) by giving you a big helping hand towards the cost of a better insulated home.

More efficient, for most homes, means better insulated. If you have solid walls, cavity walls with no insulation, or a loft space with less than 270mm insulation, you're a prime candidate.

The benefits are obvious: a warmer home, smaller bills, and much less to pay out for the work.

Better still, if you’re a family with children under 16, if you're in receipt of certain state benefits, or are over 70, you’re in the priority group and should get your insulation done for free.

To take advantage of CERT, contact your existing energy supplier (or your new one after you've switched — see point 4!)

3. Fund a home energy makeover with Pay As You Save

Pay As You Save is a proposed way to fund a whole-house energy efficiency makeover.

It isn't happening immediately — the bill needs to get through Parliament first, and a general election could get in the way of that — but it's been announced, and pilot schemes have already been completed.

Here's how it should work. You'll have your house assessed for the necessary improvements that will reduce the energy you use, and you'll get the work done without paying upfront. Instead, you'll repay the cost over the long term using the amounts you're saving on your bills.

Although the scheme's far from perfect, it does make sense on several fronts: it's an attempt to address the issue of making our ageing housing stock more energy efficient, and crucially, it's trying to address how we pay for it. If the bill passes through Parliament, the scheme should start running in 2012.

So if you're caught in an energy bill Catch-22, shelling out hundreds to heat a draughty old house but unable to pay out now for the necessary improvements, there could be light at the end of the tunnel.

4. Switch and save

If you're not ready to do any of the above (for example — if you're renting), are there other ways green energy could save you money?

Yes. If your gas and electricity bills are still with 'heritage' companies (i.e. British Gas for gas, and one of the local electricity board successor companies for electricity), you will save money by switching supplier — and this can be your chance to go 100% green on electricity too.

Look beyond the 'green 'tariffs every company offers…

…and opt for one of the companies promising 100% renewable energy sourcing (Good Energy and Ecotricity are two examples). Unlike the mainstream suppliers' green tariffs, which persuade customers to buy in to green power sourcing that they are duty bound to achieve anyway, switching to one of the specialist suppliers is meaningful contribution to extending Britain's renewable power generation.

You can use our energy supplier comparison calculator to work out what your likely savings will be, and initiate your money-saving switch online.

Stop press: utility prices getting more competitive anyway…

Even if you're not in the slightest motivated by going green, you might benefit from using our savings calculator to switch bills anyway. This is because, in the two weeks since we wrote about 2010's energy prices being a rip-off, several suppliers have reduced their rates, meaning energy competition is hotting up again.

- use our energy saver tool to switch and save up to £500*

So… how does going green sound now that there's a much bigger financial bait on the hook?

Will you be joining the army of small solar suppliers from your rooftop, or getting warmer walls with an injection of communal cash?

Will you be pencilling in a home energy makeover for 2012?

Or have you got a much better idea that we've overlooked?

*based on actual results from Money Hospital readers - in some cases even bigger savings have been achieved

You may not have heard much about Coventry Building Society, but it's currently the country's third largest mutual - and it's poised to get larger.

With a possible merger on the horizon, the combined society will have around 1.2 million customers and £21billion in assets.

So Mark Churchill has taken a look at the building society's background, what the new merger may look like, and highlight some of the current remortgage and buy-to-let mortgage offers available from Coventry.

Read our guide to Coventry Building Society

On March 24, we'll see this government's last budget. Will it be full of taxpayer giveaways and pleasant surprises? Not a chance.

So we decided to come up with our own plans.

For with less than two weeks to go to Budget Day, this is traditionally the time that lobby groups of all sizes, shapes and political leanings weigh in with their suggestions for what the Chancellor should put in this year's budget. So far the Council for Mortgage Lenders has suggested more money be spent on affordable housing, while the CBI's proposals include reversing the one percentage point increase in National Insurance that's set to be introduced in April 2011.

Here at Money Hospital, we thought we'd take the chance to have our say. Being a thoroughly democratic organisation we asked around some of the voters in the office for their own Budget Day suggestions.

Here are four that caught our eye (in no particular order):

1. Cut fuel tax by 50% - or failing that offer a real alternative to car use by subsidising public transport to very affordable levels.
2. Tax cuts for low earners.
3. Investment in a new 'green energy' industry – to create jobs and provide alternatives to fossil fuels.
4. Discount for all UK taxpayers on tickets to the 2012 Olympics – reflecting the cost we've already paid out in order to stage them.

And four that made us smile (but we think we're less likely to see):

1. BBC licence fee: allocate-as-you-pay to support the channels you want to use.
2. Celebrity taxes: to include a 50% tax on all fees paid out by magazines to cover celebrity weddings.  That rises to 100% when the marriage ends in divorce less than five years later.
3. UK government suggestions box. Voters suggest ways to cut costs in government  – with payment for all ideas that are taken up. Has the added side-effect of cutting out expensive consultancy fees.
4. Tobacco companies to pay directly for treatment of smoking-related disease on the NHS.

But most importantly we'd like to know what you think. What Budget measures would you like to see introduced on March 24? Let us know in the comments below.

Providers are launching ISA offers thick and fast as the start of the new tax year approaches.

The annual ISA limit is currently £7,200, and £10,200 for the over 50s (£10,200 for all from 6th April, 2010) and can be made up of a combination of cash, stocks and shares.

And as the deadline draws closer providers are pulling out all the stops to hook you in.

But how do you make sure you net yourself the best deal?

ISAs, or Instant Access Savings Accounts, are tax efficient savings plans designed by the government to encourage people to save.

With cash ISAs, your savings accrue interest as they would in an ordinary savings account – but there is no tax to be paid. Because you don't pay tax your savings grow more quickly, and over the years that tax saving really begins to add up as the effects of compound interest kick in.

Like all stock market investments, a stocks and shares ISA should be considered as a long-term investment. While any gains will not be taxed the capital will be exposed to the ups and downs associated with the shares.

Any saver wanting to make use of the full annual allowance has to invest at least half in stocks and shares; limiting cash investments to £3,600 per year (£5,100 for the over-50s, and for all savers from April 6.) But research from Clydesdale Bank suggests that on average UK savers have missed out on over £1bn of tax benefit on their savings return every year by failing to use the full ISA allowance.

Steve Reid, retail director for Clydesdale Bank, says: "Clearly there are places for cash and stock market investments, but to truly encourage saving, consumers should have the choice to invest their full allowance in cash."

- Virgin Money offer a "Climate Change" ISA that aims to deliver market leading investment returns by investing in companies that are environmental leaders in their industry - more info here »

- Compare ISA products and savings on our banking section

Cash ISA Facts

• ISA stands for Individual Savings Account
• In a Cash ISA, you don't have to pay income tax on the interest you earn
• The current Cash ISA limits are £5,100 for those born on or before 5th April, 1960, and £3,600 for everyone else
• On 6th April, 2010, at the start of the new tax year, the limit will increase to £5,100 for everyone over 16
• If you don't use your annual ISA allowance by the end of the tax year then this can't be carried forward to the next tax year

ISA savers have only three weeks left to make sure they use their full 2009/2010 tax year allowance

Are you sitting on the fence when it comes to buying a house, unsure which way prices are going to go, not knowing whether to jump now?

If so you're surely not alone.

After a flurry of excitement at the end of last year, as people rushed to buy before the end of the stamp duty holiday on houses selling for £175,000 or below, property indexes are now reporting falls in house prices. This month alone, both Halifax and Nationwide have reported that house prices fell in February. The Halifax says they fell by 1.5% after seven consecutive months of rises, while the Nationwide put the fall at 1.0% - after nine months of growth.

The blame seems to go to the snowy weather and the end of the house price holiday – but if we've learnt anything through the recession, it's that confidence is key and falling prices after months of growth may well prove a spanner in the works. The talk in some quarters is now of a decade of stagnation in house prices, in others it's of another house price crash.

Now stagnation isn't the most attractive word – but right now it sounds attractive to me. The knowledge that house prices were going nowhere fast would take off so much pressure on people wondering whether to move onto, or up, the property ladder. There would no longer be a panicky need to overstretch to borrow and move up before the next step moves out of reach.

I'm not alone on this. David Kern, chief economist of the British Chambers of Commerce, is reported as saying the end of double-digit price rises would result in a "healthier housing market". And, he points out, another property boom would only mean another bust down the line. What's needed, he suggests, is a cultural change in attitudes towards housing.

But these are just my thoughts - you might disagree. You might say that house prices must grow – in order to provide pensions for homeowners coming close to retirement. I'd say that the all-too-recent crash demonstrated only too clearly that the housing market stops working when new buyers can't afford – or just won't – get in. Without buyers, there are no sellers looking to move up and buy those larger houses from people coming up to retirement. And a new house price boom works in the favour only of those who are able or want to sell in order to downsize while it's going on. Miss it, and the chances are potential retirees will be stuck with homes they can't sell, or have to sell for less than they'd expected.

So what do you think? Do you want to see house prices go up, down - or stay as they are? Which way do you think they will go? And, the all-important question: do you think now is a good time to buy a house? (For me, the answer must be that if there's the certainty that house prices aren't going anywhere then it'll always be a good time to buy a house – the house that you really want.)

- compare leading first time buyer mortgages and use our independent advice service

Tell us what you think in the comments below.