News that the UK was finally out of recession did wonders for consumer confidence.

Just last week Nationwide, the UK's largest building society, reported its Consumer Confidence Index had risen for the second consecutive month, increasing by six points to 80 in February.

The index is now at its highest level since January 2008 and almost double the level recorded during the same period last year.

Tracking confidence can be tricky though and when it comes to the economy the UK is by no means out of the woods yet. And many economists are worried that we may even experience a double-dip recession.

The UK is in a real state of economic uncertainty. The budget deficit grows on a daily basis, inflation is creeping up and we are faced with the prospect of higher taxes while spending cuts lurk on the horizon.

Meanwhile the BBC also reported last week that at least 25,000 council jobs in England could be under threat in the next three to five years.

The broadcaster's survey of 49 councils with a combined workforce of 256,000 suggested cuts of around 10%. If applied to all councils this would result in 180,000 job losses.

The prospect of more job losses has not been lost on retailers.

Olympic Holidays is just one travel operator that is offering free holiday redundancy protection for customers booking a package holiday. With Olympic if you are made redundant you can cancel your holiday booking free of charge and be refunded for anything that you have paid.

Holidays aside, the prospect of losing your job is difficult to plan for at the best of times.
But every one of us is vulnerable to suddenly being made involuntarily redundant, even when the country isn't in economic turmoil.

Yet you can help prepare for the unexpected though.

There are three main types of protection products that can help you during difficult times: mortgage payment protection insurance; loan payment protection insurance and income payment protection insurance.

- get a quote that is tailored to your personal needs

The type of plan you choose will be based on your own circumstances.

If meeting your mortgage repayments in the event of involuntary redundancy is your main concern, then mortgage payment protection insurance (MPPI) could be best for you.

If you have loans or credit card commitments, then you may wish to consider taking out loan payment protection insurance. The income from the policy will help you maintain your monthly credit commitments, which can help stop debt from building up.

Alternatively, you may wish to choose how you spend the money yourself. If you want to have an income that you could use as you wanted, then you can take out insurance as an income payment protection insurance plan.

If you think that your job may be at risk then there are other steps that you can take too.

Start looking for new employment

Keep an eye out for another job, whether visiting a recruitment consultant or looking at the jobs section in the local newspaper. Jobcentre Plus has Britain's largest database of job vacancies. You can use the jobs and skills search to find a job that is suitable for you.

Stop spending money and start saving

Cut down on excessive spending. Do you need that gym membership? Do you need a digital TV subscription? Can you trade your car in for a cheaper to run model? Try and run down your debts as fast as possible.

Mother's Day is celebrated the world over.

In Nepal, "Mata Tirtha Aunshi", translated as "Mother Pilgrimage fortnight", falls in the month of Baishak dark fortnight (April).

And in Panama it's celebrated on December 8th, the same day as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Back in old Blighty though and Mother's Day always falls on the fourth Sunday in Lent, exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday.

Centuries ago it was considered important for people to return to their home or 'mother' church once a year. So each year in the middle of Lent, everyone would visit their 'mother' church - the main church or cathedral of the area, resulting in a family get together.

A couple of hundred years later it became the traditional day when children, mainly daughters, who had gone to work as domestic servants, were given a day off to visit their mother and family.

Say it with flowers

A whole commercial industry has sprung up around Mother's Day, not least for florists who always see business boom. That tradition is widely thought to have sprung up when children walking home along country lanes would pick wild flowers to give to their mother as a small gift.

Money saving

But before you get banged up for picking a bunch of council planted daffs from the side of the road here's Money Hospital's top ideas for Mother's Day that won't break the bank.

Bake a cake

Mothering Sunday has also been known as Refreshment Sunday as the fasting rules for Lent were relaxed that day – think Jesus feeding five thousand with five loaves and two small fish and you'll have an idea of the sermon you might expect if you pop along to Church on Sunday.

Simnel cake, a fruit cake with two layers of almond paste, one on top and one in the middle, is the traditional Mother's Day cake and you can bake it yourself for less than a fiver.

You can find the recipe here courtesy of the youngsters at Woodlands Junior School, Kent: http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/easter/simnelrecipe.html

Grow your own

Cut flowers may be pretty but no matter how expensive and how exotic they all have one thing in common: they die.

Get around the problem with flowering plants.

Gardening Direct offer 21 mixed Geraniums for only £4.99 in salmon, pink, rose, red and blush white. Grown from seed and planted they can fill your Mum's garden, patio or flower box with glorious colour all summer.

Look for offers

Plenty of retailers are offering Mother's Day specials. Need a new phone? Orange are offering vouchers for free beauty treatments like manicures, pedicures and facials when you join the network on pay monthly, pay as you go or broadband.

Body beautiful

The Sanctury Spa in London's Covent Garden was established over 30 years ago to provide powerful relaxing and rejuvenating treatments for dancers that performed in the West End.

A range of branded goods is now available in the high street. Pick up Foaming Bath Stock or a gift box of body wash and body lotion both for under a fiver at Boots.

Are you one of the UK's estimated 9.4 million smokers? If you are, then giving up the habit this Thursday on national No Smoking Day could make you significantly better off.

For not only would you save the daily cost of cigarettes but you'll also see other benefits such as a cut in the cost of life insurance payments.

We've taken a look at just five ways that ditching the habit could make improve your finances.

Ready cash

Quit smoking and a 20-a-day smoker will save £5.80 a day. It might not seem a huge sum but it soon adds up. In just a month you'll save yourself £176. In six months the total will be a year £1,056 and in a year £2,111. At its simplest level, you'll be significantly reducing the amount you spend: if you usually take out £20 at the cashpoint, this measure will save you eight trips there.

Boost your savings

Put the daily money aside in a savings account and you could soon have a tidy sum towards something you really want. So the £1,056 you'd save in six months could be a tidy holiday fund, while the £2,111 you'd save in a year could cover the cost of a second-hand car.

Increase your pension savings

An alternative is to divert the money straight into pensions savings, raising the amount that you save every time the price of a packet of cigarettes goes up. By saving £176 a month and increasing the amount saved by a conservative 2% each year, a 30-year-old might build up a pension fund of around £250,000 by retirement. Which is not bad at all.

Cut the cost of life insurance

After a year of not smoking, the cost of your life insurance could go down. Figures from Moneysupermarket.com show that former smokers can expect to see their policy payments reduced substantially. The company looked at quotes from five different providers (Aegon Scottish Equitable, Zurich, Legal & General, Friends Provident and Aviva) for critical illness and life cover of £150,000. It found that on average A 30-year-old man could save an average of £20.19 a month by being a non-smoker. Over the course of the 25-year term of the policy, he’d save £6,044. For a woman of the same age, the monthly saving would be the same, while the total saving would be £3,655.

- get a life insurance quote - it could work out as low as 99p a week if you're a non-smoker!

Cheaper health insurance

And just as life insurance costs drop significantly after a year of not smoking, the same goes for health insurance. Policies for non-smokers are significantly cheaper.

We could go on. For one, if you went on to suffer from a smoking-related disease there'd also be the potential costs of being unable or less able to work to be considered.

For more facts, motivation and support in giving up smoking visit the No Smoking Day website at http://www.nosmokingday.org.uk/index.htm.

Raising a child to the age of 21 is now reckoned to cost hard-pressed parents over £200,000!

That's the conclusion of insurer LV=, which has been carrying out this survey every year since 2003. This year is the first time the total has gone past the £200k barrier.

Where does all the money go?

According to LV=, the following categories account for the expenditure:

The total adds up to £201,809 - an increase of 4% on the same survey last year.

Perhaps those who are already parents aren't too surprised, but Mike Rogers, LV= chief executive, suspects that "many new and prospective mums and dads will be a little shocked to see the potential financial burden ahead of them."

You're not kidding, Mike!

Leaving aside the question of whether these really are 'average' costs (£50k on education?), let's see if there's some leeway in that frankly frightening figure.

Some less expensive alternatives

Childcare

We're sure many parents are able to opt out of prevailing childcare costs for a simple reason — grandma or grandad. The figure is so high because it assumes both parents working, paying nursery fees, after school clubs and holiday clubs.

One way that mums returning to work can do so without high childcare costs is to train for the education sector, where hours and holidays are a better match for children.

Holidays and fun days

49 per cent of parents say they've cut back on days out and treats, and unfortunately for the tourism industry, this is the first thing we'd cut back on too. However, there's no reason you can't cut costs by holidaying closer to home (see last summer's tongue-in-cheek guide to staycationing…)

Furniture

We presume they're including furniture for children's bedrooms and play areas, rather than replacing worn-out / damaged / food-stained furniture around the home?

The latter we're counting as inevitable. The former can be cut right back: every day, teenagers in your neighbourhood must be clamouring to get rid of furniture they've grown out of, so try your local Freecycle group to pick up second hand versions for nothing.

Food

There are lots of ways to cut back on that £17,490 for food, without resorting to cheap junk — or missing out altogether on treats. Think ingredients instead of than ready-made. Think ahead: make double for tomorrow, or portions for the freezer (and for packed lunch). Think about soups: they're filling, they can be home-made from almost any vegetables, just add some decent bread and you're away.

Clothing

Clearly this isn't just keeping up with the latest trends: the problem is the speed at which children grow up. However, a generation ago this would have been dealt with through hand-me-downs — a recession-friendly measure if ever there was one, saving approximately 100% on buying brand new.

Pocket money

According to the LV= survey, children are noticing the financial pressures on their parents and are willing to accept a freeze or a small cut in pocket money. If that seems just a little mean, you could always encourage them to do jobs for it (e.g. helping out with cooking, if you're now taking extra time to peel and chop your own ingredients).

To encourage your children to moderate their demands, here's one way to make pocket money go further: pay it directly into your child's bank account. Every grown-up knows that readies disappear faster than money in the bank; your children can think a little more carefully which purchases are really worth withdrawing pocket money for.

A way to make child rearing money go further

The problem with these child rearing costs is that there's no catching up on them once you get started. Unlike a mortgage, they won't go down over time: from Year 1 to Year 21, there are always new expenditures to be met. Especially if you hope your kids will be university-bound.

This is why we'd suggest some form of regular savings account, allowing your provision for children to gain ground on inflation (see the compound interest section of this story for why regular saving is a great idea).

I'd consider putting the following strategy in place:

• budget for likely income vs expenditure, without taking into account child benefit
• look at your expenditure list and cut it back 10% through the tips above (and the comments below?)
• put 100% of the child benefit into a regular savings account

It's not a definitive answer to the "where to find £200k?" teaser posed by the LV= survey, but it might just cushion you from some of the financial insanity that is modern parenthood.

All comments welcome — from parents and non-parents alike!

Fixed price energy customers: this is a wealth warning!

If you opted for an energy tariff with a fixed price that expires in 2010, you need to review your options today - before you get stuck paying way more than necessary.

During the energy price surge of 2008, many households switched to a 'capped' tariff to protect against increases of 30-40% in gas prices. Now, as those caps come to an end, you face two different ways to get stung in the wallet:

1. Getting automatically moved to another capped tariff - with a 'get out' fee of up to £70
2. Seeing your prices soar when you get your next bill.

It's time to act: check when your current energy tariff expires, make sure you don't get sucked in to another one, and get ready to switch.

Mainstream energy prices are currently a rip-off…

This probably confirms your suspicions anyway: you are being charged far too much for your household energy supply.

When fixed price tariffs were all the rage in 2006-2008, that's because energy prices were climbing at a steady and sometimes alarming rate.

This winter, however, wholesale prices (i.e. what your supplier has to pay for gas and electricity before distributing it to you) have dropped considerably. Take gas, for example: the wholesale price dropped to below 40p per therm at the end of 2009, compared to more than 100p per therm during summer 2008.

However, instead of passing the reduced prices on to you, suppliers have taken the opportunity to raise margins instead. The effect of this can be seen in the results gleefully published to their shareholders last week — for example:

• Centrica, the owner of British Gas, reported approximately a 50 per cent increase in 2009 profits to £550 million
• Scottish Power, owned by the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola, announced an 8 per cent rise in profits to £1.3 billion last year, despite shedding more than 100,000 customers in the UK

Let this be a motivation to act.

New fixed-price tariffs could be two kinds of rip-off…

If your energy company sends you a letter saying they are rolling you over to a new fixed-price tariff, consider that an alarm bell.

The cost of energy is currently falling — so fixed-price tariffs are not a good idea for money saving at the moment.

Energy companies know this, so they may not be likely to tell you openly. First, they are allowed to notify you of price rises up to 65 days after they occur (this unfair rule might change soon, but for now it still stands). Second, thousands of British Gas customers have complained that the notification letter looks like junk post: many threw it away.

Another reason to avoid getting 'rolled over': many of these new capped tariffs have exit fees. If you want to switch, you'll be liable to pay up to £35 per fuel (£70 total).

This is another good reason why not acting today could cost you money.

Sticking with your regional electricity company is a rip-off…

Despite a decade of savings to be made through energy switching, it's estimated 33% of domestic electricity customers remain "faithful" to their home supplier.

If only they were that faithful to you. Energy companies charge more to loyal customers in their host regions than they do to customers elsewhere in the UK.

For example, nPower charges customers in Yorkshire 12% more than their average price across other regions, amounting to an extra £48 a year.

If this practice shocks you or seems unfair, that's because it really is time to compare and change suppliers.

What can you do about the 2010 energy price rip-off?

There's only one thing you really can do — but thankfully it's effective if enough people do it…

You have to switch.

Switching supplier makes no difference to your actual electricity and gas supply, just the billing and the prices. It's a simple exercise in market freedom.

- switch providers today and save up to £500 (based on Money Hospital readers' own results)

There is a price war out there, so lower prices are a realistic possibility. But with the "Big 6" energy companies dominating the advertising, you might have to look a little further than British Gas, nPower or E.ON for competitive tariffs.

Use our seven steps for avoiding the 2010 energy price rip-off:

1. Open all letters from your energy supplier. If tariffs and prices are mentioned, pay close attention.
2. If you're on a fixed price tariff, find out when it ends (so you know when to act, if not right away)
3. …and find out what prices you'll pay when it ends (so you can do an accurate comparison)
4. Calculate how much you could save by switching supplier - using your upcoming price, not the previous fixed one.
5. Consider electricity and gas separately (if necessary, calculate again)
6. Do it today!
7. Don't delay!

- use our energy calculator to switch and save