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.

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.

Choosing where to buy your first home or where to move next can be a daunting task. For most people, finding the right home means finding somewhere safe, secure and affordable. After all, it's in these types of areas where demand should grow and in turn prices rise, enabling you to step up the property ladder when the time comes.

Yet who'd have thought that some of the most dangerous places to live and with the highest life insurance premiums in the UK could see property prices increase dramatically over the past 50 years?

Manchester's Coronation Street, London's Albert Square, Chester's Hollyoaks and Yorkshire's Emmerdale are perhaps the most dangerous places to live in the UK yet prices have rocketed since Corrie first hit our screens in 1960.

Barely a week goes by without tragedy hitting one of the four areas, from ghastly murders, child and adult abductions, street and sexual assaults, various robberies, arson attacks, assisted suicide and gangland warfare.

Staying alive

You need to be as sure-footed as John Travolta in order to keep your wits about you in soap opera land.

As the British Medical Journal pointed out as far back in 1997, staying alive in a soap opera is not easy. Even back then London was a more dangerous place to live with a character in Eastenders more than twice as likely to die during an episode than a character in Coronation Street.

The BMJ also found that people moving to Coronation Street between the ages of 30 and 44 went on to lead charmed lives, while their peers living in Albert Square "dropped like flies".

One common fact across all the soaps is characters tend to die young and from a variety of obscure and often violent causes, ranging from mystery viruses, plane and car crashes, mad psychopathic killers, sexual assault and characters coming back from the dead.

House prices

Soap opera land doesn't exactly sound the safest place to live yet latest research from FindaProperty.com reveals you'd be quids in on the property game should you ever take the plunge.

If you'd have lived in Eastenders' Albert Square for the past 25 years for instance your property value in the fictional East End borough of Walford would have rocketed 436%, taking the average house to £574,764, compared to £122,813 in 1985 when the soap began.

In real life the Square is based on Fasset Square in Dalston in London's E8 district. 

And analysis shows that house price inflation here has outperformed the most popular purchase on the Square – a pint in the Queen Vic. Some 25 years ago you could have got a pint for 93p yet today that cost has risen to £2.83 – a rise of 206%.

Overall properties on the Square are 515% more expensive than in rival soap Coronation Street.

But while EastEnders has the most expensive houses, it is Coronation Street that has seen the biggest house price appreciation in the time the TV soap has been running.

The Street has benefited from house price inflation of 7369%, with the average house in 1960 costing just £1,514 compared to today’s average of £111,581.

Ken Barlow, the only resident of the Street to have survived the last half century, will no doubt be rubbing his hands in glee.

Characters

According to FindaProperty.com's findings, former prostitute Pat Evans has the most expensive house on the Square, with number 31 valued at £847,821.

The tardis-like property currently houses seven people; Pat Evans, Ricky Butcher, Bianca Jackson and her children Whitney, Liam, Tiffany and Morgan. The house was left to Pat in the will of her former employer, gangster Andy Hunter.

"Addresses like Albert Square remain sought-after places to live for the sense of community enjoyed by the residents, in addition to easy access to local amenities and transport links," Nigel Lewis, property expert at FindaProperty.com told Money Hospital.

"The characters in Albert Square are certainly sitting on a profitable asset – and house prices set to increase further still with the knock-on effect of the 2012 Olympics."

Albert Square property facts

• Pat Evans is the person who has lived in the greatest number of residences throughout EastEnders history.
• Ian Beale is the only property millionaire on the Square and currently owns the most properties; his main family residence is 45 Albert Square. He also owns 55 Victoria Road (his former residence, he is now renting this out to unknown occupants), 15a Turpin Road (flat above Beale's Plaice chip shop, is being rented to his brother-in-law Christian Clarke) and 89 George Street (flat was being rented to Amira before her wedding to Syed, currently empty).
• 3 Albert Square is the most lived in address. This was owned by Tony Carpenter in 1985 and has since been split into three flats. The current residents of flat 3a are: Minty Peterson, Darren Miller, Manda and Adam Best.
• 43 Albert Square has had the second highest number of residents and was originally owned by Andy O'Brien abd Debbie Wilkins. This was also subsequently converted into flats.
• Flat 43a is currently rented in by Janine Butcher and Ryan Malloy. Flat 43b is rented by Shirley Carter and Heather Trott alongside her baby son George.
• 45 Albert Square is the only house that has always been owned by the same family, the Beales and Fowlers.
• 46 Albert Square is the Queen Vic and was originally lived in and run by Den and Angie Watts.

BMJ soap opera facts

• Staying alive in a television soap opera is not easy. There is more chance of dying than any other occupation in the UK.
• In a soap opera you are almost three times more likely than normal to die a violent death.
• It's more dangerous being in a soap than it is driving a Formula One racing car
• People suffering from many forms of cancer and other serious diseases have better five year survival rates than characters in a soap opera.

- get first-time-buyer advice

- use our mortgage repayment calculator

- life cover from £4.99 a month

With Valentine’s Day out of the way, summer wedding plans are now getting into full swing. But who can afford a big Beckham-style bash nowadays?

Please don't accuse us of being unromantic, but we think 2010 could just be the year of the extreme budget wedding.

We look at the six big expenses of a wedding day and how you might use a bit of budget know-how. Expect some, uh, creative suggestions…

Wedding photos

Sensible: It's always best to hire a tame snapper; do your friends have anybody in their social circle who'll offer "mates' rates"? Alternatively, try the local arts college for anyone on a photography course who's hoping to build up their pro reputation (and yet to build up their pro price list).

Extreme: There's an even better way to harness your friends' know-how. Invest £100 in a prize, then hold a photo competition among your guests! You're guaranteed hundreds of submissions, and instead of an hour away from the party, you can pose as long as you like while still enjoying the vibe with your friends. Then get your entrants to upload their shots directly to Photobox.com where you can print out the 40 best ones for free!

Dresses

Sensible: Instead of a brand new dress with a £1,000 price tag, why not look on preloved.co.uk for a second-hand version of your preferred design? If it fits your figure well enough, it'll certainly help fit the slimmer budget. Or if you prefer brand new, Oxfam bridal departments deal in donated dresses, 95% of which are unworn (just the trick for bridesmaids' dresses too).

Extreme: Why not incorporate a common wedding list item and just be married in a white dressing gown? Combine it with some tasteful underwear (just in case guests get an unplanned glimpse) and you'll also be one degree readier for the honeymoon…

Reception venue

Sensible: All you need is a big enough space with room for eating and shimmying, right? In summer, you've a reasonable chance this could even be outdoors. A marquee, a bit of flooring for a dancefloor, and away you go.

Extreme: Why go to all the hassle and expense of bringing your guests to you? Have you never heard of video conferencing? Set up a video cam, email out a link and others can join you ("in spirit", of course) as you broadcast your nuptial extravaganza from the living room…

Catering

Sensible: More than half the reception expense is providing a sit-down meal. Even a finger buffet can cost over £20 a head. You could always invite the local mobile doner kebab man to come and make a whole night's business during the day for a change?

Extreme: The key word is 'participation'! If you make it a bring-and-share occasion (Americans call it a 'potluck wedding'), everyone can enjoy the chance to contribute culinary talents to the occasion while cutting your biggest bill at a stroke. But we don't suggest you ask them to bring cutlery and plates too – that just looks a little too cheap…

Honeymoon

Sensible: Opt for an off-season wedding and leave your planning 'til the lastminute(.com) to take advantage of highly discounted travel offers

Extreme: Let's face it, you need two very basic things: privacy, comfort… sounds a lot like home, right? If everyone thinks you're away anyway, why not fill the fridge with ready meals and just leave the phone off and the curtains closed?

Rings

Sensible: Instead of the crazy money that is today's gold and platinum prices, go for a non-precious metal such as titanium (usually made into aircraft) or tungsten carbide (often found in drill bits, but still polishes up a treat). Some extremely fashionable designs are available for around £100, or a plain band can cost as little as £40. You could even be a style radical and go for black zirconium?

Extreme: Tattoos! For £20 each, you can have just the same fun choosing "his and hers" designs as you would do with a piece of metal. They'll never need re-sizing and they won't go 'clink' on the banisters. Better still, you never have to worry about insuring or losing them.

Some of these ideas might not be your cup of tea champagne sparkling wine…

…but we're sure there are many of you daunted by the average £15,000 spent on last year's "big day", and we'd love to know what you think! If you’re getting married, how are you planning to cut your costs creatively?

Suggestions, questions and objections in the comments below…