Train and Bus

If you are going to book train tickets there are two main websites – thetrainline.com and nationalrail.co.uk . Thetrainline.com allows you to buy tickets online and provides details of all trains. There is a £1 op-out insurance and a £2.50 charge for using a credit card.

The megatrain.com sells train and coach tickets for £1, with an additional 50pence booking fee. These are amazing value tickets but are limited, with journeys normally timetabled for early morning or evening – perfect if you can afford to be flexible.

A third website has also recently been launched: raileasy.co.uk . The site has a 50 pence debit card charge and a £1 booking fee for all transactions, with a 2.5% credit card surcharge.

In all cases booking directly at the station incurs no booking fee, although the choice of train times and different travelling options are more limited. Booking via the train operators own website can be another way to get cheaper tickets.

Coach

Travelling by coach is much cheaper than by train although the journey can be as much as twice as long:

• Megabus.com offer seats for a £1 and often has promos where all you pay is the booking fee
• National Express provides cheap coach travel with details of special offers appearing on the website
• Showbus.com provides information on all UK bus timetables for local and national services
• Traveline.org.uk has information on all modes of public transport throughout the UK

Petrol

The price of petrol is increasingly rising and the price per litre has now crossed the £1 barrier mark making it increasingly expensive to own and run a car. Petrol prices continue to increase regardless of other budgetary cuts in light of the credit crunch. There are two main ways to save on the cost of petrol without having to resort to getting rid of your car: buying cheap petrol and driving more efficiently.
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Bikes

If you decide to buy a bike there are loads of different ways you can do it. Prior to buying a bike you must ask yourself a number of questions:

Consider looking at cyclingscotland.org and cyclescheme.co.uk for more information on the ideal bike and the different types that exist. Also make use of internet forums (such as bikeforums.net, cyclingforums.com and bikeradar.com) to ask others, with more specialist information, what they would recommend.