‘Tis the time to think about entertaining. As a divorced woman, inviting people over to your house expands your social circle — but not necessarily your waistline — and has the added bonus of being cheaper than going out. If friends invite you out to dinner, you have to reciprocate, and entertaining from your home is often 1/5 the cost of a restaurant.

Plus, you want to create happy memories in your home for your children, and just because the Ex isn’t there doesn’t mean you can’t create — and maintain — cherished traditions.

Having been an editor in chief of several magazines, I have learned quite a few tricks for entertaining on a budget. Here are some that may appeal to you.

1. Lights in winter. People may remember the ambiance more than the food. You can make Santa Fe candles (and the kids can help) to line the sidewalk: a small brown paper bag, some sand for the bottom, and a candle set inside. Roll down the top of the bag, light the candles and there you have an inexpensive and charming way of decorating outdoors. As for inside, try paper globes hung from an archway, lighted with fairy lights, or invest in some nice fat candles. Buy them in bulk online (a four-inch-tall pillar is as little as $2.99 at www.candles.com) or try Pier One or Ikea. Use the candles all over the house. Et voila! It’s romantic, cheery, and will make the house beautiful. But avoid scented candles, which could be suffocating.

2. Decorate with fruit. Fill a bowl with polished apples. I have also used one large red bowl and two smaller ones filled with green apples as a holiday centerpiece. Apples can hold place cards for a sit down dinner. And then, after the party, the apples can become apple crisps or apple pies. Oranges studded with cloves are another holiday classic.

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There's no sugarcoating that these economic times are tough and are creating the need to be resourceful with the money we have. That’s why we want to be your source for reSOURCEful spending.

Our FWW financial experts know how to stretch a dollar like salt water taffy and how to devise money-saving tips that won't leave a saccharine aftertaste in your wallet. The sweet life can still exist, as long as you’re smart and nimble with insurance, stocks, cars, your work, your home and your life.

Below we have gathered the best "nougats" from our experts. They provide nudges, hints, and suggestions for actions you can take to put the power back into your hands — where it belongs. And it's written in ways that anyone can understand. While it’s not a cure-all, it may be the needed spoonful of sugar in the castor oil of recession.

1. Save Money Wisely. Yes, we know it’s easier said than done. But with a little creativity, you can trim your budget with a scalpel, not a hatchet. First, try out 10 Painless Financial Slimmers to cut out your financial fat with very little pain and lots of gain. Next, spend a weekend Winterizing Your Home — we promise it works, whether you’re in Walla Walla or Williamsburg. Last but not least, Turn Off Your Financial Leaks — you know, the little things like ATM fees, insurance deductibles, and hidden airline costs. If you know the right tips, you can make like Moses and stop the flow before your pocketbook is drained.

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The same reason I hate the word “diet” is why I am repelled by the word “budget.” Makes me feel like I’m starving and undernourished. However, as someone who now is being forced to trim costs in this economy, I have found some painless solutions to increase your cash and save you sleepless nights.

Plus, they’re so easy that, once you accomplish them, you will feel virtuous and safe.

1. According to the Department of Labor, the average American family of four will spend $8,513 on groceries per year. But prices have soared — milk is now twice as expensive as last year — at a time when we need them to be reduced. Making bigger shopping trips less often, however, will slash what you spend and reduce waste. Most of us go to the market at least three or four times a week and according to the Marketing Science Institute, buy 54 percent more than planned. Make a list and stick to it. The average impulse buy is $10 - $40 a week. You could be saving as much as $160 a month.

2. When at the grocery store buy generic. It saves you a fortune — as much as ten cents to a $1 on each item ranging from cereals, canned tomatoes to club sodas. You can also have similar savings on items at the pharmacy ranging from aspirin to mouthwash. Another money slimmer is buying in bulk at places like Costco once a month. This is where I have loaded up on items like detergent, paper towels and dog food. But as divorced moms, if you are also doing triple duty as soccer mom, career mom and gymnastics mom, another solution is using the delivery services like Stop n’ Shop. They charge a little extra for delivery but drop off all the bulk items so you save time and costs of transportation and lugging all the groceries to your house. As long as you buy a huge amount at one time — and they do have good savings there — it is truly worth it.

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Anyone living north of the 36th latitude (Virginia) is going to have to deal with cold nights and big heating bills. I have to heat my house in the winter even in Miami, and folks in the desert Southwest have to pour on the heat for those nippy nights.

It would be handy to have a guy around to do all those handyman things, but if you’re going through divorce, and still living in the drafty family home, you’re going to have to do them yourself. And you can really save money this way.

An average American spends $1,300 on heating and cooling bills in a year. Those can be cut by 10 percent, 30 percent, 50 percent by tackling a few basics, like these recommended by the Department of Environmental Protection/Montgomery County, Maryland. Let’s start with drafts.

• We like this part: light some incense. Now walk around your house (ideally on a windy day), and see where the smoke blows away from the windows and doors. Don’t forget to check light switch plates, around the sink, and around light fixtures. Each of those places can have an air leak as well. And fixing these drafts is pretty easy. Grab a caulking gun from Home Depot, and go around the house, inside and out. Fill in all those loose places around windows and doors. And don’t forget to cut off drafts under doors, either with a rubber sweeper along the bottom or with a snakelike draft dodgers.

• Turn down the temperature on your hot water heater to 115 degrees. That should be hot enough for everything, and will be safer for your children. Anything hotter might scald them.

• Wear a sweater indoors, and buy the kids cool nice hoodies. Don’t forget to put on a pair of socks too, or slippers. Now, turn the thermostat down to 68 degrees. Get a programmable thermostat that will drop the temperature to 65 at night. And when you’re away from the house, 55 degrees is fine.

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According to news reports this week, Britney Spears is planning to contest some of her divorce attorney’s legal fees, arguing that they are too high.

Whether you’re Britney Spears or Brittany Smith, divorce can be a costly venture – and being overcharged by a divorce attorney can be a real issue.

According to FWW’s Diana Mercer, a California attorney who specializes in mediation and is the author of “Your Divorce Advisor,” when clients feel they’ve been overcharged, the first step is to ask for an itemized billing and compare it against your own notes of phone calls, court dates, letters, and work you know the lawyer did.

“Your best action is to do this all along during the case,” she says. “Most attorneys bill you each month (and if they don’t, ask them to) so review your bill carefully each month and bring it to the attorney’s attention if you think you’re not getting good value for your money.”

Attorney Gregg Herman, the family chair of the American Bar Association, says that the client should also reflect on the conversations they have had with the lawyer.

“Good professional lawyers always assess the cost/benefit ratio to a client in recommending a particular course of action,” he says. “Ask to meet with your lawyer to discuss your concerns. Perhaps the lawyer can explain the bill to your satisfaction — or make an adjustment so that you are both comfortable with it.”

If talking with the attorney doesn’t give you the result you’d hoped for, you can ask the local bar association about its fee dispute mediation program.

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One patient asked me: “Is it normal to anticipate failure in potential relationships, just because I am divorced?” Because of the possibility of divorce, she had asked for a pre-nup or a post-nup with her fianceé, and he was insulted.

She wanted to know, “Isn’t it OK for me to ask?”

I am seeing more and more women whose marriages have ended, and who finally realize that it was money issues that caused a lack of trust, jadedness, and bitterness.

If they are in a new relationship, they are especially eager to prevent this in the future. Some are even going as far as "date"-nups, contracts for who pays what, so there are clear boundaries. This isn’t as necessary for a night at the movies, but it becomes more so with expensive restaurants and trips out of town.

Many couples I counsel worry about how to deal with money issues. If they are living with someone, they will even tell me they don’t want to talk about money because it will spoil the romance, ruin their sex lives, and cause resentment.

If they are engaged (especially after one of them has been divorced), they may be concerned about money issues, but they are still reluctant to discuss finances.

They want to have peace at any price.

A Harris poll says that 47 percent of couples do not talk about money before getting married, and 51 percent do, but don’t do it properly.

If couples don’t talk about money, there is no way they can arrange a pre- or post-nup. But discussing money triggers a cascade of emotions and childhood issues. Those feelings can contaminate intimacy and destroy trust, and eat away at the foundation of the relationship.

Men and women struggle with the balance between money and commitment. Pre-nups and post-nups provide assurances their finances will not plummet if their relationship ends, especially in such an uncertain financial climate.

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You want the house. You know you want the house – unless it brings back too many bad memories. The question then is: Can you afford to keep it?

Well, can you not? I’m a financial advisor in Los Angeles, and I hear this question all the time. Should we sell the house and split the money? How can I possibly make the right decision?

Chin up, sister. My mentor Deborah, 71, was divorced 18 years ago and turned a $3 million dollar real estate portfolio into a $15 million dollar one.

You can too.

Let’s take a hypothetical: a couple has been married for 18 years. When they split up, they both thought they got the better deal.

The wife, who made less than half the salary of the husband, kept the $600,000 house, which had a remaining mortgage of $200,000. With taxes and insurance, her monthly payments would come to approximately $1,500, assuming a 30 year mortgage at 6.5%.

The husband, meanwhile, took something of equal value: an IRA worth $650,000.

To make their shares even, he threw in a $50,000 membership to the local country club, which she could sell if she wanted.

They split what remained in their savings account.

So who got the better deal? He got the equivalent of cash, and she was saddled with a mortgage, right?

And the membership to the country club required paying dues.

But she’s the winner.

The country club membership allowed her children to swim and learn tennis for almost nothing.

His IRA was effectively worth 25 percent to 40 percent less than its face value because all IRA distributions are taxed as ordinary income upon withdrawal.

Sure, the wife would be taxed if she sold the house, but the fed allows a $250,000 tax break on selling a primary residence if she lives in for two of the last five years.

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As men set their sights on women’s earnings, their entrepreneurial spirits, and sometimes, their celebrity value, women are increasingly finding the picture of so-called equality looking very strange. How is it that women increasingly are paying alimony?

Almost one in three married women makes more money than their spouses do. This economic statistic is certainly a factor why women increasingly are paying alimony.
However, in our society, women seem surprised to have to pay alimony even if they earn more.

This is because it is a fairly recent phenomenon in our legal courts. Secondly, for many women who are breadwinners (in a failed marriage), it’s not as if they ever expected to out earn their husbands, or do all of the heavy lifting in the family, or end up giving him spending money as you would do with a child. Women often feel cheated by the legal system because it is possible that they have to reward a sit at home bum.

The wife’s sense of being the victim is intensified when children are involved. Women share disproportionately the burden of money making, household chores, and child rearing. This is usually compounded by the lack of gratitude, appreciation, and emotional support a breadwinner is typically afforded by the household.

I have assisted many divorcing women who face the prospect of paying alimony. Our financial strategy is predicated upon her entire contribution to the family, including her spouse. Most importantly, they realize they are not an anomaly. They are freed of social stigma and part of a trend that is growing in ranks.

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