Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking The Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's how a few tweaks to your house could save you big bucks. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Just about everyone wants to cut back on their boring bills, so they can have more money to spend on the fun things in life.

The biggest expenses for the average person are housing, transport and food, with housing easily taking out first place.

The best thing about this, is if you cut your bills there, you won't have to think about it again. You simply create a smarter, cheaper system once, then carry on with your new adapted life.

So the idea of setting up a house that pays its own bills has always appealed to me.

Why pay for power when I could harvest it myself from the sun? Why turn on the heater, when I could live in a house that's built to automatically circulate heat?

What's greener and better for the planet is often also better for our wallets, so it's a win-win.

But how do you know what's worth doing, and what's just greenwashing from a clever salesperson who wants your money?

For the latest Cooking the Books podcast I talked to Sam Archer from the Green Building Council, and Ian Watt from Construction Marketing Services.

We discussed the easy fixes that can save money, when it's worth making a bigger investment for something like double glazing, and what they think of energy ratings for houses.

If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/ Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz/ and Twitter here https://twitter.com/FrancesCook