FANCY living for free? It might sound like a pipe dream, but a little imagination can help you cut back or – better still – give you something for nothing.

Websites that tap into consumer concerns about the economy and its impact on their purse strings make up the bulk of the top 10 fastest-growing online offerings in the past year, according to the market-research firm Nielsen Online.

They include a plethora of coupon and reward websites, shopping-comparison channels and Trovit.co.uk, a site that lets you search for home, job and car classified ads.

“Living for free is one heck of a hard slog, but it’s just about possible,” said Stephen Giles, author of How to Live for Free: 80 Ways to Slash Your Spending, published last week.

“As the credit crunch and fuel crisis show, we are more economically vulnerable as a society now than we have been for the past 30 years or so,” he said. “Living for free will go from being an alternative life-style fad to being a matter of need for many people.”

Get the best deal

When money is tight, Findstuff.com will have particular resonance with consumers looking to unearth the best deal. The site – the third fastest-growing of the past year, with a 1,443% jump in users to 548,000 – lets consumers compare prices that different retailers offer for the same or similar products.

Make calls and watch TV for free

You can cut phone and TV viewing costs by harnessing the power of the web. Voice over internet protocol – the most famous example being Skype (skype.com) – means you can make a call from one side of the world to the other without paying a penny.

Skype-to-Skype calls cost nothing, provided you and the person you are talking to are both sitting in front of your computers connected to the internet via a high-speed broad-band link and have head-phones or a handset. A Skype headset costs as little as £15.

Meanwhile, BBC iPlayer and Channel 4’s on-demand service give access to TV content online. If you don’t own a television or any device capable of receiving a TV signal, you don’t need a TV licence – a potential saving of £135.50 per year.

Cut leisure costs

Crisp maker Walkers (walkers.co.uk) had the fastest growing website over the past year, with users surging 2,575% to 444,000 thanks to its “Brit Trips” promotion. It is offering discounts on British holidays and days out to those who “bank” points collected by inputting codes found on its crisp packets.

For 50 points you can get three nights for the price of two at Jury Inns, while half-price theme-park tickets for Alton Towers and Legoland are available for 20 points.

Bag a retail discount

Myvouchercodes.co.uk is the fourth fastest-growing website of the past year, thanks to increasing demand for money-saving measures. Users have soared 1,200% to 972,000. A community of consumers send in discount codes from big retailers that they have found online, in magazines or newspapers.

You can get £300 off an American-style fridge-freezer at Comet.co.uk. Other websites include Latestdiscountvouchers.co.uk, Megacodes.co.uk and Vouchercodes.com.

Get something for nothing

Why pay a reduced price when you can get something for free? Magicfreebiesuk.co.uk has had a 386% rise in unique users in the past year to 80,000, while Thefreesite.com has witnessed a 302% jump in hits to 55,000.

Magicfreebies offers the likes of free cinema tickets, DVD rental and beauty product samples, while Thefreesite specialises in technology-related goods such as online games, graphics and software.

Convert points to prizes

Fair-exchange.com and Pigsback.com offer points when you enter company competitions. Website users are up 828% to 799,000 and 238% to 121,000 on the year respectively.

Prizes include everything from a holiday for four people to Orlando, Florida, a hydrotherapy holiday or a sevennight stay at the Radisson SAS Golden Sands resort on Malta.

You can also earn points by testing products and giving your opinion. Points can then be spent on entering other contests to win a flat or car (on Fair-exchange), or exchanged for money-off coupons.

Become bill free

Nationwide building society is giving consumers the chance to be “mortgage free” for a year (up to a maximum of £10,000).

People who have a mortgage interview in a branch or over the phone until the end of September will be entered in a prize draw – irrespective of whether they take out a Nationwide mortgage – and 10 winners will be selected.

Enter your details at iPoints.co.uk for a no-obligation quote from Scottish Power and you could win £1,000 off your utility bills, while Fair-exchange is offering users the chance to win a year’s free shopping at Sainsbury’s.

Make your own fuel

Although the oil price has come off recent peaks, the cost of motoring remains high.

Making your own fuel is legal; the government allows you to produce 2,500 litres of bio-fuel per year tax-free.

Patrick Whetman at Goat Industries has been producing conversion kits for biodiesel and vegetable oil since the fuel blockade of 2001.

Visitors to the company’s website (vegetableoildiesel.co.uk) have doubled in the past year, hitting 4,000 per day.

Expect to spend at least £1,000 on a decent quality processor. You will also need to pay for oil and chemicals. However, savings can quickly offset start-up costs: the average cost of production is about 10p per litre, compared with 130p for diesel on forecourts.

Bear in mind that it is a potentially dangerous process, so make sure your home insurer will cover any damage.

Recycle unwanted goods

If you are looking to offload anything – from computer equipment, electrical appliances and furniture – get involved in your local community through a network such as Freecycle.org.

Start a bartering collective

Local Exchange and Trading Systems (Lets) are community-based networks in which people exchange all kinds of goods and services with one another.

Each works by creating a bespoke unit of currency, then issues chequebooks to members to “buy” services from other members for an agreed “fee”.

No money changes hands, but there is usually a nominal membership fee to fund administration. Visit letslinkuk.net for more details.