Your credit has been well and truly crunched, your savings are looking dicey and you haven't even dared to look at your annual pension statement - that's if you have one. With so much economic pain around, it is inevitable that discretionary spending by consumers will take a hit.

Holidays are an easy target, and some holidays more so than others. If you are trimming your household budget, the annual ski holiday (or two) will undoubtedly come into the firing line. For a start, it's more expensive than a typical summer holiday.

Figures from the Ski Club of Great Britain show that the average snowsports holiday costs £648, compared with an average figure of less than £500 for all holidays. And that's without taking into account the couple of hundred pounds you have to add for a lift pass and equipment hire, let alone all those expensive glühweins.

There will be no shortage of deals this winter, largely because of an increasing trend for winter holidaymakers to leave booking until the last minute - partly because predicting exactly when the good snow will come seems to have been so difficult in recent winters. The market is also awash with holidays.

Low-cost carriers have introduced new flights to the ski gateways, with many launching routes to the snow this winter, even when flights to other non-ski destinations have been cut. In fact, with people concerned about unnecessary spending, the number of deals is set to be higher.

There is one important exception regarding availability of deals - school holidays. This year, like every other, it is hard to find the really good chalets and self-catering apartments over new year, half term and Easter, and many of the family-friendly companies are already almost fully booked.

There are already deals out there. Many early booking offers run until the end of October and others are offering bargains that indicate they are feeling a little nervous about early bookings. Esprit Ski is promoting special offers on some of its family chalets, while the online ski agency Igluski.com has £1 lift passes at Christmas.

Despite the potential for some good deals, Brits will find it more expensive in the key resorts this winter. The pound is suffering against the euro and the dollar, which means that even if you do get a good deal, resort prices are going to take some swallowing.

But skiing does not have to be the preserve of the rich or investors who had the good fortune to sell their shares before the current crash. For those, such as me, who can't face the idea of a winter without a few days on the snow, it still is possible to go skiing on the cheap.

You can downgrade your holiday without downgrading your experience, saving hundreds or thousands of pounds in the process - money that might be needed to pay the electricity bill should the bailiffs come calling.

Take a long weekend rather than a week, go to Eastern rather than Western Europe. Money really tight? Consider Scotland, especially if the snow looks promising this winter. At least you won't have to worry about currency exchange fluctuations.

Need to know

http://ski.visitscotland.com for information on snow, pistes and where to stay

Ski Norwest (www.skinorwest.com)

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