Teenage trials

So you discover that today teenagers will set you back over pounds 60,000. Don't worry - here is our guide to cheap adolescent living.

Parents should encourage semaphore and carrier pigeons as a more efficient form of contact than telephones. New Age booklets should be left around the home; this may encourage teenagers to decamp to a treehouse alongside a roads protest. Brutal descriptions of abattoirs may also be useful: meat can be very expensive.

And there is one comfort. However long they live with you they will never spend more than 10p worth of cleaning fluid on that room.