Out-of-control online shopping aside, there’s a surprising amount the Internet can do to help you get your household finances in order, and save you both money and time.

If your retirement plan consists of buying a weekly Lotto ticket, now may be a good time to head to www.sorted.org.nz and start planning. The Retirement Commission’s site offers calculators for retirement planning but also for budgeting in general, saving and getting out of debt. If you haven’t signed up for Kiwi Saver, or if you just want more information on the scheme, go to www.kiwisaver.govt.nz The site offers a long list of downloadable forms, including an information pack.

Downloadable forms for people who want to set household budgets are widely available online. The Associated Budgeting Consultants Network’s site (www.abcbudget.co.nz) has spreadsheets for a budget, cashflow worksheet and debt schedule, plus links to budgeting services. Another source for worksheets is the New Zealand Federation of Family Budgeting Services (www.familybudgeting.org.nz). One of the most useful features on this site is “Top 10 Budgeting Myths” – a good place to start if you want to reform your spending/saving habits.

Work and Income also provides an excellent budget worksheet (tinyurl.com/2jxfqw) and, elsewhere on the site, a free, downloadable cookbook for those trying to keep down grocery costs (www.workandincome.govt.nz/publications/cookbook.html). Don’t be put off at the thought of cheap, cheerless meals; this is all about eating well without spending a fortune.

Doing your grocery shopping online is a good way to avoid impulse purchases and keep a tight rein on your food budget. Foodtown is the only New Zealand supermarket currently offering this service, however (www.foodtown.co.nz). You can further cut costs by making your choices from Foodtown’s specials, and the site lets you set up a list for yourself that you use each time you shop. Delivery fees vary depending on the size of your order and your location. For a central Auckland household spending between $200 and $250, it would come to $9.95.

The Internet is a good place to sniff out bargains, but the temptation to spend up large online is counterproductive to budgeting. Use sites such as TradeMe and Foodtown’s specials to save on household essentials, or visit Bargain Shopping (www.bargainshopping.co.nz ), which has listings for wholesalers, auction sites, factory shops, second-hand shops, direct importers and the like. A huge range of (mostly Auckland) stores is included here, listed by category – not all are links, because it’s fairly obvious that a weekend market won’t bother with a Web site, but it’s a fantastic resource for bargain hunters. Factory Shops NZ (www.factoryshops.co.nz) is similarly Auckland-centric but the site promises other locations will be added soon in an upgrade, including online stores. The site was started by shoppers rather than vendors, and encourages users to submit listings for shops.

Before you part with your cash, it’s a good idea to do some research into whether you really are getting a good deal. Epinions (www.epinions.com) is a US site, but many of the brands and products it reviews are still relevant to NZ shoppers. Closer to home, try Consumer (www.consumer.org.nz) for independent reviews. Shopping sites often feature reviews, but whether they are truly reliable can be debatable, particularly if it’s not clear that they are written by the vendors themselves.

You need to subscribe to get the most out of Consumer’s Web site, but non-subscribers also get the benefit of calculators for things like power - an excellent resource, which lets you compare plans from different providers and pick the one that best suits your budget (www.consumer.org.nz/powerswitch). Other free calculators offered by Consumer include retirement savings and mortgage repayments. There are dozens of others on the site – mobile phone plans, bank fees, credit cards and so on – available to subscribers only.

Just about everything to do with banking can be done online now, from making one-off payments to setting up automatic payments and downloading statements. It’s not all free: make sure you check costs for online banking, and keep tabs on your transaction fees. One of the biggest benefits of doing your banking online is the ready access it gives you to account information; rather than waiting for your monthly statement to arrive in the post, you can keep an eye on transactions as often as you wish. You can also have your bank statements delivered online rather than posted (downloaded from a bank’s site, not emailed) and sign up for email or text alerts, to keep you informed of things like your account going into overdraft, or transactions being made in your account above a certain amount. With most bank sites you can also integrate your account information into an accounting software package, depending on which one you use, or into an Excel spreadsheet.