Most people need to watch the pennies at this time of year, and new website Frugalcrew.com, which offers discounts and money-saving ideas, might help. We speak to the woman who founded the website, ex-Ebay MD Jennifer Mowat, about what frugalcrew offers, why she started it and how she coped with launching the business just three weeks after giving birth to her first child.

Bringing your baby along to business meetings might seem like an uncomfortable thought, but for entrepreneur Jen Mowat, it’s all part of a normal day at work.

The former eBay UK managing director, 39, launched the money-saving website frugalcrew.

com just three weeks after giving birth to her first child, Ryley.

So determined was she to make a go of the new venture, she didn’t think twice about taking Ryley along for the ride: “When I’ve gone to meetings she’s come along too.

“I’ve taken her to meetings with investment bankers, and a lot of these guys realise that kids aren’t a barrier to business.

“It’s been a shock for a couple of them, but they take it in their stride,” she adds. “It wouldn’t be my first choice, but needs must.”

And a newborn baby’s cries at such meetings have done nothing to knock Frugalcrew off course - although perhaps baby Ryley’s presence added weight to the website’s primary aim of helping families save money.

It features money-saving tips and deals, coupon codes, information about which retailers are offering promotions and discounts, and also gives shoppers recommendations on a range of products from everyday brands to luxury goods, in a host of categories ranging from home and garden and food and drink to fashion, beauty and entertainment.

Mowat, who lives with her partner Jason, his two children and Ryley, says the idea behind Frugalcrew isn’t unique, but what sets the site apart is its family orientation.

“The approach we take is very much a family one. If you want to find out where the cheapest place is to buy your groceries this week, that’s the sort of thing we’re about.

“While our site isn’t female-orientated, it definitely has a female slant - women tend to be the ones who do the research on how to get the best buys.”

It’s a savvy business to start in a recession - but with a glittering career history that includes senior directors roles at Yahoo Europe and Amazon, as well as eBay, this far-from-ordinary working mum was highly unlikely to pick a dud business venture.

“It was borne out of the fact that we were in a recession, and we felt there’d been a fundamental change in the way people shop.

“A few years ago you would never have seen anyone in the queue at Tesco with coupons, and now you do.

“There’s nothing like a recession to make you change the way you think about money.”

Mowat can only hope that her new business takes off in a similar fashion to the last business she helped start in the UK - a then small operation named eBay.

Mowat was a managing director at eBay UK for three years, but when she first joined in 1998, what was to become a multi-million pound global phenomenon was a fledgling business on this side of the Atlantic.

“It was in a little office at a furniture shop in Fulham - there ere cables falling out of the ceiling,” she remembers.

CNN came to visit the London headquarters with only a moment’s notice, and Mowat had to Blu-Tack the eBay sign to the wall.

“I don’t think any of us at the start realised the phenomenon that eBay as about to become,”

she admits.

But with Mowat at the helm, the UK business grew rapidly, and in 2002 Bay paid for her to go to business school with a view to her taking a Bay senior management role in the US .

But things can go wrong even when you appear to be Superwoman. During the year she was studying, Mowat’s marriage broke up, and her American dream collapsed.

“At the end of the year, when I was supposed to move to the States, I decided that splitting up, moving countries and changing jobs was too much, so I opted to stay in the UK.”

She’d already given up her UK eBay job, but joining the ranks of the unemployed was never going to be an option for a feisty woman like Mowat. High-profile roles at Yahoo, Amazon and also BT followed, before she decided to start Frugalcrew with Lynn McClelland, who she’d met at business school.

“We committed ourselves, gave up our jobs and so on, and then I said ‘Oh, by the way, I’m pregnant’,” laughs Mowat. Lynn was very happy for me, but there were quite a few jokes about whether I’d taken the new business seriously.”

Undaunted, the pair worked tirelessly from January to November last year putting Frugalcrew together - with just a brief break for Mowat to give birth to her daughter in September.

“You run big businesses which have proper maternity schemes, but when you run your own business it’s different, and I had to be back at work within two weeks,” she admits ruefully.

“It hasn’t been ideal, but it’s something I’ve had to do. I think Lynn sometimes feels like Ryley’s hers too - she’s been to quite a few meetings with us, which has been highly amusing for me.”

Frugalcrew boasts “every coupon that’s offered by UK retailers”, and although the site focuses on online shopping, the discounts, codes and offers can also be used on the high street.

The use of voucher codes to get money off grew 40 per cent last year, and Mowat points out: “It’s been a very British thing to not ask for discounts - in the States it’s huge.

“The majority of people don’t know they can get discounts online. Although we’ve got a huge amount of web access in the UK, there’s so much learning to be done about the best way to shop online.”

She points out that many retailers offer discounts online that aren’t offered instore, and stresses: “If you’re going to shop, you can save money, so have a look to make sure you do actually get that money off. You can save an absolute fortune.

“Don’t get me wrong, I never used to do this - but I do now, and I get a proud feeling when I save 20 per cent here and 30 per cent there.

“Getting discounts or using voucher codes is like getting free money - it’s great.”