Rather than splashing out on MS Office, spending on other software packages and website memberships, what are the free alternatives? It might surprise you how much you can get for free (legally!).

This is a free alternative to Microsoft Office available on PC and Mac. It includes alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It is absolutely free, developed by a community of developers offering their time without charge. It’s compatible with MS Office, so if somebody sends you a document you won’t have a problem opening it.

Go to the OpenOffice website

Rather than make calls over the phone, Skype allows you to place calls to other Skype users for free, or to landlines and mobiles for a small charge.
Go to the Skype website

As well as being free, the beauty of Google Docs is that your documents are stored online, so they’re available wherever you can access the internet from.
Go to the Google Docs website

This is a collection of free textbooks that anyone can edit. It’s a wiki so expect similarities to Includes the World History Project.
Click here to go to WikiBooks

Includes literary analysis of many classic novels. The site is a bit confusing to navigate, but does have excellent content.
Go to Novelguide.com

Not a content provider in itself, but a useful starting point for searching with Google, Wikipedia, a dictionary as well as unit conversion tools and translation facilities.
Go to the Schoolr website

Useful website for finding the online degrees available in your country.
Go to the Study2U website

This is a great tool designed to help students organise their studies and take notes during school. It’s designed to make note-taking during lectures as easy as possible.
Go to the Notely website

Price comparison website for books. Bookfinder searches both new, used and rare. Boasts the capability to search 150 million books.
Go to bookfinder.com

No list on educational resources would be complete without this fantastic (yet contraversial) encyclopaedia.
Go to Wikipedia

A great idea for a site. Live Mocha is a social networking site where you can help others speak your native tongue, whilst at the same time learn another language from other users.
Go to the Live Mocha website