Adam Shaw and his troops set off on a mission to teach the team members of the OA Saints Rugby Club in St Albans how to save money.

The team was formed in 1989 under the name St Albans WRFC and last year changed its name after moving to the Old Albanian ground at Woollams playing fields.

The team trains twice a week, playing in National Challenge South East Division One every Sunday, and it's currently flying high - some of the players have even represented their countries in the sport.

So they're happy with the way they play rugby - they just need help improving their financial game.

Each member pays �100 a year, plus subs of �3 for home games and �5 for away games.

Experts Christine Ross, head of financial planning at SG Hambros, Pat Bunton from London & Country Mortgages, and Patrick Stevens, tax expert at Ernst and Young, came along to give them advice on what they should be doing with the rest of their pennies.

Christine: Like many people, Kate has got a lot of money invested in just a few shares - she's got Manchester United, BT and O2. The first one is just a fun share and the other two are in the same stock market sector, telecoms.

What Kate could do instead is sell those shares and invest the money in a unit trust. A unit trust is a portfolio of shares, run by a portfolio manager.

They can buy 80 or perhaps 100 shares, spread right across the stock market. That's much less risky than having your money in just a few shares.

Having just a few shares is the same perhaps as putting all your savings on one horse at the Grand National, whereas spreading your money in a unit trust is more like putting a small amount on each horse.

"I've heard all these stories in the press and I'm only paying off the interest every month, so what can I do if the endowment doesn't cover what I need at the end of the term?"

Pat:Like many people, Nicky has an endowment mortgage and that means that she's relying on stock market investments into an endowment policy to ensure that her mortgage is repaid in the future.

Like many people she is very worried about the whole performance of those policies in recent years, and rightly so.

At the moment, Nicky is faced with a horrible situation of a �68,000 shortfall when her mortgage matures. That means if she takes no action now, when the mortgage expires she will still owe �68,000.

The simplest way of dealing with this problem is for her to switch that part of her mortgage to a repayment basis, which is paying it off every month, and that will mean at the end of the mortgage term she will owe nothing, and that will cost her �120 a month. So a little bit more but for total peace of mind.

"Also, I own part of a small company called Club Concierge and I'd like to know how to make the shares that I've got more tax efficient."

Christine: Tasha's saving at the moment in an Isa, instead of having a personal pension. If she got herself a personal pension instead, preferably a stakeholder pension, that's a very basic, cheap pension that will cost just 1% a year to run.

Then she could get some tax back as well. Tasha's saving �75 a month at the moment. If she put that into a pension, with tax relief, that would be worth just under �100 a month. That would mean that Tasha would save, in a year, �264.

Patrick: Tasha owns shares in the private company which has just been set up. They're hoping to build it up and make it really valuable in the next few years. Providing she makes sure that the only things in the company are things relating to that trade, she'll only pay tax at 10% rather than 40%.

So for example, if she sells out for �100,000 in a few years' time, she'll only pay tax of �10,000 rather than �40,000, which is a saving of �30,000.

Patrick: The taxman catches up with everybody, and they will catch up with Antonia. So, there are important things to do. First of all, make sure that you record all of your income, but more important, record all of your expenses. Lots of people don't claim all the expenses that they're entitled to against their tax.

For example, Antonia principally works from home, so she'll be able to claim a proportion of her household expenses, and the cost of travelling round to see her clients.

Next thing, remember to register with the social security people, so that you pay your self-employed National Insurance contributions.

And finally - and most importantly - if there's any chance that you're going to earn more than �56,000 a year, remember to register for VAT. If you don't and you should have done, you'll have to pay over 17.5% of all your earnings, and that's not very funny.

Pat: The good news is that the Darlington Building Society has a better deal. Its rate of 4.94% is a lot cheaper, and this will save you �3,500 over the next five years.

Christine:I think the best way to do it is to add it to your mortgage, but not for the whole term. Just look at how quickly you think you could repay it - maybe over one or two years - and then because the debt's secured on your house, you'll pay a much lower rate of interest, probably around 5%. But do pay it off as quickly as you can.