Maybe we are living in a compensation culture but there are times when you need some big guns on your side, so it is best to know who is going to help you claim what you are entitled to. Friends of ours live in the US and they are using a firm of Denver personal injury lawyers following a very unpleasant incident in their home. These guys have taken up pet minding. That means an agency brings a dog (or two) to stay in your home while the owners are away. You get a payment for your time and for the dog’s food. The first visit went very well, but the second pair of dogs turned out to be a little feisty. Our friend has an eightyear old grandson, a quiet lad who came round to visit and one of the dogs jumped at him and bit him on the face. The boy had to have stitches in his cheek and of course he is terrified of dogs now. Read more »

A friend asked me to sell some unwanted concert tickets on eBay last week, and they sold for about twenty percent less than the face value but at least she got something back, However when we added up all the fees that were charged I started to think about getting myself set up to accept credit cards online. The Paypal charge for taking a £155 payment was more than£6, I know if I had my own merchant account I should be able to improve upon that rate. Read more »

We have had some unfortunate experiences with TVs over the past few years. Five years ago my four year old TV simply gave up, and I was used to televisions that lasted for decades not years. Then I got an early flat screen version but it has never worked properly. After we moved house this TV really went crazy. It will only find one channel, and it is a different channel each night. Read more »

Friends of ours - who also work from home - have moved to Australia and they are raving about the place and the way people interact more openly than here in the UK. They found a great service for Nanny Sydney where you can find qualified nannies or childminders, for regular childminding or one-off babysitting. Good for them since this couple have  hundreds of small kids (well, three actually).

Using the nanny service means they can still lead their own lives and the kids are happy.  The nannies and childminders post their details on the site with full curriculum vitae and qualifications as well as pay rates they charge by the hour.  Parents can browse through all the carers living near their home or school then contact the ones they want to visit.  What a blessing for busy parents!

If you need to get hold of extra cash it is a good idea to think about all you assets and how easily they can be liquidated. A loan is not always the best option, and it can be a very expensive way of getting the money you need. For example if you have ever received a structured settlement as compensation for an accident, you were probably told that it had to stay locked up to cover your medical needs. Read more »

When I bought a house in a private square little did I know that I would end up managing the place - the leaseholders all own a share in the management company and I was elected to run the committee because I was the youngest. Well, the others were all aged 75 or more … This can be a real challenge if you do not find the right contractors to do work at a reasonable price.  There is a UK based website called Facilities Management UK and this has been really useful.

They can help you find gardeners, window cleaners, plumbers, lift engineers - all the trades you need to keep a building running. The directory seems to cover every area of home maintenance and every county. Without these guys you could be really stuck so have a look at the website and bookmark it.

If you need to raise a mortgage and you have a poor credit history you can end up feeling a bit hopeless. High street lenders are very sniffy when faced with any situation out of the ordinary, but it is possible to get Bad Credit Loans without paying sky-high rates. You do not have to accept the first offer you get - bear in mind that lending establishments often take advantage of borrowers who seem desperate. They will try to take advantage of you and charge as much as they can get away with.

If you are dealing with bad credit, you need to go to a specialist adviser like AnyLoanSolution.com, where you will find sympathetic help and information on all aspects of borrowing. They are a fast growing mortgage site, and they can get you a loan from the most reputable lenders. AnyLoanSolution.com takes pride in helping clients achieve their goals and secure the home they want at the cheapest possible rate.

Since my partner had a blood test last week we have experienced a radical diet makeover.  Low carb meals, green matcha tea, no alcohol, these are some of the ingredients of the new regime.  Not that I doubt the health benefits of any of them, I just thought a more moderated approach would be helpful.  Cutting back on the extra carbs that used to accompany each meal would have been a very good way to help this LDL levels, I think.

However there is no point in resisting, and Matcha is a more convenient form of green because it comes in powder form.  It is not well known here in the UK but in the US it is much more widely known.  Matcha is used as a flavouring in noodles, desserts, drinks and even ice cream. I was surprised at this but apparently it goes really well with rich foods because the matcha makes them less cloying. You can find outmore about this super food at o-cha.com.

There are two options you can take when you start trying to make money online from home. You can start alone from square one of you can work with others and learn from your peers. A home based business is a solitary enough affair so I prefer the more co-operative approach.

If you have tried going it completely alone you may have tried a lot of business opportunities already, with less success than you expected. Maybe you struggled to make a success of the stock markets, affiliate programs or MLM. There are thousands of home business opportunities around but very few will actually produce the results you want - passive residual income. If you are looking for a new business idea that aims to make you money like nothing you have seen before, you may want to visit successprofessionals.com for a no-obligation discussion with one of their representatives - you have nothng to lose and plenty to gain.

If you are going to spend money on contextual advertising, sometimes known as Pay Per Click, you need to be aware that the online advertising business is a complicated affair, quite scientific in its need to understand the workings of Google’s algorithms. Before spending anything, check whether a specialised consultant like qualitytrafficsupply.com can do for you.  They can make sure that your advertising appears on sites in the right sectors that will send you quality targetted traffic and provide a much better return on investment (ROI).  You should be aware there are companies that will offer to send you 10,000 visitors but they often use spammy sources to find those visitors.  Your site could actually suffer from techniques like this, so make sure your consultant uses only ‘white hat’ techniques.

This stunning image is one of the photos in the portfolio of a student at Brooks Institute of Photography, called Arron Raymond. The college offers skills based training for tomorrow’s filmmakers, graphic designers and graphic artists. I am sure most of us feel we can take a reasonable shot, and with digital cameras and phone cameras we get much more opportunity to practice. But you can still see a big difference in quality between a professional shot and an amateur snap. Brooks is the kind of place that equips its students with the skills the industry is looking for, either as an entree to their chosen profession. They ensure a range of artistic, technical, and business expertise is offered on all their programs and they have done this for the past sixty years. You can see from this example that Brooks Students reach the highest standards - check out the site if you want to take a course, or if you need to hire a great photographer. As part of its seamless service, Brooks College showcases its students’ work and helps them launch their creative careers.

I went along to one of those reserach discussions yesterday and it was about buying cars. It was really interesting to see the way people go about changing their vehicle and raising auto finance. Most of us were happy to buy a car from an auto dealer or through a private sale, depending on where we could find the best car. The basic message was that all the car buyers were wise enough to shop around, particularly for all the other essentials that come with buying a car.

There was a really strong feeling that you should compare all the loan rates available if you need to arrange auto finance. The first offer from your bank or auto dealer is unlikely to be at the lowest interest rates, and there are many good sites now where you can input your details and they check all the top lenders to get you a variety of quotes. Then once you have found your finance, you can go shopping for a new car and start haggling.