Write Financial

Good for John Abbott, the artist who lives on that island out in Bantry Bay, Ireland! He’s not prepared to sit around and wait forever for that perfect vendor…goodness knows, he’s already waited two years of his life! Two years is a long time to put your life on hold!

According to the article “Fair exchange is no robbery!” people do not have to sit around and wait long periods of time to complete a sale, for there is an alternative!

It may not suit everyone but home exchange is an exciting alternative to breath some life into the dead horse of the current housing market! The facility of house swapping websites began in Florida but it is taking the UK by storm too. While Mr Abbott is willing to swap his dreamy sea views and eleven acres of artistic retreat for the suburbs of Manchester, I have the feeling that whoever wants to move from Lancashire will get the better of the two deals! It all depends on your priorities, we all have our motivations and luckily for the person or family who will eventually live in the cottage that once belonged to Mr Abbott, on the surface of things it looks like they will get the better of the two deals.

The time has come to beware of the garden thieves. How is it that garden crime increases when the weather begins to look up? According to the proprietor of the Carpenders Park Nursery, Watford, thieves were stealing products to order for landscaping work. Is there no shame? A nice bit of weather and out from the woodwork comes the aspiring landscape gardeners who will do anything for a profit including nicking their bedding plants!!

According to the article “Don’t become a victim to shed theft!” people are being informed they need to tend to more than the weeding in preparation for the summer. Locks and security lights are a great means to keep the burglar at bay as well as some nasty hawthorn bushes at the peripheries to give them a nasty shock when they decide to intrude during the middle of the night!

Not only do we need to protect our hard work and nightly endeavours, our sheds are too particularly prone to opportunistic visitors. Within our sheds we hide the lawnmower, the mountain bike collection of the whole family as well as tools needed to break into our homes when we sleep! The time has come to fight back! Not only do we need to make sure our property is secure from thieving strangers, we need to ensure we are protected from being out of pocket by getting some good garden insurance.

Even though we are currently in the grips of a recession, the last thing to scrimp on should be our insurance premiums. A recent report has come to light stating that burglaries are on the increase according to the article “ All hail the Burglary rescue plan!” providing even less of an excuse to cut our insurance outgoings!

The worst thing is this announcement that people who have been burgled stand a greater chance of being burgled again. All the more reason to do all we can to ensure not only are the culprits banged to rights but we do all we can to prevent this crime happening to us!

When you return home to discover your home has been burgled, ensure you don’t touch anything especially not the phone. The police may find the burglar used the phone before exiting your house providing clues as to his/her identity and whereabouts. Whatever you do, do not go into your house after discovering all is not as it should be. Go next door to your neighbour and use their phone for the police and wait in safety for their appearance. Only when the police have issued you with an incident number or crime number, can you report the break-in to your insurance provider to see about claiming.

I like the sound of twelve months of no mortgage payments, no bills, council tax and insurance premiums! If only I was currently in the market for buying a house! It is so typical of my luck to get the timing wrong, again!

According to the article “Succumbing to the sweet temptations of buying a home”, the house market has never been so dry. The Home Builders’ Federation say these new incentive schemes are an effort to make a property seller stand out from the crowd in a marketplace that lacks any buoyancy. Some go further than that and offer a new apartment to the winner of a £50 raffle draw! The world has gone insane!

I like the sweetener offered at Taylor Wimpey’s the most. A discount worth £17,500 or new carpets, fixtures and fittings and removal expenses is on offer to the buyers of specified homes. As I say, if only I was in the market….

Everyone says you need to have insurance for this and insurance for that and that if you don’t things could get even harder. We have house, car, travel, tenants insurance but what about our pets? According to the article “Preparing for those pet dentists visits” people are not getting the best deal when making an effort to provide for their pets with insurance.

Animals are like us, they get toothache if their teeth are left unchecked and because we love our animals so much, this is the last thing we want to see happening to our favourite furry friends! They can’t tell us when they are in pain!

So forget an insurance plan that only covers emergency dental care, regular routine care is what is needed. Shop for a good value pet insurance policy and ensure you settle for one that includes dental care as routine rather than just accident care.

According to the article “Planning a holiday in 2009?” British couples are looking to foreign destinations to tie the knot to an increasing degree. It is highly likely that weddings in the exotic locations of Costa Rica, Sri Lanka and Kenya are set to grow in their numbers as the realisation sets in that weddings at home can be devastating to our precious bank balances!

Having experienced an exotic wedding first hand, I would highly recommend it! Compared with the more traditional domestic wedding (I have experienced several of these at close quarters but not first hand), the exotic option wins hands down! Traditional weddings are highly organised stressful affairs while exotic weddings couldn’t be further from this. Actually, it is thumbs up on all levels; you have a bride who is so stress free about the whole wedding business, she is positively horizontal; plenty of money still left in the bank (so no excessive overtime hours to wear you out); no tears; no crises and more.

Your family and friends get to enjoy a brilliant holiday as well as your wedding day and you can’t beat the refreshing feeling of walking along a sandy beach in bare feet to the rhythm of the ever-encroaching waves upon a welcoming seashore. Reason enough?

I like the idea of staying in and most of all entertaining at home! I like the idea of being a host to my guests of showing off my cooking skills and most of all find it satisfying knowing that my guests will relax and eat to their hearts content throughout the evening. According to the article “Dining-in accidents – they will happen!” more and more people are resorting to staying in and entertaining at home to save money. Who are they kidding?

Entertaining at home can be much more costly than first it appears. There is all the food and the drink to buy in where as you would just buy your own lunch and the occasional round. People tend to be on their best behaviour in a pub or restaurant but who is to say they will not break something whilst cartwheeling across the living room after downing their fourth glass of red? It is a worry!

All I can say, is if you are thinking of entertaining at home, take out some home contents insurance (if you haven’t got it already) because even the best of dinner parties end in tears!