It appears that as the credit crunch starts to make an impact on people’s spending habits they are increasingly turning to hire purchase rather than buying goods. under a hire purchase scheme the customer pays a fee every month with the appliance remaining the property of the lender until the last payment has been made giving the lender extra security. This article reports a ten per cent rise in the value of goods brought on hire purchase in the last 12 months compared with the same period in the previous year.

If you are looking around for an unusual gift then you might want to have a look at these Crystal Singing Bowls. Imported from the Himalayas they are used for meditation music and healing. The importer Silver Sky Imports travels to the region several times a year and handpicks their selection of singing bowls from Tibet and Nepal. Each bowl is individually catalogued and includes a recorded sound file and individual pictures so you know you are receiving the product you are looking for. Their latest range also includes fountain singing bowls which cause water to spout like a fountain when your hands are rubbed on the handles.

According to this article a £3 sun lotion from Asda was among the best is a test carried out by Which? The low priced lotion offered a better defence than some other brands which cost three times as much. In the survey 14 products were tested, all of which claimed to offer a protection factor of 15. However, only five of the products actually met this standard. In fact the sun cream from Asda was found to offer a protection level of 24, more than was stated on the bottle. Some the creams which failed to make the standard were sold by Tesco, Marks and Spencer and Wilkinsons. It just goes to show you don’t always have to spend a lot of money to get a good product.

If you want to lose a bit of weight are not quite sure how to go about it, then you might want to check out The Truth About Abs. The program has been devised by a certified nutrition specialist and personal trainer and shows you how to tone up your body to get the shape that you want. It includes a range of exercises combined with diet and nutritional advice. If you are unsure about the programme then there is a 21 day trial programme available with nothing to pay straight away so you can try it first to see if it’s for you.

Next has recalled a range of men’s underwear after a complaints that it featured an image of Adolf Hitler. A customer had complained that the underwear featured an image that resembled Hitler saluting as planes flew overhead. Next have since investigated the claims and found that the image was actually from a cartoon inspired by a picture of Lenin. The range of underwear, however, will still be withdrawn from sale.

Recently more and more companies seem to be using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter for their promotions.  Some examples I have come across include Hotels Combined, laterooms and Eight Hotels. Both Laterooms and Hotels Combined use their Facebook page not only to promote themselves but also to promote other events and charities.  In addition Hotels Combined offer promotions such as donating $5 to the charity of your choice if you become a fan and $20 for blogging about them and have so far donated $3400 to charity. I’m not sure how effective a marketing strategy this is but it certainly looks like a good way to raise your companies profile.

If there is one thing that Monopoly has taught us its that a bank error in your favour is a good thing. Unfortunately in real life if you find several thousands of pounds in your account then you should tell the bank and give it back or you could be arrested. An Australian couple did just the opposite. On finding that they had received a payment of £4 million from the bank they simply disappeared. The bank has recovered some of the money but the couple still have around £3 million of it. An international search has now been launched for them.

Having just sold our house I have been looking around at some furniture ideas for our new home. I came across some really nice rustic furniture that I think will fit the room quite well. I like the fact that is individually handcrafted, for me it is much more appealing than something that you can buy from most high street furniture shops.

According to this article The budget hotel chain Travelodge is launching a 99p cream tea. For your 99p you can expect to receive a collection of teas, an extra large scone, a pot of Cornish clotted cream and a choice of strawberry of raspberry jam. Not bad at all for under a pound.

In the current tough economic conditions lasting through the month until payday seems to be getting increasingly difficult for many people. That’s where a Pay Day Loan can come in useful. As the name suggests it is a short term loan designed to help through until you get paid. Unlike other loans payday loans require no credit checks and you can often be approved in a as little as 24 hours. Apex Payday Loans for example provide a service that is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You can apply online which takes just a few minutes and in some cases they will approve it within the hour.

According to this article if you want to save the planet you should stop eating lamb and drinking beer. Apparently 37lbs of carbon dioxide is generated to produce 2.2lbs of lamb. Producing pork and chicken on the other hand produces much less emissions. Alcoholic drinks also contribute to emissions with the growing and processing of hops producing 1.5 per cent of Britain’s greenhouse gases.

We have a lot of problems with other cats getting in through our cat and eating our cat’s food. For this reason I have been looking around for a new cat flap that will only let my cats enter. There are flaps available that work by using a special collar which lets the wearer in but I have heard these are not necessarily fail safe as other cats who also the same collars are still able to enter.  This idea is interesting it’s a new cat flap called the Smartflap that works using your cat’s own microchip. The cat flap looks just like a conventional flap and is made to the same size so it will fit into the existing hole but the fact that it works using your cat individual microchip is a big bonus. It is battery operated and can be programmed so that only your cats can use the flap. You are also able to programme the cat flap to lock itself automatically at night, so if like us you like to keep your cats locked in after dark then this is a useful feature. If you want one they are currently on special offer and you are able to get the item on a 40 day free trial to check that you are happy with the product. It also has an 18 month manufacturers guarantee.

According to this article around half of people who buy their groceries online receive the wrong items. A questionnaire found that 45% had at least one of their items substituted for another product and 15% received something they had not ordered. I have used the Sainsbury’s Online for about five years now and whilst it did used to be fairly unreliable with missed deliveries and broken down vans over the past couple years it has been quite good. I usually receive the correct items with few substitutes and can only ever remember receiving items I haven't ordered once. On that occasion I received a bag of cigarettes (I don’t smoke) but the situation was quickly resolved when I called the store and upon realising the mistake they collected them and brought my bag of shopping in its place.

This is interesting it’s a virtual stock trading game that allows you to trade stocks without having to risk any capital. You can build up your portfolio based upon real time stock market quotes and then trade against other users. The object of the game is to receive the highest returns on your investments compared to other traders in the tournament. You pay a small fee in order to join a tournament and then receive $100,000 of virtual money which you can invest as you please.  If your investments go well and you win the tournament you then get a cash prize.  It looks like a good way of learning about the markets without losing a great deal of money.

According to this article eating honey can shorten the length of a cold by two days. A trial was conducted on 60 patients who were recruited within 24 hours of them catching a cold. All the patients were given traditional therapies such as decongestants and drugs to lower the temperature but half were also given four tablespoons of honey a day. At the end of the study the researchers found that the patients who had been given the honey had recovered from their colds much more quickly than the others showing a significant difference in the duration of all the symptoms. I will have to remember this, next time I am suffering with a cold.

It could be bad news for tea drinkers if this article is to believed. It suggests that the price of a a cup of tea could rise by as much as 15%. The price rise comes as a combination of rising demand, crop failures and the weak pound. It could mean that leading brands such as PG Tips will increase their prices as much as 50p on a pack of 160 tea bags. Unilever which makes PG Tips has said that it can no longer absorb the extra cost of making tea bags due to increases in commodity costs and that it will need to pass the rises onto consumers.

This strange looking fruit is a Kumato. It’s basically a new variety of tomato which originates from the wild tomato. Unlike normal tomatoes it can be eaten even when it is still green. Apparently when still green it has a mild taste and is good for slicing. As it ripens to a dark brown it is sweeter and slightly spicy and is good in salads. When it finally develops a dark red colour it becomes much sweeter than the conventional tomato. The kumato will go on sale at 50 Marks and Spencer stores from next Monday priced at £2.49 per pack.

There are so many companies offering webhosting that it can be a little daunting deciding which one to choose. We recently switched our hosting to another provider and I spent a lot of time looking around at website like Web Hosting Geeks which offer reviews from people who already use the hosting providers. The website contains useful information such as the top 10 web hosting providers as rated by their users. It also gives awards for categories like the best budget hosting, the best blog hosting and the best multiple domain hosting. This in itself is quite useful especially for someone like me who doesn’t really know much about web hosting but the website also provides lots of other information. The awards not only allow you to see which hosting providers perform best in each of the categories but also provide a useful overview of the service detailing things like how much storage space the provider gives you, how much bandwidth and what level of customer service you are likely to receive. In addition to this you can read the reviews by current customers who are already using the service. All of this makes me feel a little more confident about choosing a hosting provider, after all if a provider has lots of reviews from happy customers then they must be doing something right.