I am by no means a money saving expert, in fact I can sometimes be a little naughty splashing money onto a credit card every now and again to purchase a really "must have" gadget. However most of the time I like to make credit cards work for me as per my last article Making money off your credit card using 0% cards.

One of the things that gets me when I talk to younger (and some of my older) friends is what they do with their savings. There seems to be a common theme that goes a long the lines of "Oh I don't earn enough money to worry about a proper savings account". These very same people will have a standard savings account you get from your high street bank which pays a very low rate of interest and on top of that the bank will also be paying the Inland Revenue tax on your behalf off the interest before you get it. While at the same time that so called "paltry" amount could be placed inside a MINI cash ISA and be earning 5% interest tax free!

When I explain the above there is still a reluctance as they seem to think an ISA is some kind of a special shares thing they need to sign up for. Its only when I explain that just about anyone can open an ISA account and that it can be treated as just a normal bank account except for the following rules.

• You can only deposit £3,000 in a cash ISA each year
• If you saved £1,000 and then withdrew it you would only be able to put £2,000 back into that ISA within the tax year.
• If you have £3,000 in your cash ISA by the end of the financial year you can place a further £3,000 when you get to the next tax year.

I don't think enough people make use of these convenient financial products.

For more financial tips take a look at Money Saving Expert

Just been reading an article on my wife Karen's blog about a cut in the price of the PS3.

Sony will be releasing a cut down version of the PS3 which is cheaper however not backwards compatible with the PS2 and PS1. The price is quite attractive at £299, however I am not prepared to buy a cut down version of the PS3 if I can't play my old PS2 and PS1 games. However if you are looking for a cheap Blu-ray DVD player the PS3 is definitely it.

On another note the full version of the PS3 will be coming down from £425 to £349 which is a much more palatable price. I am still facing the dilemma between and Xbox 360 and a PS3.  I love the Wii console but I also want a serious games console and I really love all the amazing features that come packed in the PS3.

• You only buy devices that are wireless
• You feel sorry for people who are still on dialup Internet access
• You can't remember the last time you wrote a letter by hand
• You only stay in contact with friends who have e-mail addresses
• You can't remember the last time you had real printed photos as everything's online.
• You think something's wrong with your friends when you don't see them online everyday.
• You know what a mac address is.
• You know what a WEP key is.
• You have a blog, hosted on your own server
• You treat yourself to a new gadget every couple of months from Ebuyer or "I want One Of Those"
• You've setup not one but two wireless networks in your house with 2 lots of firewalls.
• You write your blog posts in a pure HTML editor because you can't stand the GUI one.
• You have more than one PC and one of them is called "your server"
• You use the command prompt for everything
• You know more about your ADSL connection and how to fix it when it goes wrong than the person on the helpdesk of your ISP.
• Your friends and family rather call you when they have an IT problem at work than talk to their own internal IT guys.
• You prefer to build your own PC's
• You're reading this blog post late at night smiling when you should probably be in bed.
• Your mobile device can access e-mail and probably has Skype and WiFi
• You criticise actors in "cyber" movies who write syntactically incorrect code.   
• You plan your holidays by which hotels have wireless access

Was just watching one of the latest army adverts where they showed the army using remote controlled drones to monitor the battle field. What got me was I am pretty sure the controller they were using for the drones was a controller for an Xbox 360. Very very odd....

I'm constantly thinking of new and funny ways to handle nuisance telemarketing calls. This is one of the best I have ever heard.  

This is so cool!

"You were supposed to be the chosen one!"

For more squirrel pics (although not as funny) take a look here

This is Oli often referred to by our friends as the most adorable looking cat they have ever seen. Don't be fooled by those cute eyes, Oli's hobbies include rubbing up against you and shedding white fur on you when you are about to leave for work.

He is also the first one of our cats to bite me when I was trying to give him a pill. I know now that all I had to do was wrap it in ham, if I had known that back then I could have saved myself a tetanus injection!

The Foot and Mouth epidemic that seems to be popping up all over Surrey affected my travel into work for a while, they had to close a few roads which congested traffic and made waiting for the bus a 40minute task.

My thoughts at the moment are with all those farmers in the area who could quite likely see their lively hood disappear, and this was all caused by leak at a research lab into the disease. Surely the the company should be sued or made to reimburse all the farmers affected? A good fine would probably see this sort of negligence never happens again?

Was just watching a news feature about the government wanting to come up with a national motto for Great Britain to make us feel "closer" as a nation such as the American motto "In God we trust".

What I want to know is what's wrong with our existing one "Dieu Et Mon Droit" which translates to "God and my right". While its traditionally referred to the monarchs right to govern it could also be be seen as a statement of our own rights?

1. Don't BBQ your meat while your BBQ is still flaming wait until your coals have calmed down to a grey colour. This way you won't burn the meat from the flames, most people seem to think the meat is done when its burnt on the outside this is not true and is a major cause for food poisoning at BBQ's.
2. If you're burger patties have a lot of fat in them they'll inevitably cause flames when the hot fat gets in contact with the hot coals and end up burning the meat. To get around this use a water spray bottle to gently douse the flames as they appear.
3. Sausages usually explode if you put them straight on the BBQ. To get around this prick them fully with a fork so the juices get a chance to escape.
4. Marinade chicken for as long as possible before your BBQ. Leaving it to marinade overnight in the fridge in a covered container has good results. You can continue to apply marinade to the chicken as it cooks or when turning it. Remember to use fresh marinade to do this not marinade that the chicken has been soaking in before it was cooked.
5. If you like a flame grilled finish to your meat, save this to the end when you know your meat is cooked, then you can lower the grill and char the outside of the meat slightly or to your liking)
6. Remember chicken and pork take much longer than beef, sausage and lamb to do on the BBQ. If you can, set it going first on the BBQ to one side while you cook your other meat on another side of the BBQ. Remember to always use different utensil for chicken and keep it away from the other meat.
7. Sometimes a splash of beer (just a mist) can stop your chicken and sausages drying out when you cook them so they keep a nice succulent taste.
8. If you want to cook things in a hurry foil is your friend. Unwrap the meat when its nearly done to give it that grilled BBQ finish at the end.

Its rather unfortunate that what started off as a request for emergency funding from the Bank of England by Northern Rock has escalated into a mass withdraw of funds by its customers. What is more interesting is that if this information had not been made public the bank may have survived and the act of all its customers withdrawing their cash will effectively lead to a further fall in the cost of the banks shares and a possible take over by a rival bank.

An unfortunate side effect of the above is that people are starting to worry about the integrity of their banks. The real problem now is that the media is adding to the panic by showing people pictures of queues outside banks.