We have a second car that we bought whilst living in France and since we returned to the UK the car has been sitting in the garage off-road as we hit the proverbial brick wall when we came to the paperwork involved in transferring the details from a european vehicle to UK requirements. It has been a real headache. So far the car, which is only three years old, has been sitting unused – and we could really do with using it as it suits our family needs better – while we work through the red tape.

The insurance has been a problem, it’s not like getting a simple rv insurance quote, and as it is a French car (well, a suzuki but bought in France) the insurance is expensive. Anything to do with France has heaps of complications we have found through experience.

It’s hard to get your head around the idea but with 12 months remaining until Xmas it’s time to start thinking about getting the most of your money when you shop online. Most people shop online these days, I do anyway, and with the help of little aids such as Target coupons it makes it easier to save some money on your purchases.

Don’t forget also to look around for the added benefit of free postage on your shopping – when you consider how much postage can add up to it makes sense to get the most out of any offers that include free delivery.

I wonder what the average life span of a laptop is these days…? we bought my teenage son a laptop for his 16th birthday back in July 2009 and for the price of around £400 expected him to get at least two years usage out of it, but in fact it has barely last 18 months before it has given up the ghost. We are not talking about any major malfunction but rather a series of inconvenient little problems that all lumped together to render it useless.

And a teenage boy who is without his laptop is not a happy one…

First off the battery stopped holding it’s charge so you got about 20 minutes of cordless use, then the on/off button would not work and now the thing refuses to turn on at all. The question at this point is whether it is worth repairing or is it more sensible to replace it – not just ‘sensible’ but cost-effective? looking at computer reviews in various magazines do you ever see adverts for repairmen…? no don’t and there’s a good reason for that. You wouldn’t repair a DVD player these days when the costs and parts add up to twice/thrice the amount of a new machine, and you’d be crazy to put a camcorder into a technician’s workshop when it is far cheaper to buy a new one. So I guess I have answered my own question – but it’s madness when technology has seemingly become such easily throw-away commodities.

With only twelve weeks to go until Xmas – yes, twelve weeks! – you had better start putting your thinking cap on with regards to shopping lists if you have not done so already. This year I have a double whammy in that I have a son getting married in early November and then of course Xmas the following month – and with my own Xmas’s it involves sending cards and gifts to family on the other side of the world. So for me shopping online is not only the convenient way to do things but a necessity really – I tend to do quite well with getting free delivery thrown in so if you shop around you can bag a bargain. At the start I found online shopping rather mind-boggling given the zillions of sites available and my first attempt resulted in a mass of stuff coming from all over the place – until I discovered ShopWiki. What you find is over 30,000 outlets from which to choose offering everything from womens complete outifts to automotives.

Now come on, if that does not satisfy the shopper in you then what would…? okay, getting back to the shopping bit. I have five sons with a daughter-in-law on the way (and about time too…) so my shopping at Xmas has always revolved around boy-stuff; having a daughter-in-law to buy for will be a very nice change and as she is beautiful too I plan to focus on outlets which follow womens fashion trends to the letter. She is quite stylish so I intend to get her something very special for this her first Xmas with our family. The good thing about ShopWiki is that it also caters for people, like me, hunting down wedding gifts and other special occasion events. You can even get your food and drinks bought as well – all you need, besides your money – is plenty of time to set aside and browse…and we all can make time for that.

The recent volcano crisis has taught me one thing above all else; never consider buying cheap travel insurance – and when you DO buy a policy check out word by word their exclusion clauses. That is something I doubt the majority of those stranded travellers did. One fellow stuck in Florida with his family was complaining to a local radio station – via his mobile – that his el cheapo policy with Insure and Go (which is underwritten by the Halifax Bank…enough said ) gave him little to no protection or assistance whatsoever for the problems he was experiencing. Of course it wouldn’t – the reason it was cheap was because it gave you next to nothing but you need to know this BEFORE you travel to somewhere like the USA.

As travellers begin to arrive back the UK from all around the globe the compensation claims are ready to start flowing in, there will be some justified claims of course but for those people who paid a mere £10 for a ticket with a budget airline like Ryanair their hopes for being compensated hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds will be simply that – hopes. Ryanair is refusing to refund a penny. An airline that carries passengers paying less than a hundred pounds a ticket is not going to be able to afford huge across the board payouts, if the airline is forced by European regulations there is a good chance you will be waving bon voyage to your favourite way to get to the Spanish Costa’s.

I feel sorry for those people; they went on holiday and ended up in a nightmare spending money they did not have, sleeping in airports with small children, paying thousands to greedy car rental companies to get themselves to ferry ports across France and Spain, but honestly what do these people expect…? they would have been flying on tickets that cost anywhere from £10 to £40 and yet they expect hundreds if not thousands to be refunded to them for their troubles. Do you want budget air travel to continue or not ?…go ahead and sue for what you think you are entitled to but you can then kiss goodbye to your el cheapo trips to Tenerife and Salou because the airlines will simply close up shop.

The same goes for those who bought bottom end of the market travel insurance from companies like ‘Insure and Go’ for next to nothing and then complained about the poor service and exclusion clauses…what do you expect when you pay peanuts? how many people actually check their exclusion clauses before travelling – not many obviously but I bet they will in the future.