By Myscha Theriault
Love to create restaurant quality food at home? Looking for an inside track to how the professionals pull it off? David Sievers at SoupBase.Com is stepping up to help. Read on.
By Sarah Winfrey
Whatever holidays you celebrate in November, December, and January, they're over now. The special food is eaten and the decorations are probably back in their boxes. The new year has come, though whether you see it with hope or fear is up to you. My point is, in most of the western world, January is a month of coming down. We spend November and December gearing up, getting ready, anticipating days off from work, travel, good food, and good times with people we love. Then January hits, and that's all over. Not only that, but the bills for all that hope and anticipation start arriving and we go back to our normal daily routine. It's no wonder if we sometimes look up and ask if the holidays really meant anything after all.
The latest push for a halving of interest rates to a low of 1% came as the UK services sector was to be declared to be shrinking at near-record levels.
While activity in the sector, which makes up the bulk of the UK economy, remained stagnant last month at 40.2, according to the Chartered Institute for purchasing and Supply, the outlook is dire.
Combined with today's gloomy house prices data from the Nationwide building society, some economists said the Bank was ever more likely to make a more aggressive move than the quarter-point cut previously expected.
I have been able to claim the redundancy part of it from the National Insurance fund but because the company is still registered with Companies House as a going concern I cannot claim the rest I am owed.
My employer has now done a disappearing act and no longer has an office at the registered address. No-one seems to be able to help us.
Who can I go to for help without it costing me too much money? How can employers get away with this? Can they be reported to someone? F.H., Market Harborough, Leicestershire
This means I have to find £60 per month on top of my normal payment, which I just don't have.
Also, when I took out the mortgage the rate was calculated at Bank of England base plus 2.9% which equated to 9.2% at the time, fixed until February 2009.
Though interest rates have dropped considerably, the lenders say my mortgage rate will stay at 9.2% when the fix ends.
Am I correct in thinking there was a landmark court case several years ago where the court deemed 'a reasonable amount of time to repay the arrears is the remainder of the loan term'? M.N., Bradford
By Linsey Knerl
I’m horribly unorganized to the untrained eye. I’m a “stacker”, which means that while I know the general vicinity of any given piece of paper, it must be culled from a heaping pile of similarly-group items before I can use it. It’s my own method of organization, one that gives my husband the heebie-jeebies. It’s also the reason that just recently I’ve vowed to forever and always purchase the forever stamps.
By Torley Wong
It all started so innocently: I recently purchased an iPod Nano as an Xmas present, and also wanted to include the gift of music. A casual search on eBay led to attention-alarming auctions shouting at me, tantalizing me with the possibility of getting iTunes gift cards for CHEAP! How cheap? Apparently, if I shelled out US$5-8 dollars, I could get a "guide" with info telling me where to purchase these cards for up to "80% Off!!", one listing yelled. Yet another auction cautioned me while hawking its own ware, "How to NOT get scammed w itunes gift card code auctions". What was going on here?
With an average property price of £160,000, this means £64,000 is needed before a lender will offer its best deals.
The findings emerged in research highlighting the nightmare facing anyone trying to buy a home or remortgage during Britain's mortgage drought.
Just 24 deals required a 40% deposit last February. Less than a year later, this has soared to 341, according to financial information firm Moneyfacts.
To make matters worse, the number of mortgage deals has collapsed. More than 3,500 were available in February 2008, compared with just under 1,400 now.
By Myscha Theriault
Ready to take this stuff from behind closed doors to center stage? Wanting a few more options for seafood on the cheap? This consistently affordable protein source has more flexibility than I could have ever dreamed. Read on to find out which recipes made my personal cut.
More formally known as surimi, imitation crab meat is what many people on a budget reach for when they are craving seafood. It's affordable, flexible and doesn't need to be cooked ahead of time. So how do you sex it up? Following are a few suggestions.
© 2008 Daily Financial News
