adrian007

I sat next to a scottish bloke at work for a year. He completely changed my opinion of how I felt about Scotland and scottish independence.

Field to Farm is worth a glance as well, may not suit you completely, but you can find out alot

had a gardening tip once - Get a big bucket of sharp sand...add oil. When you've finished digging, clean your spade by sticking in the bucket...comes out clean and oiled.

Mistletoe propogation

One of my mates has a job where you can't be seen to do anything wrong. If he thinks he's getting a cash rate he pays 20% extra and says 'that's for your tax'. Never worth trying to dodge tax...it's fine until you get suspected or randomly chosen...then it's hell.

Fruit and veg : depends if you or your partner like cooking or making stuff. Fruit on its own doesn't make alot, you need to add value. Animals - goat is in demand...pigs are good...chickens. But again, to make money you need to be adding value. Petting zoo, with food and veg products and a coffee outlet. Yurts for rental Plantation that doesn't do alot now, but matures, making you self sufficient in fruit, veg, wood for burning and stuff to sell. Got to have this stuff to be able to retire these days, unless you have a govt pension...

I had magnetic business cards a few years back, they worked well in the job I had then...these look awesome!

'if yer brains were made on dynamite you couldn't blow your hat off' was the most regular

what Treebloke says - awesomely useful book. Me and two mates are pooling our cash to buy a decent number of acres - enough for us to split and benefit from the cheaper cost per acre on larger areas. ensures at least two of my neighbours aren't the complainy sort as well!

umm, don't normally declare this to the outside world, but I'm an IFA. Most of the well known insurers are reasonably good at paying out, but there is a certain amount of 'you get what you pay for', so shop around, but stick to well known names. If someone is dirt cheap and says they are part of another, well known insurance company, it's a fair bet the cheaper policy has the odd extra bit of small print included... Most of the illness and sickness policies are straightforward to claim on, unless you have filled the application form in wrong - declare everything, even if they don't ask. If they accept you warts and all, they can't refuse to pay out so easily. Oh, and if you have a particular concern, phone the claims hotline, or underwriting helpline and just ask - I had a mountain bike that was a tad over the standard values - I called my home insurance company and they would not let me store it locked with an audible alarm to a wall anchor in my locked integral garage, but it was OK to store it padlocked to the lampost at the bottom of my drive. Muppets. I called the next one, discussed my circumstances and they were perfectly fine. I'm currently doing a project for one of the insurance companies - dealing with the complaints that come in from PPI claims companies. So, I spend some time investigating policies that have been sold/missold. It's quite surprising, in a reassuring kind of a way, to see just how many of the polciies have paid out. Adrian And, if you want to complain about your PPI - just phone the lender and say 'I want to compalin about my PPI' - please don't use a claims firm.

Could try joining the Hampshire Buy with confidence scheme run by hants CC trading standards. Got a website? List it on all the business listing site. Haven't got one? Build one using a wordpress template, they're a doddle. Not saying the work will flood in, but it all helps :-)

This is a real problem and someone else says they check their cover annually. You can do this, or there are some companies that ask you to prove your income up front and don't ask again, they take that initial proof as the payout figure.

Plan A Put the 2.5k into a separate account, set up a standing order and forget about it. I'm guessing it is defaulted and this will delay the 'satisfied date' so maybe not the greatest plan ever, but you know your circumstances best. Plan B Use the 1k you have offered in a way that will help your business grow. Plan C If the debt is niggling you more than a tiny bit, maybe it does more harm than good so would be better cleared so your life can carry on without the irritation. Consumer Action Group is another website that has plenty of hints and tips regarding dealing with these companies. No point getting involved in a debt management plan now - they just do what you have done already - try to get the interest frozen and a monthly payment set up. You might be below their nimum size anyway. Good luck

I'm in the 'pay in' camp. You may have gathered. Pensions these days are miles better for the customer than old fashioned ones - the costs with the plans are lower, the investment routes are better as well. There is no risk of Maxwell types, although I do have a strong suspicion that 'the tax free lump sum' will stop being tax free at some point. The pension won't affect your potential for getting a mortgage. Also, a feature nobody has mentioned - you can buy land, woodland and commercial buildings within some pensions. Hmmm, that could be useful for some people hereabouts I'd have thought. :-) That's what I'm doing, it's why I hang about on this forum, learning stuff If you end up working for more than one company, you may well end up with 2,3,or more pension pots, you can amalagamate these into one pot so that life doesn't get too complicated. Underperformance - someone mentioned endowments - endowments were OK while inflation was always 10 - 20% pa. Since it dropped in the late 1980's, endowments proved pretty rubbish and the effects of theridiculously high commissions and charges were clear to be seen. At this time, pensions were reformed, so that the ridiculous commissions and charges disappeared too - that is good for you. So, people with 'old pensions' need to get them looked at, although some of those old pensions also had inbuilt promises that you can't buy today, so it isn't necessarily a good thing to jump out of them. (This was Equitable's Life's problem - it guaranteed annuities at, I think it was 15%, lol) But, in brief, alot of the problems mentioned here are impossible these days, when you get to 55 years old and your joints are aching you won't regret having a decent sized pension pot to include in your plans. It's much better than saying 'oh, in my job you can carry on working forever'

You are correct that you can take 25% out of the pot any time after age 55. The rest could be used to take out an annuity but there other choices. It could be left invested, you could draw on that investment if you wish as well and take the annuity when you are older - annuity rates are better when you are older. But also, while annuity rates are poor, and likely to remain so, there is an increasing amount of innovation in this area to combat the problem - enhanced annuities for those in ill health, temporary annuities, investment linked annuities etc.

Labour stopped this at the same time as they announced that the state second pension would be set at a flat rate, rather than an 'earnings related rate'. It's not a recession related policy, it was a policy they brought in when they had money coming out of their ears (or throught they did, lol)

Outdoors lifestyle means less sickness! But Sickness Insurance is the answer if it's a worry. I've just run a quote (my day job is an IFA, I loiter here to learn stuff for when I stop being an IFA) for sickness cover for a 27 year old non smoker in good health - £20pm for £200pw cover. Pedrowski makes a good point, that when you are long term ill, you cancel all your direct debits, but the cover I've quoted kicks in straight away - often they have 2,3 or 6 month periods at the beginning where you are not covered and that can be a problem. So, while that problem can be overcome, there is a different problem - you can only insure your income - as a self employed person your income is what you pay your accountant to make look as small as possible... Hope that helps Adrian

You can't claim them back as such, but if I were in your shoes I'd have a chat with them and say "You know this is nearly all charges and hardly anything that I actually borrowed - can we come to an arrangement?" Maybe you could have interest frozen as you pay back or maybe they would waive some of the charges in return for a lump sum repayment.

My other half has a plan to build some birdhouses. She wants some wood with bark on it...and looking at the prices birdhouses sell for, we really need the wood to be very cheap, or free. I'm thought of the offcuts from making planks etc? Any chance? We're near Southampton.

I've persevered beyond episode 1 as my other half is an HGV driver - she watches and can't believe her eyes...it's pretty poor.

I changed to a provider who at least has a freephone number to call for help...funnily enough, my broadband is fine and I never have to call them. One problem I had was that there were two local exchnages...I think my new provider routed me through the other one.

5 months to go - too late to play the '3 years extra experience' card, so stick with it. Imagine how you'll feel if one day you get turned down for a great job becuase you quit 5 months early - either becuase you've not got the certificate or you look like a quitter. No matter what you think, if you quit, you'll never go back to complete the course.

2 questions to ask yourself: In 20 years time, how badly are you going to regret not going? Now - how bad is the problem if you go and it's a mistake? eg - I would go, but my kids would stay here with their mum. For me, now, it's better to stay here with my kids. No regrets. If the kids were out of the equation, the only issue would be the financial cost...well, I'd accept that risk and go for it. You regret most the things you don't do.

You can learn alot about smallholdings and what you can and cannot do on the "Field to farm" forum. The website is about a route through planning that could end up with getting planning for a house on the land, but the forum covers many more scenarios that maybe helpful. Good luck

bobh - you've mentioned tyres a couple of times - I'm new - could you explain please?