Martin Lewis did another money saving article this morning on GMTV involving Council tax. Home owners could be over paying on Council Taxes by thousands, Houses were valued in 1991 by people who did not even enter houses to give the right bandings, so your neighbors could be paying less Tax than yourselves for the same properties.

According to Martin there is £400.000 worth of monies that have been paid in incorrectly, if you think you are paying too much Council Tax then visit this site to check http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/council-tax-bands-change#neighbours it gives you advice on how you can reclaim any Taxes that you may have over payed. Unfortunately for me my banding is correct, but yours may not be, What are you waiting for.

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I was watching Shameless the other night and in that particular episode there was a woman who had Alzheimer’s Disease, who eventually asked her daughter to give her her pills so she can take her own life… Euthanasia.

Euthanasia is a sore subject and as of yet illegal, but surely if it is the individuals decision then there shouldn’t be a problem with it, freedom of choice and all that, fair play it’s a pressure to put someone you love in that position, but in the long run it wouldn’t be half as stressful as watching the person you love trapped inside a body that you once remembered, lets say as a party animal or a determined career person.
 

It is a subject that I have discussed with my fiancé and mother about on numerous occasions, god forbid it doesn’t happen to me, but if I was left in a dependant or vegetative state then  my wish is for me to take my own life with their assistance if need be.
 I would not want to rely on them wiping my ass or having to feed me, it would hurt them I know, but I wouldn’t want to burden them, I would rather them have a happy life knowing that wherever I may end up I will be in a better place.

When my uncle was younger he was quite an aggressive feisty man who threw his weight around, when he hit his 40s he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, for 10 years he coped well with it but then he started deteriorating, he couldn’t walk on occasions, nor talk, he was pretty much bed ridden, he had been so frustrated with being in that situation that he often asked my aunt to help him die which she totally refused to do, so he used to take out his drips or refuse to eat, hoping it would bring his death nearer but it didn’t. He suffered several months like this, in addition he was depressed and sometimes angry because no one would help him die, in the end he did pass away but it was through pneumonia. To see a man that had once been strong and volatile ebb down to a frail, man was stressful in itself, if it had been me, I would have also asked for help to end the pain.

As I am writing this, my fiancé is reading it over my shoulder and telling me it’s one sided, and saying that he loves me therefore he would take care of me ..whatever, he has refused to help me if that situation ever arises. So for now I will end the subject, but he knows my wishes.

Popularity: 21% [?]

As I was dropping some cards this morning I noticed there’s some crafty bleeders out there when it comes to advertising, I don’t mind helping people out by  clicking on their adverts but to do it craftily is,well to be honest downright bloody cheeky. It was probably my foolishness that made me think it was anything but an advert so I am going to be more aware from now on, as I said I don’t mind helping out anyone so they can earn some pennies but this is so wrong. I wouldn’t feel right conning  someone into clicking on my adverts by displaying a  Fake Entrecard, because it’s freedom of choice, whether they want to click your adverts or not .The Entrecard on the right is the dodgy card, so if you do see any others like this one, which I came across, avoid clicking as it isn’t anything other than a ploy to earn them extra cents falsely.

Popularity: 16% [?]

After finishing work yesterday I had to loiter in some shops before attending my audition, which was hard because I had no money to spend, and I was tempted by so many things, mainly new clothes. Then I arrived at the venue an hour earlier then intended, so also ended up standing outside in the cold gales before I decided I’d had enough. So I entered the hotel and wasn’t surprised to see I was the first one there, looking keen and eager or what .

Well anyway as the other auditionees slowly filled the waiting zone we all began chatting among ourselves, getting to know one another before being ushered into  the room where we were to be "tested". There was your typical larger man with a personality to knock Chris Le Roc sideways, a desperate looking unemployed charver, and several other distinguished characters, and then there was me, all in all there was ten of us all together waiting for our challenge.

We all sat round a table with big name stickers across our chests with cameras pointing at us, then one of the casting crew introduced herself, then asked us each to tell the rest of the entrants a bit about ourselves for 30 seconds, that wasn’t a problem for me as I can babble for England. After that we then each had to take turns in telling one truth and one lie while the others asked questions to decipher which was the truth or lie then vote on what we thought, well lets just say I wasn’t a very good liar, If I’d used my brains I could have fooled them by telling two truths which in itself would have been a lie, but there you go, too late to do anything about it now.

After the truth/lie  detecting we were then told to go into another room for a few minutes while they decided on who continues with the next part, which was a dummy run of the game show. Well it didn’t take them long as no sooner had we stepped in the other room, they entered and called five of the deceiving entrants upstairs then told us honest peeps that if we didn’t hear nothing by next week then we hadn’t got through, well I’m not a liar and I’m not stupid, so I can pretty much say I didn’t get through, and won’t be going on the show, it’s basically their soft approach of saying you silly f*’#king losers you ain’t getting in.

It was a great experience though and we had a laugh so I wouldn’t have changed anything, apart from obviously getting through to the dummy run. I’ll just put it down to another one of my lifes experiences, and life goes on. All in all it just goes to show I’m an honest person and that’s something I can be proud of, even if it does mean I’m going to miss out on the chance to win a small fortune.

Popularity: 17% [?]

I am going to pass on to you what I think is an easier and better way you can drop your cards in Entrecard, whether you are already doing it or not.

Since I began on Entrecard three weeks ago, everyday I had been going to campaign and clicking categories then clicking each card individually to drop my card on them, but as I sometimes drop cards in the morning before work, I often don’t have enough time to drop, as waiting for the sites to load takes ages in some cases, I was only getting ten sites at a time but still found it quite time consuming, so in the morning I wasn’t dropping as many as I would have liked to start the day.

I found instead of going to a specific category and clicking every card listed, it was better to click only five cards in each category at a time and from them original five cards right click the card thats being advertised and open a new tab that way, it more or less opens the next site immediately, once you have dropped your card close the original tab and continue to drop on the new one you opened with the last advert, and continue doing this.

Once you can no longer drop with the first card you originally started with, go onto the 2nd site that you originally picked, again just open new tabs through the adverts on each site. When all five of the original tabs are so called used up. Either pick another category  or stay in that one you have chosen, and start again picking five more original cards, sometimes you will get the same sites, but,, you can still drop on them. I found the advantage of doing it this way is not only a speedier load but also gives you a variety of categories.

I discovered accidentally you could drop on a site more than once doing it this way, for example if I clicked on Daisy The Curly Cat and dropped my card, opened a new advert from her Entrecard and continued as I mentioned above, sometimes it would lead back to her site, and was still able to drop on her, but I’m not entirely sure if you still get credits this way, I did repeat click a few times on cards I knew I already dropped on and checked my dropped cards count but it seemingly hadn’t increased even though it said Thanks instead of 1 card per day.

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Blogging can be quite an addictive pastime, as I have discovered.

Signs to look out for :-

• As soon as you wake in the mornings you log into your site.
• Constantly looking for any comments that may have been left.
• Checking number of hits on your site.
• Logging onto Entrecard before checking Emails.
• Thinking of your next post to write, even if it’s past bedtime.
• You get excited if you get new comments, even if it’s one a day.
• Dissapointed if you don’t get comments.
• Dissapointed if you don’t get subscribers.
• Dropping hundreds of cards so you can buy adverts.
• Get excited if your purchase price increases.
•  If you have more than one blog spot.
•  Doing all the above several times throughout your day.

I was going to set up a site for us addicts, but unfortunately both bloggersanonymous.co.uk and .com have been taken and am sad to say, are being unused.

Popularity: 25% [?]

I will mention Entrecard  for it has been my main source of getting visitors to my site, it’s definitely a handy thing to register with as you can drop your so called business cards on other bloggers sites, which in turn draws them to your site, if not only to drop one of their cards onto you, but also to get you regular traffic. So if your just starting out as a blogger you would do quite well if you registered as it is handy for increasing your popularity. I will explain a little about the way Entrecard works but I’m sure if you look at there site they would be able to explain a lot more than I could.

OK firstly, design a "business card" for yourself that measures 125×125, it would be much better if you have one ready as the basic templates don’t really attract other advertisers

example card basic example

Try and make it as appropriate to your blog as much as you can, for example if your writing about films don’t put a nice cute kitty on it, Unless you add a cinema screen or something once you have done that register with Entrecard and upload your card now your ready to get advertising.

When you start, if you go to campaign pick a category that you would like to drop your cards into, once the page has loaded you will see other advertisers cards displayed, it will show you how much it will cost you to advertise on there sites ,but first you need to get credits to do so. To get these right click and open link in new tab go to the new tab and click on the link eg. http://www.examplelink.co  the advertisers site will come up, most of the time the Entrecard drop card is at the top ,but it’s usually the advertisers decision where to place it which means it could be anywhere so you have to search for it. Once you have found the entrecard just drop your card, for every card that you drop it will give you 1 credit, so the more cards you drop to start the more credits for you to buy adverts.

 When you have enough credits to buy adverts, again you go to campaign where you’ll see the advertisers cards, as mentioned above, click on the Advertise section of the business card where it will then take you to a new page to confirm, it’s as simple as that. The higher the purchase rate means that is where the most traffic is and is more likely where your card will get noticed. Also the more times your site gets visited through adverts, the higher the purchase of your card will be.

Popularity: 21% [?]

After a small amount of consideration I began blogging just 21 days ago and am quite pleased with the amount of viewers and readers I have received , mainly because I have always thought that I haven’t really got anything exciting to write about, well I must be doing something right.I have found that my movie reviews are getting a little more attention than my other posts, so am debating whether to just keep reviewing films rather than blog about all sorts, trouble is there are plenty of other sites that are based on film reviews only, so really I want to keep my site quite interesting by adding posts of all sorts, from my everyday activities, news in brief and basically anything goes. Any feedback would be great as it could help me improve my site, obviously I want to attract visitors and  don’t want to turn them away by putting a load of old cods wallop on. If you think that a particular post is boring tell me, because if that is the case I can either jazz the next one up or stop writing posts about that particular subject out altogether.

Popularity: 25% [?]

The other day I thought I would try my luck by applying for a popular British game show, to be truthful I didn’t think I would hear anything but to my surprise I have .

Yesterday I received a phone call off of one of their researchers who asked me a few basic questions and asked where would be the best place for me to audition. Upon receiving the call he talked me through the process of the audition then told me there is two parts to it and that it could be approximately two hours. I couldn’t believe my luck when he told me that I had past the screening and gave me a date for my audition which is on the 26th. Obviously I am not building my hopes up and am prepared not to go through the next stage , but bloody hell if I do get through it would help me enormously firstly I would go private and have a cycle of IVF and then I would try and settle my debts ,depending on how much I could win. Even if I did get through it doesn’t necessarily mean I will win but just having that chance would truly be appreciated. So now I am sitting hear thinking about the possibility of winning a small fortune, I cant wait to go to the audition and find out the outcome.

Popularity: 19% [?]

I mentioned in an earlier blog that i finally got back into work, which I was ecstatic about, that was two weeks ago. Today i was due to get my wages for working a week in hand, which I accepted readily, but to my dismay not only have I been paid by cheque but I was also stopped emergency tax, nothing wrong there  I hear you say.The thing is I have been working for an agency since November 2007 so they have all my records, including bank account and Tax code so why have  I been stopped emergency tax and been paid by cheque.

Well I rang them up this morning and asked them what the deal was and why this had happened. Apparently because my last contract for them was dated 15th December they discarded all the information that I provided them and that I will have to re inform them of my details, my representative had not informed me that this was going to happen so I assumed that I was going to get paid as normal ,like  I did before Christmas. If this is the case then that will mean if I only work for two weeks and my contract finishes then start a new one two weeks later, I am going to have to keep giving them my information, how bloody silly is that, surely it would be far easier to keep everything on record for the next job that comes up. I’m totally pissed, not only have I had to wait two weeks to get paid in the first place I am now having to wait another week for the cheque to clear. My advice for those out there that are thinking of joining an agency to find work, check with your adviser about how, where and when you will get paid, and if your details stay on record for your next contract of employment, regardless of when your last contract was. If I had been told this in the first place I would have given them all that they needed again, instead I’m sat here like a prick waiting another week for my hard earned cash.

Popularity: 18% [?]