Pennies for thought

Many companies find that a good way to drum up business cheaply is to offer online vouchers. These are great for online shopping but also if you are not an online shopper then in most cases you can obtain printable equivalents.

Most printable vouchers are usually for money off at certain restaurants, travel services and sometimes clothes. These can come in really handy when you are having a hard month for money but still want to take your partner out for a nice meal.

You can check out a good selection of vouchers at myvouchercodes, there are also many other sites out there that do the same thing. Well worth a look if you are looking to get out the house and not spent too much money.

In this economic climate if can often be hard to give ourselves the breaks we deserve throughout the year.

Although Ryan Air take a lot of abuse and I would not use them for a full holiday package they do offer some great basic flight prices.

I have flown with them before and found out exactly what the catches and loop holes to booking a flight with them actually are. Here is a break down of my flying costs to Edinburgh from Bournemouth return.

Flights – £2 (£1 each way)
Card processing fee – £10 (£5 for each ticket)
Total £12 (£6 each way)

The flight prices and destinations are obviously varied depending on time of booking and airport choices. I have seen the flights for free so you can get return flights for as low as £10! depending on your trip flexibility. To keep the price at this and not incur additional charges then you just have to do the following.

- Complete online check-in as soon as you can
- Check out carry-on bag dimensions on the website and stick to that as checking additional bags will cost extra
- Don’t have the meal and just take food for the flight

As for the flights apart from the horrendously bright cabin interior it is actually pretty decent. Then all you need to do is book in to a b&b or hotel and your set for a weekend away for under £50.

GPS for many is one of the greatest additions to the car since the spring-loaded cup holder. But is buying an additional GPS unit for your car worthwhile if you do not have one as standard?

We are getting to a stage where almost all our phones have GPS and can be using for almost the same purpose. No matter what phone you have you can guarantee Google have created a decent free maps app for it. The app will locate your current position within a few metres and offer route planning over the top of the map views. One difference is that it will not vocally tell you where to go but it will follow your route and give you visual prompts. This is by no means a bad thing as reading a map is a very useful skill to have.

This can be a great alternative as a phone is something we always have on us and GPS units can be bulky. You cannot carry it around without a large bag and leaving it in your can leaves it vulnerable to getting stolen. Another plus of using your phone is that it is also useful when you are walking to places you don’t know the location of.

Worth a thought before springing out over a £100 on a GPS system.