Upon deciding a small bug box was required in our gardens, we spent 5 minutes online checking prices, and were extremely shocked to see the huge range for what tantamounts to being the same item.

The general descritpion of what we were after;
A small, dual chamber insect hotel to attached to a fence or a wall, that will provide a habitat for insects like ladybirds and bees during the summer months.

Can you tell the difference?

Look at the images below and see if you spot anything that justifies one being £15 more expensive that the other.

Click on the images to see which costs £4.99 and which costs £20.95.

What About Butterflies?

While we were at it, prompted by an email from the Butterfly Conservation group, we decided it would be a good idea to buy a Butterfly Box and do our bit for the conservation of butterflies, moths and their habitat.

In this case, the best priced online retailer we could find was eBay.

The LED Bulb technology is now so energy efficient, it uses up to 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs and can also save you over 80% when compared to less energy efficient halogen GU10 bulbs.

The long lifespans and low energy use make LEDs economically attractive because even though the fittings cost more, the running and maintenance bills are lower as can be seen in our comparison table below;

We’ve taken into account the initial cost of the bulb, which is often the reason people shy away from energy efficient light bulbs. Despite the bulbs costing £11.99 each, a household with lights running for an average of 6 hours per day, could save over 66% or £200 per year, simply by changing 5 standard bayonet bulbs for LED bayonet bulbs.

LEDHut is fast becoming the market leader for LED bulbs with great price reductions and they also offer a 2-year warranty on all bulbs as standard, which means you can purchase with confidence.

*KWh price is based on British Gas Standard Electricty Tier 1 tarrif as published on their website on 27/04/2012.

First thought of most is to list each CD individually on eBay however many are put off because of the amount of time it takes to list each individual CD, the fee’s incurred and postage costs. There is also the worry that after all your time, effort and costs, there’s no guarantee of shifting them.

A number of companies now offer a quick solution that will pay you cash for your old CDs, DVDs, computer games and Blu-rays. Music Magpie is one site that’s easy to use and gives instant quotes.

How do I do it?

Simply type in the barcodes on the Music Magpie website and you will get an instant cash price. If you accept the offer, just follow the on-screen instructions and it gives you freepost labels for posting.

Since Music Magpie don’t accept responsibility for non-delivery, it could be worth sending it, depending on the value, by “Recorded Signed For” delivery which insures it. Once Music Magpie have received and checked your delivery, you will then get paid by cheque

How much can I make?

It depends on the title; as a rough guideline you’ll generally get up to about £3 for DVDs, £2 for CDs, and £6 for Blu-rays and computer games, though it can differ depending on artist, album, game title and console.

Can I do better elsewhere?

Yes. It’s worth posting a few special albums on eBay, or try trading in computer games at high street game shops. Another option is to try selling at a carboot sale, however all of these take time and cost money.

Where Music Magpie wins is on convenience. Maybe its time to clear out those cupboards and cash in……

Did you know..

Last Christmas, it’s obvious that a lot of people bought presents from the Old Titles Bargain Bin as the Top 5 unwanted CDs and DVDs were;

CDs
U2 – Joshua Tree
Lady Gaga – Fame Monster
Michael Jackson – Thriller
Green Day – American Idiot
The Beatles – Sergeant Pepper

DVDs
Dirty Dancing
Ghost
Trainspotting
Johnny English
The Goonies

Some expect prices to slowly increase to those seen across Europe, with Norway paying the equivalent of £1.05 to send a 20g letter 1st Class!

Many consumers are now taking action by purchasing books of stamps in bulk, meaning they will avoid the price hike while they use up old stock.

Someone buying 4 books of 12 stamps today would pay £20.98 thanks to a 5% WHSmith discount available online, however puchasing the same quantity from a Post Office in April 2012 could cost £24, an increase of over 19%!

Many are now considering buying in bulk and reselling via auction websites by undercutting Royal Mail once the price rises are in force. Such a venture could generate a healthy return of 15% for example, far higher than any savings account!

People spent over 830,000 hours on Flowers & Gifts websites last week, browsing for an average of 7 minutes 25 seconds before moving on.

Lingerie was the fastest moving gift, and saw a 10-fold uplift in seaches since Valentine’s Day 2011 with the most searched for lingerie colours being black, red, pink and white.
Valentines continues to be a great time to buy lingerie, as many retailers often run special promotions or discount vouchers.

Women find it much harder to buy for men than men do for women as all the searches for Valentine’s gifts showed 29% included the word ‘him’ whereas only 8% included the word ‘her’.

Valentine’s cards were more searched for than any other Valentine’s gift online. Cards received five times as many searches as flowers and 3% of all UK searches for Valentines cards include the word ‘value’.

Google+ aims to make sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. Anyone can create public pages for brands, products, local businesses and more, and with Facebook contstantly being questioned over their security it’s possible that Google+ will, in the future, become the social gathering point.

Integration with Google Services

Google will build Google+ social networking features and tools into almost all of its existing online services including Search, Documents and YouTube.

Better Friend Management

Google Circles concept is more in line with the way we make friends in real life. We have many different kinds of friends, and we interact with them and communicate with them in very different ways.

You Can Get Your Data Back

Google makes it possible for you to pick up all the data you’ve banked at Google+ and walk away without leaving a trace. This is done through a Google+ tool called Data Liberation.

Strong Group Chat Features

Google+ has Facebook beat in the area of chat allowing you create adhoc groups for video chat using the Hangouts feature. Similarly, the new Huddle mobile app makes it easy for mobile users to start up group text chats.

What are you waiting for?

Now we’ve told you about the benefits of Google+, what are you waiting for?
Come and join us on Google+

The price of wholesale gas is the main influence on domestic energy prices in the UK, leading to concerns that the UK could face rising energy costs once again.

UK energy suppliers cut their prices by an average of £34 earlier this year, following a drop in wholesale costs. However, the recent weather has seen that drop reversed, and UK gas supplies are once again under pressure.

ScottishPower boss Neil Clitheroe said at the time his company cut prices by 5%,

Although there has been a short-term fluctuation in the wholesale gas market that has allowed us to pass on today’s reductions, the global demand for energy is increasing faster than its supply.

This will inevitably lead to higher energy costs in the long-term.

Wholesale charges represent around 55% of the typical gas bill.

The cost of wholesale gas was also cited for a series of price rises that saw £224 added onto the average energy bill between 2010 and 2011.

Wholesale gas is becoming scarce as countries in the EU are forced to draw upon their reserve supplies due to widespread shortages throughout Europe.

Steven Fitzpatrick, chief executive of Ovo Energy, told the Telegraph that if wholesale gas prices stay unpredictable, domestic prices could also rise.

If wholesale prices rise faster than expected, it’s obvious retail prices will rise faster than expected too. But it’s not easy to predict whether prices are back up for long.

Other shops who are facing difficulties include Habitat, Blacks Leisure, Past Times, Barratts Shoes, La Senza and most recently Pumpkin Patch, who called in administrators late on Thursday.

What if you have outstanding orders or voucher for these retailers? Consumer lawyer Ingrid Gubbay advises that now is the time to act. If you’ve received vouchers for Christmas, have goods to return or are awaiting a delivery of an order, then you should act as soon as possible to ensure you’re not affected.

Generally, while a company is in administration, trading continues qw the search for a buyer continues. Most times, reatilers are happy to continue to accept vouchers as methods of payment, but this can differ from company to company.

Those who have bought using credit cards online are generally protected and able to obtain a refund, while those that use debit cards may face further complications.

According to consumer experts Nielsen, in the past 12 months* alone almost 10 million Britons used an discount code when shopping online, and those that didn’t probably carried out a quick search.

That figure is on top of the millions of us who already use printable vouchers for money off at shops and restaurants and more increasingly, the smartphone applications such as the Pizza Express iPhone app.

Fueling our passion of online vouchers, discount code websites have sprung up offering the consumer a discount code for almost every conceivable purchase.

When you go about buying a product, no matter what it is, always do some research. Even if you have a discount shopping code it is important to know enough about the product before buying. Otherwise you risk buying a substandard product which isn’t of the best quality you had expected.

It is very easy to get carried away with your voucher code and other discounted deals around. You can easily be led into buying things impulsively. You might even end up buying things you don’t really need, making you regret the decision later on! So it is always best to avoid impulsive behavior while shopping and keep a level head.

Many times the shipping expenses can work out to be so much that the overall costs end up being extremely steep. If you want to perform some serious discount shopping then it is essential to have a fair idea on the total costs involved. Otherwise you might end up paying too much on shipping and paying a heavy price in the process.

Usually you will find a wide range of coupon code that offers a large range of products on discount. This can make you really go haywire and go shopping for items which aren’t really needed. Hence always make sure to plan your shopping expedition ahead in order to avoid spending too much or on things that aren’t necessary.

Coupon codes

One of the best ways to really save on money is to use a coupon code which will enable you to leverage substantial discounts. Instead of the cash counter person scan the coupon you will enter the discount shopping code into your shopping cart online. You may not realize this before you start shopping but using such coupons can really end up saving you a lot of money in the process.

Clearance sales

When you plan on going discount shopping one of the things you can do to save on money is to look for online clearance sales. You can keep coming back to the site to look out for deals. You can even do a search of the manufacturer’s name online to find out if they have a clearance sale going on.