An old-fashioned penguin-killing lightbulb yesterday

Yesterday we reported on the demise of the 100 watt lightbulb, which is slowly disappearing from shops’ shelves for good. But one man has spotted a gap in the market and is poised to make it big once the powerful bulbs become as rare as hen’s teeth. Plus, he’s an estate agent by day, so you can trust what he says!

He’s Jules Bending (crazy name, crazy guy) and he has been stockpiling thousands of the bulbs in a secret location near the Mendip Hills. Jules’ logic is that once Old Hundred Watty disappears for good, naysayers of energy saving will gladly pay him his asking price for a single 100 watt bulb. And his asking price? Why it’s between £40 and £60 of course!

On trade website EstateAgentToday, Bending is quoted as saying: “Everybody hates an estate agent: the horrible suit, the nasty jargon. If you introduce a note of humour people seem to like that. They trust us. And trust is the holy grail.”

No Jules. We’ll never trust estate agents. You’ll never make us laugh. Ever. Apart from when the credit crunch forces you out of business. We’ll always hate all estate agents Jules. Especially you. You’re a twat. Now do one.

[Guardian]

Over the past year or two, most of us have had to cut expenses. While it’s relatively easy to go from eating out twice a week to eating out once a week, some of us have had to go beyond that, doing our best to cut out unnecessary expenses wherever we can.

But grocery shopping presents us with a complex psychological environment in which it’s deliberately not easy to fill our trolley with the things we need, pay for them, and leave.

Supermarkets have played on consumer psychology for decades. For example, the produce greets us first thing, because it appeals to our sense of going to the market to get things we need, whether we buy the fresh produce or not. Here are three other ways supermarkets try to pry more money out of our wallets.

1. Locating emotionally invested choices away from the ends of the aisles. For example, people are particular about their coffee. If the coffee is placed at an aisle end, customers will feel rushed into grabbing a tin of coffee and moving along so as not to block shopper traffic. If coffee is placed in the center of an aisle – requiring the maximum number of steps from either end – the shopper is more likely to pull his trolley over and evaluate his coffee choices.

2. Stores want their customers to do three things: shop the high-margin areas of the store, fulfill their needs, and fulfill their wants. Placing the needs so that you have to pass through the “wants” and high margin areas first maximizes the chance customers will stray from their list.

3. The least expensive items are set out so you’ll encounter them after having bought your more expensive items. The theory is that you’re more likely to spend on little extras if you’ve already invested in the top-end items on your list.

There are numerous ways to fight the temptations supermarkets are so good at presenting. Everyone knows not to shop when they’re hungry, but there are a few other strategies, too.

1. Use shopbots and price comparison websites. Try www.mysupermarket.co.uk, www.madaboutbargains.co.uk, and www.fixtureferrets.co.uk. These sites will also alert you to special offers.

2. Visit the butcher late in the day when you’re more likely to see items marked down for quicker sale. You can freeze extra servings for later.

3. Some coffee lovers say that if you mix a jar of cheap coffee and your favorite coffee, the cheap coffee will absorb some of the full bodied flavour of the expensive brand, and drastically cut your coffee expenses.

Got proven tips on how to make it through shopping day unscathed? Please share them with us below!

If you’re having problems with debt, it helps a little to know that you’re not alone.

With high unemployment, there are millions of Brits wondering how to manage their bills, let alone enjoy a few extras like a trip to the cinema.

Here are five steps to coping with your debt:

1. Make a budget and stick to it. This may be the hardest step of all, because this is where the problem is laid bare. Knowing how much money comes in and how much goes out is the first step to getting a handle on debt. You must realize that sticking to a budget can be like sticking to a diet: you endure serious deprivation until you can’t take it anymore and then blow it all with one trip to the store. Therefore, you should include a few, selected, “carrots” in your budget (fancy coffee once a week, getting your hair done, etc.) to help you deal with the enormous “stick” of ongoing, severe financial problems.

2. Be honest about “needs” and”wants.” Again, it’s a matter of personal honesty and also knowing which of your particular wants can be reasonably incorporated into your budget. For example, buying a new car is probably unreasonable, but buying a new pair of trainers so you can walk in the park regularly is probably reasonable.

3. Get out of debt and get help doing so. I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, get out of debt! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Ninny.” But it’s the huge elephant in the middle of the room that nobody wants to talk about. I’m not talking about borrowing from friends and family. The perils of that situation deserve their own post. But once you know the ugly truth about how much you owe and how much you have coming in, then you’ll have the figures you need to take to legitimate debt help services like the National Debtline. They can help talk you down from the crisis and find someone to help you, and perhaps most importantly of all, will help you stay clear of the the vulture “debt counselors” who scam people who are in serious financial straits.

4. Rethink your attitude toward money. It is extremely hard to have a positive attitude when every day’s mail brings yet another angry creditor demanding payment. But you have to do it. For some people, rather ironically, giving away small amounts of money changes their attitude. Knowing that you gave a few quid to the Salvation Army or the RSPCA often has a profoundly positive effect on attitude. Sure, money is important, but you need to know that you can control it, rather than the other way around.

5. Persist. There is no substitute for this when it comes to getting out of debt. Once you start making progress, however, you’ll be more motivated to stick with it long enough to get your finances back in order. And on that special day when you finally pay off that last creditor, have a cake, or a glass of champagne, knowing that you had a mountain of debt, and that through hard work you conquered it.

Cumulative financial stress does take its toll on the body, and the longer you put off dealing directly with your finances, the longer that stress will continue to take its toll on your mental and physical health and perhaps on your relationships as well. So while the steps themselves can be quite stressful, the upfront investment in some unpleasantness can prevent much more of it in the future.

Buyer’s remorse is something we’ve all experienced in life. It may come in the form of waking up on a Sunday afternoon in a stranger’s house with no recollection of the evening past. Or a poor attempt at explaining to your children about how spending their allowance now would mean they won’t have it to spend later.

But it’s sometimes harder to apply that logic to ourselves. We therefore have to put all hope on these five tips that claim to help us psychologically combat with impulse spending:

1. The generous stranger. Weblog Five Cent Nickel comes to the rescue with the following tip for curbing impulse purchases:

“When considering a purchase, picture a stranger offering you [the cash value of the purchase] or the item in question. Which is of greater value [to] you? Which would you choose?”

In situations where you find yourself tempted more by the cash than the purchase, you can probably wait, and vice versa. The reasoning is simple; if you have the cash equivalent of the product, you have the flexibility to purchase it at some later time, which means there is no urgency. The idea is therefore a thought interruption to break impulse purchase habits and help you see the situation more clearly.

2. Work hour equivalent. When faced with purchasing an item, ask yourself: how many hours of work would it take you to pay for say item at your current rate of pay? Converting your work hours into the price of the game/DVD/handbag you are interested in could help evaluate the cost/benefit of your purchase a bit more realistically.

3. £100 / day keeps the consumer away. Wait one day for every £100 the prospective item costs, as discussed before. Of course, you can scale this up or down according to your income.

4. Talking to your spouse about it. Imagine explaining the purchase to your spouse or significant other. How would it feel saying,”This awesome T-Rex wall sculpture was on sale for only £999!”? Bargain.

5. Switching on your logical brain. You lived without it just fine yesterday. So ask: can you can live without it just fine tomorrow? This shifts your thinking from an emotional purchase to a more logical one, to really look at how the item is actually going to contribute to your life.Is there a point in actually buying it?

We all have our own coping mechanisms for spending money instead of paying off debt, and make our own rationalisations. The idea is not to institute a personal policy of soul-crushing self denial, but rather to give yourself the time to at least consider the options before impulse purchases that will leave you with buyer’s remorse.

Some useless organic food yesterday

Food snobs and chancing farmers have been rocked on their heels after a new study concluded that eating organic food is no better for you than the normal stuff.

The organic food industry is said to be worth £2.1 billion every year, but the findings of Dr Alan Dangour, a public health nutritionist, for the Food Standards Agency, could have proponents of the mud-covered grub looking at the floor, whistling and then shuffling away quietly.

Dr Dangour (who must be fearing for his life right now) says that the only thing organic food has more of is acidity and phosphorus, neither of which benefit we humans in any significant nutritional fashion.

His report doesn’t actually say “If you buy organic food you’re wasting your money” but hints at it as strongly as is possible. Gawd strewth, they’ll be telling us that massive carbon emissions are okay next…

If you happen to be 2 metres tall and drop things a lot, you will appreciate the Land Rover S1 Sonim mobile phone. Described as “virtually indestructible”, Lance Batchelor, CEO of Tesco Mobile (the only place you can get the phone) concedes that “it’s the first phone in the world to be as tough as a Land Rover.” (The Land Rover, according to Which? magazine’s reliability surveys is regularly listed as one of the most problematic new vehicles.)

First unveiled at February’s Mobile World Congress event, the S1 Sonim is, in fact the only IP67 military rated GSM mobile phone. It has since been ran over by a Landrover, stomped on by elephants, put into 300 degree ovens, and thrown out 2nd floor windows. It is now available from Tesco stores or the Tesco website. The phone resists humidity, shock, dust, salt, and heat, and is water resistant to 1 metre for 30 minutes. It can also survive falling onto concrete from a height of 2 metres.

The phone is finding ready markets amongst men who love gadgets, but one Techradar reader believes a market could be found with young parents who know first hand how damaging baby drool can be to electronic devices. “As a marketing ploy this should be aimed at parents with toddlers. How many parents complain that their child(s) has dropped their mobile in the tea/coffee/bath/toilet and sink?” That’s right. You’ll also be happy to know that the Land Rover S1 Sonim is made to survive being dropped into a public toilet. The question is whether you can survive fishing it out.

Though it doesn’t have all the extra goodies of an iPhone, it does have a 2 MP camera, 110dB speakers (for when you need to make a call while standing next to turbine engines of a Ferrari or a windmill), a GPS, 1,500 hours stand-by time, a torch, and an FM radio.

The phone is made from hardened plastic that is resistant to water, oil, and petrol. It is then covered with hardened rubber to absorb shock from being dropped. A non-porous coating is applied to keep substance from penetrating the case, and it has a scratch-resistant screen and hardened rubber keys.

Available only from Tesco and its website, you can get the S1 Sonim with an “unconditional three-year” warranty on the phone, which can be bought unlocked for £250, or
from £25 a month on contract.

From Mondays through Thursdays, human beings can be total paragons of responsibility and discipline. But on Fridays, we go out for a laugh, but spend and drink, scream at the top of our lungs, then spend, and spend. But why is it that we do that?

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule) states that for many events in life, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. With 5 work days a week, Friday equates to 20% of the work week. So one hypothesis would be that we’re applying 80% of our play time and spending to that momentous evening.

Sure, we should cut ourselves some slack for making it through another week of the daily grind. But keeping the excesses of Friday (that so often ooze into Saturday and Sunday) controlled to some extent will prevent turning next week’s Monday through Thursday into a financial guilt-fest.

How can you be a sociable creature, yet avoid abusing your bank account in the process? Let’s get the “ruining all the fun” one out of the way first, and you can do as you wish with it:

1. You don’t have to go out on weekend nights, do you? You probably have all kinds of things to do at home that you’ve been meaning to get around to for ages. This weekend could be that time. Besides, the drinking and dancing is all fun and games until somebody puts an eye out. The additional benefit: your mother would also stop asking you to apply yourself.

2. If you’re invited to join your more well-off friends for a pricey dinner out, you can tell them you have plans, but will join them later. You’ll get there in time to enjoy some Irish Whiskey Cheesecake, and with luck, they’ll have drunk enough that they’ll forget you weren’t there all along.

3. If it’s customary for each person in your posse to buy a round, go first. Nobody will remember who bought the fourth or fifth round. Don’t shirk your drinking-buddy responsibilities, though. Making your phone buzz and then stepping out to “answer” it when it’s your turn to buy is not cool.

4. Arrange to share cabs if possible, or better yet leave in time to get a train before service stops for the night. Particularly on Friday which is a work day followed by a raucous evening, everyone will understand if you say you’re dog tired and want to beg off rather than continue the pub crawl.

The main thing to remember is that you’re the same person Friday night and Saturday night that you are the other five days of the week, and while soul crushing self-denial isn’t healthy, neither is waking up with a credit card slip for £253.39 at a place you have no recollection of going to.

(image courtesy of yuwietwist)

Plastic Bags

RetailWeek recently reported that the seven food retailers (Asda, Somerfield, Co-operative Group, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and Waitrose) who set for themselves the goal of cutting the number of carrier bags used by 50% compared with 2006 levels have made actual reductions of 48%.

This was done on the group’s own initiative rather than by government mandate.

This May, 452 million bags were distributed, compared to May 2006, when 870 million were distributed in the UK. This came at a time when the participating supermarkets’ sales volumes actually grew by 5%.

The different stores used a multitude of ways to encourage customers to use fewer bags, with reuse of bags being the most popular. Peter Woodall, the spokesman for the Carrier Bag Consortium says that “70% to 80% of shoppers are reusing their bags already – for school lunches, as wet gym bags or as bin liners.”

Other retailer initiatives include:

1. “Bags for Life” programs in stores

2. Charging 5p for single-use bags

3. Simply asking customers if they need a bag. The answer is “no” often enough to make this work.

4. Placing bags away from the checkout, so that customers have to ask

5. Using bags with higher recycled content

6. Providing recycling facilities for bags at the front of the store

7. Rewarding bag reuse with loyalty card points

8. Media promotion of cutting bag use

9. Recording bag use at each store to motivate reduction in usage

The British Retail Consortium says the figures demonstrate that “the voluntary approach is very successful and can lead to better informed customers and lasting change.” Whether this will successfully change our plastic fantastic habit and cut down on the number of carrier bags going to waste is still yet to be seen.

For a minute or two, let’s just imagine that you’ve been assigned to create an online shopping site that takes advantage of everything you know about consumer behavior and psychology. Your goal would be to get people to part from their wallet in as quickly a time as possible, all while maximizing your profits without asking for much money.

Is that really possible?

Yes. But Swoopo.co.uk has already beaten us to the punch. The auction site assumes that human beings collective act in a stupid way, and have proven that theory since 2005. Bloggers are calling this new way of auction is “manipulating game theory to tap stupidity, the greatest resource on this planet”, and Swoopo is raking money in faster than the Bank of Money’s printing presses can handle quantitative easing.

Here is how it works: customers buy “bids” in advance. Each bid cost 50p. They are sold in packs of 25, 50, 100, 250 or 500. Bids always start at 10p, and there is no reserve price. Every bid placed increases the product price by 10p, and the auction countdown by a further 20 seconds. You can place individual bids, or bid electronically using Swoopo’s BidButler. Or you can bid by phone. You also see your current spending on bids and “overall savings”, which get continually updated.

So, how do you “win” an auction on Swoopo? By getting very lucky. That bid you put in is little more than a virtual raffle ticket, because there’s almost always someone on the planet willing to spend 50p further to beat you. Every time someone bids, the auction is extended for a few more seconds to keep it going for as long as possible. The “last bidder standing” at countdown wins. Swoopo says that winner save an average of 65% off retail.

So is there a way to beat Swoopo? Harvard Law Blog has an interesting guide, suggesting that by having bidders create an “Association of Swoopo Bidders (ASB)”, it could collectively shape how bidders work:

Example:

One item is posted on Swoopo, and its value is 225$. The Association of Swoopo Bidders (ASB) figures that if the item worth 225$, the highest bid should not exceed 37.5$. (Just follow this formula: highest bid=value/6)  THe ASB then makes a dicision that no member should bid more than 37.5$.

Then ASB will enforce the rule, meaning for any rule-breaker bid more than 150$, the rule-breaker’s name will be published on the ASB website immediately, and at the same time ASB will appoint its enforcement force (some members with free bids provided by ASB) to bid against the rule-breaker, who therefore will not be able to get the item or pay substantially more than the price the rule-breaker wanted.  The enforcement force will continue to punish the rule-breaker in the future auctions ruthlessly until the rule-breaker apologizes and convinces ASB nothing against rule will happen again.

–Note the point is whoever places the first bid above 37.5$ will NEVER get the item. In addition, the rule-breaker bidder will not get anything in the future.

But as we all know, this is unlikely to happen. Mark Gimein of The Big Money recently called the site “the evil bastard child of game theory and behavioral economics”, but also refers to it as “the crack cocaine of auction sites”. Some of their policies have received harsh criticism recently, and is provoking some plans to change. The way it is now, you can spend hundreds of quid bidding and receive nothing. Losing bidders simply lost the amount they’d spent on bids, and the site was widely criticized for this policy.

Swoopo plans to change their policy so that it losing bidders can apply the amount they’ve bid toward buying the item from Swoopo at its retail price. This will weed out some of the less serious bidders, and at least gives losing bidders something they can do with all that bid money they spent.

Recently, frugality has gained a certain mystique. Suddenly it’s “OK”- trendy even- to buy from thrift shops and clip vouchers for the supermarket.

There are plenty of us out there, however, who have always been frugal, even through the dot com boom. The World War II generation were thrifty by necessity, and most of  today (even cheapskates) can learn from them about the things we’re capable of living without, like premium satellite channels.

But at what point does frugality cross the line into plain craziness? Perhaps it is like any bad habit in that when it interferes with your daily life, you know you have a problem. Here are a few examples:

1. Thrifty, not crazy: investing £69.99 in a decent coffee maker and not stopping at the local “Fourbucks” on the way to work. In less than two months, the coffee maker will have paid for itself in what you save from not buying fancy coffee.

2. Crazy thrifty: trying to recycle coffee grounds

3. Thrifty, not crazy: buying things like baby wipes in bulk to get the best deal

4. Crazy thrifty: cutting each wipe into four pieces in an attempt to minimize the price further

5. Thrifty, not crazy: trying to walk, bike, or take public transportation to keep petrol costs under control.

6. Crazy thrifty: hitchhiking

7. Thrifty, not crazy: reusing carrier bags

8. Crazy thrifty: reusing dental floss

In other words, thriftiness should be about getting the most for your money, not just being Mr. (or Ms.) Skinflint. The people over at stopbuyingcrap.com have a good take on this philosophy. We’ve all had moments of thinking, “If I hadn’t bought this thing, I could have bought that thing that I really want.” The key is figuring out what “this” is so you can avoid buying it next time. If you do that enough, you’re being thrifty without being crazy.

[Wisebread]

Della, yesterday

Are you an attractive, slender blonde bird who likes reclining with a notebook computer that matches her couch? Or a woman who likes to sit in a meadow with your laptop, checking out new recipes for risotto or something equally exciting? If so, you’re in luck.

The recent launch of Dell’s site “Della,” made especially for women, was so tone deaf that I’m pretty sure I heard Simon Cowell making retching noises and grumbling angrily in the background.

Yeah. Other people have complained, too, perhaps none so eloquently as Kate Craig-Wood, the managing director at Memset Ltd. Dedicated Hosting. Seriously, go read it then come right back.

So, for the corporate suits who think they “get” women, here are some thoughts:

1. Painting/wearing/carrying something pink doesn’t automatically make women love it. Or a man gay. Ok, just a little.

2. Women use computers for things other than fashion and makeup tips. Think: Twitter.

3. The year is 2009. Women do things like win the Nobel Peace Prize, fly the Space Shuttle, and die on battlefields.

Furthermore, as Lindsay Lohan has proved, most women have better things to do than worry about their house looking perfect.

In other tech news: Dell has a new job opening for a corporate damage control expert. Oh nevermind. It looks like they’ve just filled the post, and made some changes to the Della site already…

[Della]

In an economic recession, spend more up front for a better return is probably the last thing on your mind. The logic is to think long term. Higher quality goods have lower maintenance costs, while purchasing cheaper items will result in a higher cost of ownership.

This “total cost of ownership” is based on the idea that the value of goods should be judged on its lifetime value, and not the immediate cost of purchase. In other words, the total cost of items should be evaluated by considering its cost on energy requirements and repair costs down the road.

Of course, not all of us have time to punch the numbers into our watt calculates, but take this case of expensive versus inexpensive washing machines from The Simple Dollar blog that illustrates this fine point. Energy and water savings are great things to count on, and while a more ‘expensive’ washing machine may not be as appealing up front, the less energy costs per cycle adds up over a number of laundry sessions.

On the other hand, it would also take an average of 15 years in order for the washing machine to “pay for itself”. So considering that most people do not keep washing machines for that long, would it be worth paying double the money up front?

My personal opinion is no, but I also don’t believe in either options. Instead, there is one fundamental alternative to consider:

Why not consume less?

There are, after all, many articles of clothing that don’t require washing after just one wearing. Those trousers you’re wearing right now could probably last for a couple more dress up sessions through the weekend. When you get around to washing it, you could also line dry it instead of using a dryer.

Of course, this argument doesn’t apply to things like expensive HDMI cables, as there is no energy savings or lowered repair costs down the road to make up for the high price. But I’m sure if we all think about our lives right now, we can find at least one area where we consume less and still maintain our quality and costs of living. And if the end objective is to have less impact on the environment”, why not switch off the laptop when you go out this evening, and instead of spending more on a hybrid vehicle, simply drive less and walk more?

We apologise for any outdated information in this article regarding Dixon’s previously branded ‘Coverplan’. This was due to a tip linking to a Ciao review article dated 29/12/2008 (and obviously being a muppet on my part). Some edits have been made below in [] to reflect the rebranding to ‘Whateverhappens’. We also discuss further policy changes and on service plan policies in our updated article here.

There have been complaints about extended warranties on electronics, such as those purchased from the DSGi group under the name  “Coverplan” [now rebranded as 'Whateverhappens']. While you may conclude that extended warranty coverage is necessary, in most cases it does not represent a good investment.

Here are five reasons why:

1. Legwork: If you buy a cover plan, you still must do all the legwork for getting your device repaired. In other words, if your widget breaks and you call them up, you still have to go through the adminstration hassle of scheduling in an appointment, potentially provide necessary evidence. [the old 'coverplan' policy required taking this to a service centre for repair also, but the new 'Whateverhappens' policy has repair personnel who can attend to this at your home]. The service centre has a contract for reimbursement. [Coverplan previously only got involved directly in two cases: (1) the repair takes longer than six weeks or (2) the item will have to be replaced. Currently the new policy has 21 days.]

In the event of replacement, you will be provided with a “comparable” item, which may be a refurbished model and not what you would buy if you were to replace the item yourself.

2. ‘Loopholes’: There are enough holes in the coverage (but no more than any normal policy) that you could use it to strain tonight’s spaghetti bolognese. For example, the terms under which the service plan will replace your stolen mobile phone are narrow enough, and the exceptions brad enough, partly to protect these companies that provide such policies with eventuality, particularly when it comes to mobile phone theft.

For example, theft coverage is suspended if:

-You have not done all you reasonably can to prevent your product from being stolen;

-You have given your product to someone else to look after;

-Your product is stolen while it is out of your view or control unless:

• it is stolen from a motor vehicle where you or someone with your authority was with the vehicle; or
• you had hidden it from view in your vehicle (for example, in a locked glove  compartment or boot), locked your vehicle, with all windows, sunroofs or roofs  closed and used all available security systems; or
• you had locked your product in your home, office or room with all windows closed and used all available security systems

The coverplan does not cover the following with regards to mobile phone extended warranties:

- Batteries, bulbs, cables and other consumable items (items which are regularly replaced).

- SIM/MMS cards.

- Damage or breakdown that is due to wind or other severe weather conditions.

- The cost of repairing or replacing a product which fails because anyone neglects, abuses or misuses the product.

(There are many more, but these are most broad exceptions to general policies.)

More importantly, the parts in bold are designed to be interpreted broadly legally. Imagine if your 2-year-old niece grabs your phone and proceeds to drool all over it to the point where it stops working. Is that neglect, abuse, or misuse? There’s a good chance that the sales representative at the POS (point-of-sale) will say “No, they’ll cover it,” while the additional coverage representative will say “Yes, it’s misuse.”

3. Profit Margins: The profit margin on extended warranties for consumer electronics is in the neighbourhood of 40 to 80%. That’s why they try to upsell it so hard to you in stores. This is also why people are likely to pay much more for these, than they are likely to recover.

4. Warranty overlaps: The term of coverage may overlap with the manufacturer’s warranty. If you buy a two-year extended warranty and the first year runs concurrently with the manufacturer’s warranty, you’re essentially throwing away half the cost of the extended warranty, because in that first year you’ll use the manufacturer’s warranty for repair or replacement.

5. Service plan vs warranty: Extended warranties are not insurance, and are not really even warranties. Extended warranties are “service plans”. A service plan is a promise to perform or pay for certain repairs or services. Besides, if you bought it with your credit card, the card may tack on an extra year to the manufacturer’s warranty. Check with your card issuer. The card’s protection may have holes, too, but at least they don’t cost you anything extra.

Have you got any personal experience with coverplan[or whateverhappens], accidental insurance, and repair coverage – good or bad? Please share them in the comments below!

Hey, someone's got to win... right?

The UK National Lottery operator Camelot have just renewed their license for another 10 years. With over two thirds of the UK (or ~70% of the UK adult population) now played the National Lottery regularly spending an average of £3 a week, that’s a pretty nice contract for a business with a licence to print money.

Surveys have concluded that during an economic recession, sales of lottery tickets go up. But what they didn’t anticipate, is that what goes up, must come down. Camelot released figures showing that lottery spending was up by £180 million in the six months following to the new year, only to decline in recently months. Charities who count on funds from the lottery are feeling squeezed. Perhaps this may have something to do with Camelot’s 4 of 5 current shareholders looking to sell their bids to potential new owners, for whatever reason.

Tough economic times can be a boon for modern day fairy tale entertainment. See film Slumdog Millionaire. So what effect does an economic downturn have on people’s tendencies to participate in games of chance like lottery games?

Theories

Every type of theory has been used to explain the ‘roller coaster effect’, ranging from natural disaster preventing people buying tickets to the recession making people hold onto cash for things like canned food and emergency flash lights. Of course, we all know the real reason is because the moon rising in the seventh house to Jupiter, and aligns with Mars, et cetera.

Here is another theory: a recent study concluded that the poorer people think they are, the more likely they are to purchase lottery tickets on a regular basis. This sets off a viscious downward spiral by exploiting poor people’s desire to escape from poverty while also preventing them from improving their finances by saving. Perhaps this discretionary spending is a lagging indicator of the economic cycle.

But… of course, somebody has to win, right? Theoretically, of course. When the Euromillions rolled over for a cool £52m over the weekend, you might have even thought to yourself, “someone’s got to win, right? It could have been me”. Are thoughts like that rational or irrational? Here’s a few thoughts on the psychology and economics of playing the lottery:

(more…)

Does haggling embarrass you? Does it make you think of that post-menopausal death crone who yells at the butcher, trying to knock a few cents off the price of a rib roast? We’ve all been there.

But haggling is a very valuable skill to have, particularly in a shaky economy. Here are a few tips for successful haggling without getting your knickers in a twist to keeping sales associates take you seriously:

1. Where to haggle: Know where you can haggle, and where you can’t. Generally, the more expensive the item, the more likely haggling will work: things like laptop computers, top-end televisions, or jewellery.  Is it really worth your time to haggle the price of a pair of socks down by 50p? Save your breath.

2. When to haggle: Knowing when to haggle is an advantage. With high-end electronics, the last couple of days of the month are your best opportunity, particularly in stores where sales staff works on commission. If you happen to know when their pay period ends, so much the better, because they’ll want to maximize the pay packet they’re about to get.

3. DAFS (Do a f–king search): Researching prices beforehand is important. There’s no reason not to do this. The world is awash in advertising, and the Internet is full of sites that will compare prices for you. A quick look around could give you the extra reference price you can use when emailing that eBay or Gumtree seller, too.

4. Walk away: Perhaps the most important “tool” you have is the ability to walk away if the sales person won’t meet your price. This is truly put to the test when you go somewhere like Shenzhen, China, where it’s actually normal practice. In other words, if you jump right into haggling on something you’ve been dying to get your hands on, it’s a dead giveaway that you want it. Walking away is at least a dignified ending to an unsuccessful haggling session. Making an ugly scene is not.

5. Cialdini Counteroffers: Know how much you’re willing to pay for an item, and make your first counteroffer to what the salesperson quotes a little lower than that. That way, you have room to give a little and still get the price you want. And if they agree to your first counteroffer, think how chuffed you’ll be.

6. Alternatives: Consider concessions other than a price break. Get them to throw in the laptop case with that new computer. Maybe they’ll give you the earrings since you are dropping an entire pay packet on the necklace. That sort of thing.

7. Be reasonable: Don’t become enraged if you can’t get the price you want. For one thing, sales associates are people too, and for another, they’ll get security to escort you from the store and then gleefully watch the security tape of it at the company party.

Finally, be realistic. If it’s something you can’t afford anyway, then maybe you shouldn’t try to get the salesperson to meet your unreasonable offer. As Lewis Carroll once said, “It’s very rude of him…To come and spoil the fun!” So if you haggle with a vendor and agree on a price, buy it. Don’t waste ten minutes of your time and theirs only to change your mind when it’s over. Otherwise, your outcome may vary. Depending on your martial arts training.