Here’s a top offer from a top hotel group.
Principal Hayley Hotels have launched an “Open to Offers” competition where the (very, VERY) lucky winner will have their mortgage or rent paid for a year.
Even better, entering is a breeze – all you have to do is fill in your name, email address and postcode on the [...]

Great story on Sky News about a motel manager in New Zealand who’s banned an entire town from staying in his holiday complex of studio apartments and villas.
The town in question is Wainuiomata, population circa 17,000 – none of whom are now welcome at the Supreme Motor Lodge in Palmerston North, NZ.
The reason for this [...]

Europe’s biggest all-singing, all-dancing consumer poll, the Readers’ Digest Trusted Brands survey, has released its results for 2009.
Research is conducted in 16 countries to find the top 20 “Brand Specifics” that are common to all countries.  There’s also a “Local Categories” list where each country includes 20 top brands of their own choice.
And so to [...]

La la la la la!  Three weeks on from our emotional house move and home life has improved heaps.
The house itself seems to have accepted me and is now allowing me unimpeded access as opposed to its previous No Entry stance.
Inside, the box-to-floor-space ratio has decreased massively, so much so that we’ve even had some [...]

Well, it’s been a week since our moving out/moving in adventures, and my, what a bundle of fun it’s been.
We’ve had tears, we’ve had a tantrum – more about that later – and we’ve even had tentative excitement about the new house: we think we’re going to like living there!Â
A week in, and it’s beginning [...]

At last, our reluctant moving saga is almost at an end, and I’m happy to report that great progress has been made in the past week, despite a bit of a false start.
Last weekend, we decided to postpone Valentine’s Day even though it was our first one as a married couple. (Should I be concerned…??!)
Instead, [...]

And soooo, the end is near, it’s time to faaaace, the final cuuurtain.
Oh god, that reminds me, I need to wash the curtains. Yet another thing to add to the ever-increasing list of Stuff To Be Done before we move out of our house in a week’s time.
Number one, of course, should really be packing.  [...]

Just as Jane has kicked off a diary of her house buying adventures, I thought I’d be regaling you for weeks to come with tales of woe as I searched for a rented home.
But no!  Call it luck, call it fate, call it an over-saturated rental market – hell, call it whatever you like, I [...]

Normally when I’m on holiday, I’m far more inclined towards trash TV than anything remotely brain-taxing, but this Christmas I’m going to tune into a Radio 4 special about the economy (Today programme, 31 December).
The fact that this particular radio show is being edited by Jarvis Cocker – who I’ve seen in concert, oh, about [...]

Brookside Close – the whole thing – is going under the hammer today.  All 13 properties on Merseyside’s most famous cul-de-sac are being sold at auction with a guide price of £550,000- £600,000.
It seems quite fitting that the number of houses is an unlucky 13.
Previous residents have suffered an entire catalogue of disasters including a [...]