US Finance World

More home-owners than ever are choosing a lick of paint and new wallpaper to improve their home, according to Halifax.

Total spending by UK households on DIY has fallen to its lowest level since 1998, according to new research by Lloyds TSB. On average, we are now spending just £352 per household – a 13% fall since 2009.

Part of the problem is that maintaining – or improving – our homes is expensive, and money is tight for many of us right now.

The good news is, if you pay for your home improvements in the best possible way, you can save significant sums of money.

So, if you are planning to carry out some home improvements this summer, what’s the best way to pay for them?

There are different ways to borrow and which you choose can depend on how much you are planning to spend.

Small jobs like painting and maybe even wallpapering you might attempt yourself, and they tend to cost a few hundred pounds up to perhaps £1,000. New i

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Chik-Fil-A hosted their annual “Cow Appreciation Day” last week. If you went to the restaurant fully dressed as a cow, you got a free meal. If you wore just a little cow gear, you got a free entree. We decided that it would be fun so we made some simple costumes from white clothes we already had by taping on some printed cow spots. We pinned some beanie cows to our hats and off we went. We each got a the full free meal so it was a free dinner for us in exchange for just a little bit of creativity and effort.

The whole evening was pretty fun, too. Several other “cows” were there so we got to see how other people dressed up. The management had the cow mascot out playing games with the kids and all of the staff was dressed as cows. It was a fun summer activity. Something different, something silly, and something free.

Of course, when we got there some jerk behind us in line had to say, “No way would I humiliate myself like that just for free food.” I just smiled and said, “Okay.” Personally, I think he was a little jealous that other people were getting free food and he wasn’t. Maybe he was just

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Its the time of your life when youre most likely to want to travel, yet getting insurance has never been trickier.

A significant number of over 50s are being held back from going on holiday due to difficulties with getting suitable travel insurance, new research from Lloyds TSB has found.

The firm found that a little more than a quarter (26%) of over 50s have experienced travel insurance issues, with a variety of different factors causing these difficulties. 15% were refused cover due to an existing illness or injury, a figure which rises to 16% for the over 60s. I have seen at first hand just how difficult it can be – my own father underwent a couple of complex medical procedures last year, and I know that it was far from easy arranging cover for their recent holidays.

Around 11% of over 50s have had their applications for insurance turned down due to their age, rising to 16% for those over 60.

The trouble is that for many over 50s, this is the stage in their life when they are finally free to do a bit of travelling. T

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Photographer: Alessandra Benedetti/Bloomberg.

I’m not a bottom fisher, value buyer or knife catcher. Because markets are never wrong, but opinions often are, I hold fast to the philosophy that one must acquiesce to the market — not argue with it. To that end, I see a security plunging to multi-month lows as something to avoid, not an investment to add to my portfolio.

Still, most investors are intrigued by the notion of a bargain and many are now undoubtedly looking at Europe, whose distressed and debt-riddled PIIGS (the economies of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) are continuing an historic slow-motion collapse that has the potential to tear the European Union apart.

I last wrote about Europe’s debt crisis in September. Since then, despite a battery of interventions, proclamations, meetings, regulations and bailouts, the financial and social crisis has deteriorated.

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Becci Hethcoat’s husband went to the store to run a few errands and came home with a hot tub. And not just any hot tub — a top-of-the-line, six-person spa, complete with a built-in waterfall, colored LED lights and an iPod dock. The family wasn’t in the market for a soaking pool, says the Wheaton, Ill., artist, but the dealer seemed to be “really hurting for business” and had slashed the price on the deluxe tub to an irresistible $10,000, a cut of nearly 30 percent.

But not everything about the family’s new addition went down swimmingly with Hethcoat. The discounted model was available in only one color, a flat white that she says shows any hint of dirt. Then there are all the fancy extra features: “I’m not a bells-and-whistles gal,” says Hethcoat. The colored lights are unnecessarily “froufrou,” she says, and the spa’s built-in iPod dock has already conked out. “The more stuff you get with it, the more things to break,” says Hethcoat, sighing.

Who’s up for a dip?

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