Preparing and cooking abalone made simple.
A large mollusc which grows up to 22cm in diameter, it has a shell and clings to rock between shallow water and 30 metres in depth.
The muscular foot holding the shell to the rock is the edible part and yields up to half a kilogram of edible meat when cleaned and shelled. The New Zealand abalone, called a paua, also has an edible roe sack.
To prepare, cut the foot out of a fresh abalone with a sharp knife and trim away the hard outer edge, removing the stomach and intestines as well.
Cut into 12 millimetre thick slices, wash and dry, then pound with a meat tenderizer until it doubles in size.
Lightly broil in hot butter or oil quickly; no longer than 40 seconds per side or it will end up tough and rubbery.
Serves well with lemon wedges or in salads or soups.
Read more: http://gomestic.com/cooking/how-to-prepare-and-cook-abalone
Thursday, February 10, 2011
How to Sell a Car - The Four Ways to Sell a Car
The four ways to sell a car, and their pros and cons.
The most popular way to sell a car is by private sale. This is where you place an ad in a classifieds or on a noticeboard advertising your car, and people come to your home to check out your car.
The pro is that this is usually the best way to get top price for your car.
The cons are that you have to advertise your phone number, take phone calls, have strangers come to your home, deal with no shows, and negotiate face to face – that last bit is the hardest for most people. Not everyone is a natural salesperson.
The second most common way to sell a car is by trade in at the car yard. You take your car and trade it in on a better model (in most cases).
The pros are this is by far the fastest and easiest way.
The cons are you will get less than what you would if you sold it privately.
The next way is by auction. You take your car to a car auction and sell it there.
The pros are it is fast and easy, you don’t have to be a salesperson, nobody comes to your home and you don’t deal with phone calls or no shows.
The cons are you won’t get the best price for your car, you’ll be charged an entry fee to the auction, and you also have to pay a commission to the auction house upon sale of your car.
The least common way to sell a car is by consignment. This is where a car yard sells your car for you.
The pro is this is an easy way to sell the car, it’s sold by professional car salespersons.
The con is you won’t get anywhere near what you’d get by private sale as the car yard will take a cut.
One of these four ways to sell a car will suit you better than the others .. only you, the reader, can decide.
Read more: http://athingforcars.com/buying-selling/the-four-ways-to-sell-a-car/#ixzz1DciKKTSL
The most popular way to sell a car is by private sale. This is where you place an ad in a classifieds or on a noticeboard advertising your car, and people come to your home to check out your car.
The pro is that this is usually the best way to get top price for your car.
The cons are that you have to advertise your phone number, take phone calls, have strangers come to your home, deal with no shows, and negotiate face to face – that last bit is the hardest for most people. Not everyone is a natural salesperson.
The second most common way to sell a car is by trade in at the car yard. You take your car and trade it in on a better model (in most cases).
The pros are this is by far the fastest and easiest way.
The cons are you will get less than what you would if you sold it privately.
The next way is by auction. You take your car to a car auction and sell it there.
The pros are it is fast and easy, you don’t have to be a salesperson, nobody comes to your home and you don’t deal with phone calls or no shows.
The cons are you won’t get the best price for your car, you’ll be charged an entry fee to the auction, and you also have to pay a commission to the auction house upon sale of your car.
The least common way to sell a car is by consignment. This is where a car yard sells your car for you.
The pro is this is an easy way to sell the car, it’s sold by professional car salespersons.
The con is you won’t get anywhere near what you’d get by private sale as the car yard will take a cut.
One of these four ways to sell a car will suit you better than the others .. only you, the reader, can decide.
Read more: http://athingforcars.com/buying-selling/the-four-ways-to-sell-a-car/#ixzz1DciKKTSL
Should I Build My Own Home - The Pros and Cons of Building Your Own Home
Pros and Cons of Building Your Own Home
Published on December 12, 2010 by altpferd in Business
The pros and cons of building your home, your way.
There are some distinct advantages to building your own home. These are:
Choice. You get to select every part of the new home, right down to tap fittings and floor coverings.
Quality control. You get to decide where to cost cut, and where to prioritise quality over cost.
Sustainability. You can choose to build using sustainable materials and methods.
However, there are some disadvantages to consider. These would be:
Where will you live in the meantime? Most homes take 3 to 6 months to build. You have to pay rent to live elsewhere as well as making the payments on the different building stages.
Losing the property you’re building on can happen if any of the following occur while building: job loss, interest rate rises resulting in higher repayments.
Weather delays. Bad weather can make your home take longer to complete.
Unexpected costs – there may be problems with the site that aren’t evident until after building has started.
Vandals and thieves. It is common to lose building materials and fittings to the less honest members of our society. It’s important to insure against this and realise that it can impact the finish date of the building.
Rates and other bills. You have to keep up with these as well as your regular bills at your residence.
Once the house is built, often you have further expenses such as landscaping, concreting driveways, and fittings such as security screens, painting, floor coverings.
Only you can decide if the special feeling of having chosen and built your own home is worth the disadvantages, all of which are admittedly temporary.
Read more: http://bizcovering.com/business/pros-and-cons-of-building-your-own-home/#ixzz1DcG2Rtds
Published on December 12, 2010 by altpferd in Business
The pros and cons of building your home, your way.
There are some distinct advantages to building your own home. These are:
Choice. You get to select every part of the new home, right down to tap fittings and floor coverings.
Quality control. You get to decide where to cost cut, and where to prioritise quality over cost.
Sustainability. You can choose to build using sustainable materials and methods.
However, there are some disadvantages to consider. These would be:
Where will you live in the meantime? Most homes take 3 to 6 months to build. You have to pay rent to live elsewhere as well as making the payments on the different building stages.
Losing the property you’re building on can happen if any of the following occur while building: job loss, interest rate rises resulting in higher repayments.
Weather delays. Bad weather can make your home take longer to complete.
Unexpected costs – there may be problems with the site that aren’t evident until after building has started.
Vandals and thieves. It is common to lose building materials and fittings to the less honest members of our society. It’s important to insure against this and realise that it can impact the finish date of the building.
Rates and other bills. You have to keep up with these as well as your regular bills at your residence.
Once the house is built, often you have further expenses such as landscaping, concreting driveways, and fittings such as security screens, painting, floor coverings.
Only you can decide if the special feeling of having chosen and built your own home is worth the disadvantages, all of which are admittedly temporary.
Read more: http://bizcovering.com/business/pros-and-cons-of-building-your-own-home/#ixzz1DcG2Rtds
Crash Saving - Finding Money Quickly - Emergency Money
Tips for when you’ve got that unexpected bill to pay and you’re skint.
Crash Saving for the Truly Tight Moments
Every person has one time in their lives where he/she is caught short of ready cash for an important bill or item.
Perhaps the hot water system has blown up and you need $1000 NOW. Or your car’s engine has blown up and you need $2500 NOW. Or your teenage daughter has racked up a HUGE telephone bill to her temporarily overseas boyfriend and you need $800 NOW.
Here are a collection of crash saving tips. Using one, some or all of them should result in substantial cash savings in the short term. DO NOT USE THIS AS AN EVERYDAY BUDGET, HOWEVER. Life, after all, is meant to be lived, not endured!
One of the most drastic solutions, only recommended for extreme cases, is to quit your job and take the holiday savings and use that. You had better hope you have another job to go straight to in that case or you may be saving up more problems for later which also require crash saving!
A less drastic but almost as good solution is to take your holidays from your work, and do a temporary or casual job during your holidays, in effect earning TWO incomes for the duration. You can do things such as fruit picking or office temping just to name a couple of possible temporary positions. If you do not have holidays owing, see if you can get a second job outside of your normal job hours. Ask your manager, family and friends if they have any after hours work such as cleaning!
Type up some flyers advertising cleaning, lawnmowing, weeding and other odd jobs and drop them into the letterboxes of all the houses within walking distance. Make sure you indicate in the flyers your hourly charge … don’t forget to include the possibility of a discount for pensioners, and for those homeowners who allow you to use their lawnmower or cleaning equipment rather than yours.
Have a garage sale! Declutter your house TOTALLY! Is there a kerbside collection in your area? Go around and pick up anything you can clean up and resell at your garage sale! Ask your family for their cast off clothes, Tupperware and general junk to help you out! One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. After the garage sale, box up whatever is left and take to a local market when there is one, and sell as much as you can. After the market, box up what is left and take it to a secondhand shop and take whatever they give you for the rest of the stuff. Clothes can be taken to a consignment store or sold to a preloved clothes store. Pawnshops are good for the electronic stuff and cds. They don’t give you much but anything is better than nothing!
Read more: http://gomestic.com/homemaking/crash-saving-for-the-truly-tight-moments/#ixzz1Dc9ZW4zk
Take the metals to the scrap metal place, such as metal frames, aluminum cans, copper nick nacks and whatnot, and sell it to them. Check old printers for their empty cartridges and sell them to the refill places. Take broken wooden furniture to the furniture restoration place and sell it to them. Chop up whatever they don’t buy and sell it as firewood.
The Pantry Grab is a favorite. Go RIGHT through your pantry and write down every little thing you have in there, then sit down and create a menu for as many days as possible based on what you have in your pantry. Then ONLY go to a greengrocer and butcher to buy your milk, bread, and meat, avoid supermarkets and shopping malls completely. Buy lots of cans of baked beans and make every second night baked bean night. Nutritious, filling and CHEAP! Do this for a few weeks and you should at the very least HALVE your grocery bill. Put the extra saved towards that big bill you are crash saving for!
Rice is a good healthy filler for mealtimes, as is pasta. Use them as your staples, NOT meat. Eat plenty of good vegetables, and fruit to fill up between meals, staying healthy is cheaper than going to the doctor’s and paying for prescriptions.
Leave your purse at home whenever you go out. ONLY take a set amount of cash with you if you DO shop. Freeze the credit card in a cup of water!
Need to read the paper? Go to the library! Need to get a dvd or video to entertain the kids on rainy days? Go to the library! Need a nice novel to wind down in the evening with? Go to the library! Just gotta listen to that music cd? Go to the library!
Got bicycles? Ride them! If someplace is within 5 kilometres, ride your bike there. An added bonus is you are less inclined to spend money if you have to bring your purchase home on your bicycle. Same thing works the same way if you do not have a bike and decide to walk instead of burning petrol.
Get sociable and invite yourself out every second night for dinner to a different friend or family member. Don’t worry, once the emergency saving is over you will be able to return the favours!
Cut off the internet and pay television. This is only temporary and anyway you are too busy creating interesting meals from what is in the pantry, and walking around town to save petrol! Block long distance calls from your phone and tell your children they have to put 30c into a money box every time they use your phone.
Smoking? It’d be nice to be able to just give up wouldn’t it? At the very least cut down, and use roll your owns, they cost less than a third of the price of tailormades. Booze? Live without it. It’s only temporary. Takeaways? Forget it. Stay home and if you want to eat out, set the table up in the backyard!
Crash saving is like crash dieting, good for immediate results; however, for long term financial health, you should have a sustainable budget with provision for future unforeseen emergencies.
Crash saving is only a temporary band aid solution for the immediate need. It will not be a permanent fix. However it will help you over your current financial hump and get you set to start again from scratch.
Now, go get that bill paid!
http://gomestic.com/consumer-information/the-art-of-the-thrifty-shopper/
Read more: http://gomestic.com/homemaking/crash-saving-for-the-truly-tight-moments/#ixzz1DcA3Fcli
Crash Saving for the Truly Tight Moments
Every person has one time in their lives where he/she is caught short of ready cash for an important bill or item.
Perhaps the hot water system has blown up and you need $1000 NOW. Or your car’s engine has blown up and you need $2500 NOW. Or your teenage daughter has racked up a HUGE telephone bill to her temporarily overseas boyfriend and you need $800 NOW.
Here are a collection of crash saving tips. Using one, some or all of them should result in substantial cash savings in the short term. DO NOT USE THIS AS AN EVERYDAY BUDGET, HOWEVER. Life, after all, is meant to be lived, not endured!
One of the most drastic solutions, only recommended for extreme cases, is to quit your job and take the holiday savings and use that. You had better hope you have another job to go straight to in that case or you may be saving up more problems for later which also require crash saving!
A less drastic but almost as good solution is to take your holidays from your work, and do a temporary or casual job during your holidays, in effect earning TWO incomes for the duration. You can do things such as fruit picking or office temping just to name a couple of possible temporary positions. If you do not have holidays owing, see if you can get a second job outside of your normal job hours. Ask your manager, family and friends if they have any after hours work such as cleaning!
Type up some flyers advertising cleaning, lawnmowing, weeding and other odd jobs and drop them into the letterboxes of all the houses within walking distance. Make sure you indicate in the flyers your hourly charge … don’t forget to include the possibility of a discount for pensioners, and for those homeowners who allow you to use their lawnmower or cleaning equipment rather than yours.
Have a garage sale! Declutter your house TOTALLY! Is there a kerbside collection in your area? Go around and pick up anything you can clean up and resell at your garage sale! Ask your family for their cast off clothes, Tupperware and general junk to help you out! One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. After the garage sale, box up whatever is left and take to a local market when there is one, and sell as much as you can. After the market, box up what is left and take it to a secondhand shop and take whatever they give you for the rest of the stuff. Clothes can be taken to a consignment store or sold to a preloved clothes store. Pawnshops are good for the electronic stuff and cds. They don’t give you much but anything is better than nothing!
Read more: http://gomestic.com/homemaking/crash-saving-for-the-truly-tight-moments/#ixzz1Dc9ZW4zk
Take the metals to the scrap metal place, such as metal frames, aluminum cans, copper nick nacks and whatnot, and sell it to them. Check old printers for their empty cartridges and sell them to the refill places. Take broken wooden furniture to the furniture restoration place and sell it to them. Chop up whatever they don’t buy and sell it as firewood.
The Pantry Grab is a favorite. Go RIGHT through your pantry and write down every little thing you have in there, then sit down and create a menu for as many days as possible based on what you have in your pantry. Then ONLY go to a greengrocer and butcher to buy your milk, bread, and meat, avoid supermarkets and shopping malls completely. Buy lots of cans of baked beans and make every second night baked bean night. Nutritious, filling and CHEAP! Do this for a few weeks and you should at the very least HALVE your grocery bill. Put the extra saved towards that big bill you are crash saving for!
Rice is a good healthy filler for mealtimes, as is pasta. Use them as your staples, NOT meat. Eat plenty of good vegetables, and fruit to fill up between meals, staying healthy is cheaper than going to the doctor’s and paying for prescriptions.
Leave your purse at home whenever you go out. ONLY take a set amount of cash with you if you DO shop. Freeze the credit card in a cup of water!
Need to read the paper? Go to the library! Need to get a dvd or video to entertain the kids on rainy days? Go to the library! Need a nice novel to wind down in the evening with? Go to the library! Just gotta listen to that music cd? Go to the library!
Got bicycles? Ride them! If someplace is within 5 kilometres, ride your bike there. An added bonus is you are less inclined to spend money if you have to bring your purchase home on your bicycle. Same thing works the same way if you do not have a bike and decide to walk instead of burning petrol.
Get sociable and invite yourself out every second night for dinner to a different friend or family member. Don’t worry, once the emergency saving is over you will be able to return the favours!
Cut off the internet and pay television. This is only temporary and anyway you are too busy creating interesting meals from what is in the pantry, and walking around town to save petrol! Block long distance calls from your phone and tell your children they have to put 30c into a money box every time they use your phone.
Smoking? It’d be nice to be able to just give up wouldn’t it? At the very least cut down, and use roll your owns, they cost less than a third of the price of tailormades. Booze? Live without it. It’s only temporary. Takeaways? Forget it. Stay home and if you want to eat out, set the table up in the backyard!
Crash saving is like crash dieting, good for immediate results; however, for long term financial health, you should have a sustainable budget with provision for future unforeseen emergencies.
Crash saving is only a temporary band aid solution for the immediate need. It will not be a permanent fix. However it will help you over your current financial hump and get you set to start again from scratch.
Now, go get that bill paid!
http://gomestic.com/consumer-information/the-art-of-the-thrifty-shopper/
Read more: http://gomestic.com/homemaking/crash-saving-for-the-truly-tight-moments/#ixzz1DcA3Fcli
How to Be a Thrifty Shopper
The Art of The Thrifty Shopper
by altpferd on Dec 06, 2010
Shopping thriftily has never been made easier. How do I save money shopping?
First, let me tell you why I am a confirmed opportunity shop, garage sale and flea market prowler. Number one reason is, I wear a lot of jeans, and I wear them hard. I do a lot of physical stuff and they get pretty worn pretty quickly. So I go through a lot of them. Now, I can buy them new for between $30 – $80 for the ordinary brands, more if you want to go upmarket. At my local opportunity shop I can obtain nearly new jeans for $3-$5. Often they are brands I could never afford to buy new, such as Jeanswest, Just Jeans and the occasional Levis. My husband loves the Wrangler brand, they go as high as $120 new! I don’t know why people throw them out to the op shops, maybe they grow out of them or something?! Anyway, this way I can get at least 4 pairs of jeans for the price of 1 pair new.
Number 2 reason is, I have children. By the time I have forked over $20 each for the new T-shirts and got them home they’ve grown out of them! So I toddle over to the thrift shop and pick up all these lovely clothes for 50 cents, $1, $2 … also I can buy them all the toys their toybox can handle for less than $5. And all those books going for 5 cents each! Even coloring in books that haven’t been used.
I could go on but I think you’ve got the general idea. Now let me give you a few tips on how to get the best out of your thrift shop experience …
If you make your own clothes, sometimes it’s cheaper to buy a secondhand garment for the buttons, clips and zippers than to buy them new. Be picky – never buy holey or worn clothes unless you can fix them quickly and easily. Make sure the garment fits well and comfortably. Even if it’s cheap, don’t waste your money buying something unsuitable.
Become an official Op Shop Prowler – visit your local ones regularly with a list of sizes and items to look out for. I keep a list in my purse of all the current shoe and garment sizes in our family, and update it every time my children grow out of something. Watch out for 1/2 price and $5 a bag sales, it is amazing what you can stuff into one plastic bag. Remember, volunteer workers often get first pick of all the goods that pass through the shop, so give something back to the community and become a volunteer if you get the chance.
Two items that can really knock a dent in my budget are school uniforms and children’s shoes. So I keep an eye out for good examples of these and snap them up whenever I can; even if they are a bit big, I can always put them away for the children to grow into. The smaller ones and the ones my children grow out of, I can sell through the school newsletter.
About mid-year I start looking out for potential gifts in newish condition for Christmas gifts. Things like toys, vases, bicycles, etc. Wait until closer to Christmas and you’re fighting everyone else for these items! Garage sales are particularly good for these items. It is amazing how many people buy things then never use them.
Happy shopping!
http://gomestic.com/homemaking/crash-saving-for-the-truly-tight-moments/
by altpferd on Dec 06, 2010
Shopping thriftily has never been made easier. How do I save money shopping?
First, let me tell you why I am a confirmed opportunity shop, garage sale and flea market prowler. Number one reason is, I wear a lot of jeans, and I wear them hard. I do a lot of physical stuff and they get pretty worn pretty quickly. So I go through a lot of them. Now, I can buy them new for between $30 – $80 for the ordinary brands, more if you want to go upmarket. At my local opportunity shop I can obtain nearly new jeans for $3-$5. Often they are brands I could never afford to buy new, such as Jeanswest, Just Jeans and the occasional Levis. My husband loves the Wrangler brand, they go as high as $120 new! I don’t know why people throw them out to the op shops, maybe they grow out of them or something?! Anyway, this way I can get at least 4 pairs of jeans for the price of 1 pair new.
Number 2 reason is, I have children. By the time I have forked over $20 each for the new T-shirts and got them home they’ve grown out of them! So I toddle over to the thrift shop and pick up all these lovely clothes for 50 cents, $1, $2 … also I can buy them all the toys their toybox can handle for less than $5. And all those books going for 5 cents each! Even coloring in books that haven’t been used.
I could go on but I think you’ve got the general idea. Now let me give you a few tips on how to get the best out of your thrift shop experience …
If you make your own clothes, sometimes it’s cheaper to buy a secondhand garment for the buttons, clips and zippers than to buy them new. Be picky – never buy holey or worn clothes unless you can fix them quickly and easily. Make sure the garment fits well and comfortably. Even if it’s cheap, don’t waste your money buying something unsuitable.
Become an official Op Shop Prowler – visit your local ones regularly with a list of sizes and items to look out for. I keep a list in my purse of all the current shoe and garment sizes in our family, and update it every time my children grow out of something. Watch out for 1/2 price and $5 a bag sales, it is amazing what you can stuff into one plastic bag. Remember, volunteer workers often get first pick of all the goods that pass through the shop, so give something back to the community and become a volunteer if you get the chance.
Two items that can really knock a dent in my budget are school uniforms and children’s shoes. So I keep an eye out for good examples of these and snap them up whenever I can; even if they are a bit big, I can always put them away for the children to grow into. The smaller ones and the ones my children grow out of, I can sell through the school newsletter.
About mid-year I start looking out for potential gifts in newish condition for Christmas gifts. Things like toys, vases, bicycles, etc. Wait until closer to Christmas and you’re fighting everyone else for these items! Garage sales are particularly good for these items. It is amazing how many people buy things then never use them.
Happy shopping!
http://gomestic.com/homemaking/crash-saving-for-the-truly-tight-moments/
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
How to get paid to write from home
Considering working from home as a writer? Check out this little article comparing two paid to write sites:
http://bizcovering.com/small-business/comparing-factoidz-and-triond-earnings-should-i-write-on-factoidz-or-triond/
http://bizcovering.com/small-business/comparing-factoidz-and-triond-earnings-should-i-write-on-factoidz-or-triond/
How to save money on eggs
Like eggs? Find eggs too expensive? Discover how to get eggs for about 30 cents a dozen in this article:
http://gomestic.com/rural-living/scrimper-money-saving-expert-saving-money-on-eggs/
http://gomestic.com/rural-living/scrimper-money-saving-expert-saving-money-on-eggs/
How to stick to a budget
Need to know how to overcome pressures that make it hard to stick to your budget? Your kids or your mother in law pressuring you to spend, spend, spend?
Read this article on resisting that pressure.
http://gomestic.com/personal-finance/scrimper-money-saving-expert-tip-how-to-stick-to-a-budget/
Read this article on resisting that pressure.
http://gomestic.com/personal-finance/scrimper-money-saving-expert-tip-how-to-stick-to-a-budget/
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Home Business Ideas - Headstone cleaning and grave site maintenance
Have you considered starting up a headstone cleaning and gravesite maintenance business? This is a nice little niche business that has very flexible hours. Step by step instructions are listed here along with useful information: http://factoidz.com/how-to-start-a-small-business-headstone-cleaning-and-grave-site-maintenance/
Home business ideas - Optioning Cell Phone Tower Locations
Have you considered optioning to purchase hilltop properties for mobile phone and other transmission towers to lease back from you as a source of income?
Find all the details on how to do this here: http://factoidz.com/cell-phone-tower-leasing-optioning-hilltop-properties-as-a-business/
Find all the details on how to do this here: http://factoidz.com/cell-phone-tower-leasing-optioning-hilltop-properties-as-a-business/
Saving money and time by once a month cooking
Have you considered cooking all your family's meals on one day a month, so all you have to do is come home at the end of the day, take the meal out of the freezer (or fridge if you've defrosted it) and pop it into the microwave, in order to feed your family healthy, cheap meals at the end of every day, no matter how busy you might be?
Check out all the best tips on cooking once a month at: http://gomestic.com/cooking/scrimper-money-saving-expert-tip-once-a-month-cooking/
Check out all the best tips on cooking once a month at: http://gomestic.com/cooking/scrimper-money-saving-expert-tip-once-a-month-cooking/
Saving Money on Groceries
The most important thing you can do to save money on groceries is to make a list and stick to it.
There are some very good tips on using shopping lists to save money on groceries here: http://gomestic.com/homemaking/scrimper-money-saving-expert-tip-grocery-shopping-on-a-budget/
There are some very good tips on using shopping lists to save money on groceries here: http://gomestic.com/homemaking/scrimper-money-saving-expert-tip-grocery-shopping-on-a-budget/
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