Interesting article on BBC News about how pound shops in the UK are handling problems like rising inflation. They have an interesting view on this as they see it as a shift in the products they carry rather than something that is damaging their business. So, items they sold at £1 last year might have gone out of budget and not be on their shelves any more, but items that sold at 90p in other shops are now more expensive…
Just had a brilliant experience at Boots the other day. The customer in front of me had a big pile of shopping that she popped in front of the cashier. The girl who was serving her took a quick look over the items in front of her and split them into two piles. She explained that if she processed them as 2 transactions, the first transaction would entitle the shopper to a £5 discount coupon which could then be used…
I’ve been reading how in the US investors have access to a financial instrument called a Self-Directed IRA which allows them to invest their retirement fund into real estate or to use it to invest in a business. It’s a great idea and is particularly attractive in the current turbulent market where investing in traditional stocks and shares seems like a recipe for disaster. Here’s a diagrammatic overview of how it works The starting point of the process is your…
Came across an interesting service today that lets you verify if a VAT number someone has supplied to you is correct and valid. It’s called VIES and is managed by the European Commission‘s Taxation and Customs Union Directorate-General. It looks like this: All you need to do is provide the member state the VAT number belongs to, the VAT number itself and the system returns the name and address the VAT number is registered to. Useful thing to know isn’t…
Do you ever get those days when everything seems to have got confused? Well, I had a slip like that today. I was looking up information about Fannie Mae, the US mortgage-lending company and instead my search result took me to Fannie May, a purveyor of fine chocolates. Quite a bit of a difference, though interestingly Fannie May was rescued from bankruptcy a few years ago, in a pretty similar fashion to the way the US government rescued Fannie Mae…
Well, I’ve just booked out tickets for our trip to my graduation in November. I’ve never been to Edinburgh so we’ll be staying there a couple of days to explore the place too. My parents are planning to come too so that should be nice. The only thing left now is to book my graduation gown. Let’s hope they have one my size.