Your car should be one of your most prized possessions. From the first time you drove your car to the last time you see it, your car will bring a significant value into your life. While difficult at times, maintaining the value of your car is extremely important, especially if you plan on selling it in the near future.

The following tips will help maximize the value of your vehicle, regardless of how long you’ve owned it:

Garage Your Vehicle

Try to park your car in the garage. This will help protect it from the outside elements when you’re not driving.

If you don’t have a garage to park in, make sure to purchase and use a protective cover for your vehicle. They aren’t very expensive, but the extra protection can help you increase the value of your vehicle down the road.

Garages aren’t always an option if you live in a big city, especially with the rising costs of parking spaces. Aim to park your vehicle in a garage during the winter months when the snow and rain can cause rust and heavily affect the paint quality.

Keep an Accurate Maintenance Log

Accurate maintenance logs are important for a variety of reasons. When it comes time to sell your vehicle, having a paper trail of oil changes and tune ups will be proof enough for the buyer that the car is in good condition. If you plan on trading it in, you’ll have more negotiating power over the trade-in value. If taking out a car title loan is in your future, these records can help you get a larger sum of money from the loan company.

Whenever you take your vehicle in for an oil change or for regular service, make sure you keep every receipt and maintain an accurate log.

Watch for Curbs

Careless drivers always have issues with running into curbs when turning around corners. If your car hits a curb, your alloy wheels will scratch easily, potentially costing you a significant of money down the road when you try to make a sale.

Play it safe and slow down when going around corners. Your car will maintain its value for a longer period of time.

Don’t Smoke in your Vehicle

Do not smoke inside of your vehicle. Removing cigarette smoke from the upholstery of a vehicle can be very costly, and in some cases, impossible. You’ll have a difficult time selling your vehicle for market value, if you’ll be able to sell it at all.

While you won’t be able to detect the smell of smoke inside your vehicle, other people will. If the interior of the vehicle smells like smoke now, be sure to get it detailed extensively as soon as possible and use air fresheners until you’ve determined the smell has completely disappeared.

Clean the Inside on a Regular Basis

Similar to regular engine maintenance, cleaning the interior of your vehicle at least every other week is essential to keeping its value as high as possible.

Beyond vacuuming, car owners need to shampoo the carpets and seats, clean the steering wheel and cup holders, and apply protective sealant for future stain prevention. The sweat you put into cleaning your vehicle now will pay off huge in the future.

While purchasing a car is never considered an investment, you must invest your own time into regular upkeep and maintenance in order to maximize the car’s value in the future. By doing so, you could be adding thousands of dollars to your vehicle’s value.

Forget Cristiano Ronaldo, ditch the rugby world cup and don’t worry about the latest F1 race as cricket is where all the action is at! For many, cricket is the one sport that really captures people’s attention and it is a popular sport all over the world from the UK and the Caribbean to Australia. And it isn’t only a great game to watch but it is also heaps of fun to play and anyone who wants to up their cricket game and improve their skills will need to invest in a good quality bat and balls.

By far the best way to find a great bat to play with is to look online and the internet is home to some unbeatable deals in terms of cost and value. Good quality cricket bats for sale are not so easy to come by, so it is important to set aside some time to research the company before buying anything to ensure that they have a solid reputation in the sector.

Kookaburra Bats

One of the best brands that make great quality bats is Kookaburra and here are some fast facts about Kookaburra to help cricket fans to get a better idea about what makes their bats so special:

• They were established more than a century ago
• Their name is synonymous with cricket
• They are famous for producing good quality gear for cricket players of all ages
• They offer a large selection of bats to choose from

Fans of cricket from all over the world will be familiar with the famous Australian kingfisher logo that represents the Kookaburra brand and anyone who wants to invest in an innovative, sturdy and overall high quality bat should look to buy one made by Kookaburra.

Shop Online

Anyone looking to up their game, whether an inexperienced junior or an experienced pro, shopping online is the best way to get hold of good quality cricket gear.

Below are a few of the pieces of equipment that any budding Shane Warne will need:

• A bat
• Batting pads
• Balls
• A bag
• Gloves
• Helmet
• Footwear
• A set of stumps

A bowling machine can come in handy for anyone who doesn’t have someone to regularly practice with and it is a good idea to ensure to erect a net to avoid any accidents.

The great thing about shopping online is that the highest quality of cricket bats can be found with a quick search for an affordable price. The gear will be delivered, so there is no need to worry about finding the time to collect it and without the high overheads that shops incur; companies can afford to sell high quality goods for far less.

From bats to protective clothing, get more active by playing more cricket whether it’s with some friends down the local park or as part of a team.

Shopping has never been so easy with the inception of the internet. Consumers can find clothing, accessories, electronics, etc, all at the tips of their fingers. With all this variety, it’s hard to tell if web sites are offering the best possible prices for goods and services. How can one be certain that they aren’t paying too much? There are many answers to this very question.

The first thing a customer can do is simply compare prices. With the power of the internet, it is not hard to find the same product offered by different companies. The easiest thing to do is simply look for the product on a different website. Search browsers make this easy by offering a shopping search. Just type in the product you are looking for and you’ll see the product and the multiple websites it is listed on.

The internet also offers many coupon websites as well. One of the better ways to acquire coupons is by using the Honey plugin for the Google Chrome browser. This plugin will search the internet and automatically try to utilize different coupon codes on e-commerce checkout pages. It takes the tedious nature of searching for coupons out of the picture. The built-in logic is also smart enough to apply the best coupon and not just the first one that works.

Another popular site for getting spectacular deals on the internet is a website called Groupon. Groupon is a website where you can buy discounted products and/or services. This site has truly become a norm for the thrifty shoppers of the world. With the ability to use your location to find local business, Groupon makes it easy to get discounted items services near you.

There are various auction sites out there that will allow you to procure products at auction prices. The first one to come to mind is Ebay. This is a very nice site which allows you to bid on a particular item and purchase products for a fraction of the retail price. It is a very good site for collectors too

Probably the most well-known site to get great deals is Amazon.com. Amazon allows customers to buy New or pre-owned items from their website. With one of the largest retail inventories on the internet, it is easy to find the right product you are looking for. To top it off, with a Prime membership, you can get free shipping on all purchases as well.

Finally there are many wholesale sites out there such as overstock.com. These sites offer all the products known and trusted at a fraction of the cost. Overstock.com even offers a rewards program where a consumer can earn money towards a future purchase.

The power offered to the savvy online shopper is truly amazing. With a little bit of work, aided by all the e-commerce tools the internet provides, a consumer can get the most out of his or her money.

I get it, talking about a will can be upsetting to some, but all of us will leave this world at some point. Won’t it give you peace knowing that your surviving family would receive the right asset you want to leave each of them without anyone getting left behind and escalating to challenge a will you created?

Let’s play a scenario. What if you are to die without creating a last will or testament in any form? What would happen to your assets (home, car, jewelleries, collections, money, etc.?) Apart from being passed to someone you hadn’t intended, the people you love and want to receive it might not get anything at all.

Dying without a will. When you die without a will, the law will decide who gets what and how much. It won’t matter what your relationship is with those people when you were alive.

Say you have a bother that you love dearly, and a father who left you decades ago and hadn’t contacted you ever since, dying without a will allows the law give EVERYTHING to your father and NOTHING to your brother.

By leaving a will that states clearly who should get your money and property when you die, you’ll be preventing unwanted distress at an already difficult time for your family and loved ones. Many parents have had to sue their own children just to get a portion of their partner’s estate when their unmarried partner dies. In this situation, the law affirms that the children get everything.

The deal with intestacy. Dying without a validly created will is called dying intestate or simply intestacy. The law about exactly who gets what differs in many countries, but there are common issues wherever you live.

The common rules law follows if you die without a will:

• If you are not married and not in a civil partnership, your partner won’t be legally entitled to any of your assets when you die.

• If you are married, your spouse may inherit most or even all of your estate. The children may not get anything, except in some counties. This is true even if you separated, but not divorced.

• If you have children or grandchildren, how much assets they’re entitled to will depend where you live, so it’s better if you make a will to decide this yourself.

• An inheritance tax that your estate needs to pay may be higher than it would be if you had created a will.

• If you die with no living close relatives, everything will belong to the Crown or to the government. This law is referred to as bona vacantia.

The only way to ensure that your wishes are carried out is to create a will and keep it up-to-date whenever possible. Also, it’s a good practice to equally divide your assets since a family member can challenge a will if they feel left out of it. If you’ve been putting off writing a last will, you shouldn’t. You’ll be saving your family a lot of heartache when you do, making bereavement less painful, so they can go on with their life when you’re gone.

Pocket money is a great way to reward your children, teach them about the value of money and can give them a sense of pride in their possessions when they’ve bought something with their own money. Problems can arise with pocket money however, such as how much do you give? How often? And when to increase it or take it away. Having been through this with my 3 I want to give you a few tips on how best to manage pocket money.

Set Out the Ground Rules

  

When you first start giving pocket money to the kids it is important that you sit down with them and lay out some rules about how it will work. Firstly, I wanted to remind my kids that this is not free money just because you’re my child, the money must be earned, chores, good behaviour, good grades, a kind act, whatever it is that you want to see from your child, let them know that as long as you see it, the money will be there. Let your kids know that you will also refuse to give them pocket money if you see bad behaviour or an unwillingness to pay attention to the rules that you have set out. Even more important is that once you’ve established the rules, you must enforce them, this way your child will fully understand what they have to do to get the money and teaches them that hard work has its rewards.

Another important part of setting out the rules is giving your child guidelines on what the money is to be spent on. Now, there is no need to be draconian with this but remember that the purpose of pocket money is not only a reward but a way to educate your child in learning the value of money. With this being said I always felt it was important that my children didn’t waste their money. What I did with my 3 was ask them to tell me what they were going to buy with it before they spent it, I very rarely told them that they couldn’t buy what they told me but I would always have a conversation with them about it. Doing this just gives your child the opportunity to think again about their purchase and means that they are less likely to make rash purchases.

When to Increase

  

If you are like me and have more than one child then it is important that the pocket money situation remains fair between, in my case, between all 3 children. I began giving them money at the same ages and increased pocket money at the same ages as well. My 13 year old would hit the roof if he thought he was only receiving the same as my 11 year old. Keep it fair and you won’t have any worries. Something that also worked better than I imagined was my savings bonus scheme. I told all of my children that for every penny or pound that they had saved by the end of the month, that I would match it for them. I honestly didn’t think any of them would really save much but for them it became a sort of game, they would battle it out for who could save the most. I strongly believe that this will help them in the future in saving money when they begin to earn.
I know some parents who don’t like to give pocket money and prefer to just buy things for their children when they have been well behaved. I don’t disagree with this strategy but for me I think that pocket money not only rewards your child but truly teaches them the value of money and how to manage their money for the future.