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The way the British pound is going abroad right now means that many Brit’s are simply unable to afford a nice holiday overseas. The pound buys barely over 1.20 euro’s at the moment which has to be a major turn off.

But most of us still need a holiday - right?

With the advent of those cheap holiday packages to Spain, Cyprus, Portugal and the like, the average British family abandoned the English seaside in their droves because basically a holiday on English soil simply became too expensive compared to the Costa’s and the Algarve. Those charming family-run B&B’s and small hotels which attracted the working man and his family to places like Blackpool years ago changed from offering good budget accommodation to 4 star luxury establishments sporting ’we do not cater for children’ signs.

Also those charming country cottages now charge the equivalent of a stay in a five star hotel - who on earth can afford that!

Little wonder many of those places sit empty throughout the year…

I have some great news. A holiday in Britain in a self-catering property actually is an affordable option; why not check out this site : Our Holiday Rental Homes - there’s a good list of properties around the UK many of which are under £400 a week and all in very nice locations.

Have a holiday at home and be a tourist in your own country for a change!

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If you are not in a position to work outside the home for one reason or another - having small children is a pretty good reason - there is still no need to assume you have no recourse to earning some cash of your own.

The opportunities are plenty and available even if you need to do some research to find out just what you can do yourself. What are you good at…what materials do you have to hand?

You don’t always need a computer to make money at home, offering specific services or putting your creative talents to work can bring great rewards. You can also take a  short term home study course which will equip you with the skills to do a whole range of things.

A few years back my friend was in pretty much the same boat as I was. Small kids still at school, no real employment options locally but in dire need of some extra cash. She had a go at several ideas; once making pillows for dog baskets which would have been a goer for selling at the local markets had three pet shops not opened in a short space of time nearby and sold the same items for near to nothing. She did alot of childminding, which she loved, but yearned for something creative.

She took a part time course in French Polishing  at the local college and in a few months was qualified. Actually she was able to take on work while still doing the course. She turned out to be quite proficient at the work and loved the hands-on aspect of it and used her garage as her workshop.

She placed an ad in the local classifieds and within six weeks had more work than she knew what to do with. She specialised in chairs, desks and tables and within time even her husband tossed in his warehouse job and joined her in the venture. Eight years later and they are doing this full time and raking it in!

Louise would never have considered French Polishing as a sideline yet once she had a go at it realised it is the kind of work that is great for creative women. There were no firms doing such work in her area so she had the monopoly and people with furniture will pay big money for having their heirlooms restored in this way.

So maybe this is an idea to consider? if you want to work from home with the spare time you have available, like working with furniture and want to be creative and reap the financial benefits of a job well done then have a think about doing a similar course. Maybe you are good with a sewing machine and can repair or restore curtains; or even run up childrens clothes from patterns provided by your customers…

Working from the home does not mean you are limited to taking in ironing/washing or cleaning other peoples homes. Sometimes the biggest business empires can trace their origins back to the home or kitchen.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Remember back to the very early days of this blog when we talked about setting yourself up at home to make some extra cash? we initially talked about doing this via the make money blogging route and discussed ways to get yourself a domain and setting up your blog.

So, how’s it going?

By now you should be well along in your blogging ( I even got my sister involved in doing this ) and so it is time to start getting paid for doing this - if you haven’t done so already.

There are a good number of blog advertising sites around and I am signed up with several - you will note some paid posts on this site from time to time - and so far, with one or two exceptions, I am pretty happy with the rewards. I’m not going to be a millionaire by any means but the cash has been steadily banking up and has financed birthdays and some nice purchases along the way, as well as some of the usual bills.

Here are some companies worth signing up with; I have chosen them as their registration process is simple and they pay up with no hassles. Keep in mind though that your blog will be accepted more readily if you have a nice layout, good spelling/grammar ( we covered this earlier on ) and no links to any porn/gambling sites.

* Sponsored Reviews  - You bid a price for the Opps you want to do. They contact you if you get them. Good company.

* Pay Per Post - Very popular but have had their issues recently. You must post with do-follows and really need a decent Google page rank to get a good choice of Opps. Avoid those Opps with a ’sponsored by’ button as Google tracks these and slaps your PR. Can be very lucrative work though.

* Social Spark - The new IZEA venture (who also run PPP). Exciting in some ways but yet to prove themselves. You get loads of chances to increase your links and get some jobs as well. Friendly company - good for starters too.

* Smorty - easy for starters to sign up. No issues with them at all but not a get-rich-quick company.

* PayU2Blog - Am happy enough with them. Easy jobs - paid every two weeks. Most tasks are $5.00 for 60 words which anyone can handle but you have to avoid your posts being too spammy. They send you a group of Opps each week - anywhere from 5 to 7 opps at a time and you have a time limit to submit them. Regular cash.

* LoudLaunch - Great company with good Opps but they take several months to approve a blog; they are ‘choosy’ about the blogs they accept so make sure your content is good.

These companies are all based in the US but accept bloggers from all over the world; their sign up process is easy and takes about 3-5 days to be approved. Should they reject your blog they usually give you a reason and allow you to correct any issue and resubmit your blog.  Here’s some companies which I have had experience with but don’t recommend too highly for beginners:

* Review Me - As for Loud Launch; choosy and quite sporadic with the assignments. I’ve been with them for 8 months and have received no Opps at all.

* Blogsvertise - Not enough work from them to rate too highly but they pay up quickly enough. They insist on do-follows in their Opps.

* Bloggerwave - a company that we had high hopes for as it is Europe based. Very little work from them but a great concept if they could only expand more. More like a challenge to PPP but it hasn’t happened as yet.

* SnapBomb - A new company but it is not for me. I have posted for them on two occasions and nothing since. They don’t pay out for a ridiculous ninety days !

* BuyBlogReviews - I do not understand their format at all. Have placed several bids for Opps months ago and heard nothing since. I’d like to hear from anyone who has received an Opp from this company.

So there you go; go and get signed up and pay particular attention to their Terms of Service. They pay you on an average of between 2 weeks to 30 days depending on the company - and you will need a PayPal account. Just the basic one to start out with will do.

Popularity: 4% [?]