Mums Finance

It is official, as if I didn’t know already, that Barcelona – capitol of Catalonia, is the pickpocket capitol of the world. You can say that again!

When we were running our hotel in France we had several guests – mostly young backpackers – who arrived at our place having just got off the train from Barcelona who had been robbed whilst in the city. One coung couple did not realise until after they got off the train that their wallet and passport had been pinched.

Having been to that city many times I have to say that you really must be on your guard especially when walking around the La Rambla area; people walk very close to you, bump into you – they are very, very slick. After Barcelona though Paris is not too far behind. My son had his camera stolen from his back pocket – silly place to have kept it though. He was walking down the steps of the Metro when he was silently robbed.

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Protecting the data on your computer is just as important to the person simply storing recipes and photos on their laptop than the big business manager who has valuable client and financial information in his/her system. My so learnt this the hard way wiht his digital camera recently; he took 150 priceless snaps of his fiancee in Paris but failed to back them up on his PC…while in the Metro towards the end of their trip his camera was stolen and all his snaps were gone forever.

I regularly do back ups on my machine; it is in dire need of replacing but until I can splash out on a new laptop I am investing in secure online storage so that everything I type out stays put. And yes, I have lost all my data completely – been there done that. In fact, it was almost ten years worth of genealogical research that I had spent five weeks transferring onto a file. But crashed before I backed it up.

Read my lips: back it up!!!

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We love our pets and like to consider them members of the family but, oh dear, they do cost a lot of money when we have to call the vet in. We have insurance for our own health, we have NHS for the dentist and that leaves the veterinarian as the one man who needs to be paid at the point of delivery.

Despite the costs involved with say, a broken leg for Rover, only a third of dog owners have pet insurance. Sickness and injury can affect any animal but did you know that certain breeds of dog can attract heft vets bills…?

For example an English Setter has a lifespan of 11.5 years and can cost up to £6,995.00 in a lifetime according to Esure, the pet insurance company. A Greyhound fares better – he/she can live for 13.2 years and can cost up to £4,145.00 in it’s lifetime.Most economical is the lovely St Bernard; now these beauitiful animals only have a lifespan of 8 years but their vet costs totalled £3,936.00 for a lifetime of vets bills.

These are average figures but maybe something to bear in mind if you are considering buying a dog for the kids this Xmas…they cost money and are for life, not just Xmas!

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