OK some of you may think it is too early to be thinking about Christmas but it will soon come around again and many shops will be starting their Christmas displays in the coming weeks.

One of the reasons for this blog entry is to talk about budgeting for Christmas so the earlier you read this the better.

It is difficult to be indifferent about Christmas, most people love it or hate it. Personally I am nearer to the latter category thanks to the rampant over-commercialisation and the expectation of a food/drink/cash binge.

However, as my wife and family don't agree with me I have to make a token effort (and it will be a VERY token effort) and buy a few gifts, food etc.

As money is tight, finding an extra couple of hundred quid in December is not going to be easy so I have set up a better way of budgeting.

Over the past few months, in light of a very tight budget generally, I have restricted food shopping to once a week. We make a list in advance and try not to deviate from it.

At first I did not restrict how much we spent, I just monitored the situation to find out exactly how much we were spending. It worked out around £55-60 per week.

Then I set a budget of £50 per week and added up the items as we went around (much to my wifes displeasure and embarrasment!) to make sure we did not overspend.

Once we were managing at £50 per week I reduced it to £45 per week and this has been the figure for several weeks now. It is difficult to go below this as it includes formula milk, nappies, wipes etc. for the baby which we can't skimp on!

By the way, we are not exactly starving on this new £45 budget, as can be seen from my belly photo, so a lot of the extra cash we were spending was just wasted on unecessary items.

So we are spending around £45 per week on food and around £15-20 per week on diesel (I can't reduce this as I need to get to work).

I have obtained a cashback card which gives me a 5% discount off my shopping and petrol. This is NOT a credit card, you have to load it with money first.

We are loading it with £300 on the first of every month and this covers our shopping and diesel costs of around £250, leaving around £50 in the account each month.

By Christmas this should have accumulated to around £200-250 (we started in August), enough to pay for Christmas, plus we get 5% off everything we spend.

Using this card gives us more control over our spending as well as the added bonus of a 5% discount.

This is a much better idea than putting Christmas on your credit card and worrying about how to repay it in January.  

It's been a terrible week, for a variety of reasons (although that's really just me making excuses), and I'm sure I've put weight on rather than lost any. I'm too miserable to step on the scales just now.

Instead I've got my wife to take a couple of photos of my ever-expanding gut as a form of shock therapy, hoping that this will give me a spur into action. They will also act as nice "before" pictures for when I've lost the weight!

The other picture, a nice side-on shot, will be added to the weight loss page in due course.

On top of this depressing news I've just found out my neighbour has swine flu. He says he is OK and is getting over it but I will be keeping my distance for the time being.

Getting back to the weight loss, my next plan is to retrieve my Wii Fit from the friends who borrowed it a few months ago. I stopped using it as the exercises were a bit too easy after a bit of practice but maybe with the extra weight they will be a bit more of a challenge to me.

Also my wife was pregnant when I initially bought it so couldn't use it much. She is interested in losing weight too, just a little baby fat, so I can see us using it together and trying to break each others records as a bit of an incentive to exercise.

Good luck if you too are trying to lose weight, hope you're doing better than me! If you want to get in touch for a bit of mutual support please contact me.

There are many different types of tea and some are claimed to help with weight loss, as well as provide other health benefits.

At the moment I'm drinking Rooibos tea (with orange) from South Africa. This is not advertised as a slimming tea but it is a naturally uncaffeinated drink with known antioxidant properties. It is also thought to aid digestion.

I regularly drink green tea for similar reasons and it makes a nice change from drinking coffee or tea with milk which tends to make me feel a bit bloated.

When researching my weight loss page I came across a tea which is claimed to specifically aid in weight loss, up to 3kg per month without strenuous exercise or major diet change.

This tea is called Cho-Yung and is a type of green tea. Currently they are offering 14 day free trials so you can try it and see how it works before making a major commitment to buy. 

To find out more and for your own free trial visit my weight loss page.

I'm thinking of giving it a try to see how it works and to see if there is any truth behind the rumour that drinking tea can help with weight loss.

Not really a long-term future improver but the chance to get away from work, relax and unwind will certainly improve your life for a week or two.

If you book early enough you have something to look forward to for a few months, giving you a bit of escapism from your day-to-day troubles or the dreary UK weather.

I'm looking forward to a late November/early December break, subject to available funds and getting time-off work. I may have to take unpaid leave for a few days as we have to save 4 days holiday for Christmas but it will be worth it.

I've added a holidays page to the website with a few links to sites for your holiday booking. This includes my parents apartment in Spain.

Their website is Spanish Golf Apartment where you will find out more about the apartment and local area. You can't really go wrong with a Spanish holiday, you are almost guaranteed good weather, great food and the prices are still reasonable, although a better exchange rate for the Euro would be a great help.

The golf course on which their apartment stands is very good I'm told although it's a few years since I've played golf.

There are plenty of weeks rental available so please get in touch for a great price!

Further to my previous post, I forgot to mention about competition questions.

Many online competitions do not have questions to answer, they just require you to enter your details.

Others have amazingly easy questions that everyone should know the answer to or questions about the products you could win. The answers can often be found in the text on the page or via a link supplied.

When I don't know the answer to a question I make a judgement regarding how long it is likely to take to find the answer. If the prize is one I really want to win then I will spend a fair amount of time researching the answer.

Sometimes I will abandon entry if I think the effort of finding the answer is not justified by the prize to be won.

Many competitions ask the same question as they are syndicated across a number of websites by the prize supplier. Once you've found the answer you will be able to enter all of these comps quickly and easily.

Answers about films can usually be found on IMDB (Internet Movie DataBase). For general knowledge questions I use the Google toolbar.

With practice you will be able to phrase the search terms in Google to get exactly the answer you are looking for on the first page of results without having to visit any sites.

I have made it a rule not to enter competitions unless I know the answer to any questions being asked. This rule has served me well.

Happy comping.

As I've said on my free stuff page I love a competition and have been doing them online since 2003. During this time I have literally won hundreds of prizes.

At some point, when I get time, I am going to put my list of prize wins online to keep track of them and so people can see that online comps are really worth entering.

There is no science to my winning online competitions, it really is a numbers game. The more comps you enter the more chance you have of winning. If you enter enough you are guaranteed to win eventually!

As I only have up to 1 hour each day spare to enter comps, and sometimes less, I don't enter as many as I'd like. I don't bother with tiebreaker comps, even though they have less entries and therefore a better chance of winning, simply because I don't have the time. I concentrate on the easy-to-enter comps and enter as many as I can.

To find the comps I use the Prizefinder website. It is free to use and helps you keep track of your entries.

Some sites have comps running all the time and you get used to the entry requirements. Others require you to log-in, but once you have logged in you can enter each competition with only 1 click of the mouse.

I use the google toolbar Autofill facility in conjunction with Internet Explorer as I find this combination works best for quickly filling out online entry forms. For some reason Autofill does not work as well with Firefox and you can't use it with Google Chrome.

Generally I enter for prizes I want to win plus the occasional prize I think I can sell on Ebay. Although I haven't yet won a really big prize I live in hope and enjoy the feeling of winning even a small prize.

You have to look on entering competitions as a fun hobby. If I worked out the total value of prizes accumulated over the past 6 years and divided it by the number of hours I've spent entering them I don't think it would reach minimum wage! But the thrill and anticipation of a possible big prize makes up for it all.

Just added three new pages to the website. When I was doing the weight loss page I decided to look for products that could help me, and my website visitors, get a head start in their weight loss endeavours.

I came across the subject of fat binders, pills you eat after a meal to bind with fat molecules and take them out of your body before they can be absorbed.

The site I looked at, Proactol, had some very convincing material with testimonials, videos etc. but it all sounds to good to be true. Has anyone tried them and can they let me know how they got on.

The basic price is fairly steep, although if they were guaranteed to work would be worth paying for a no hassle weight loss solution.

I've tried a number of diet pills in the past and I always seem to have an increase in appetite when I'm taking them! Not really what I need.

So far my new healthy lifestyle hasn't been overly-successful, not helped by having friends of the family over from Spain. We're going for a meal with them later, just need to watch what I eat but I fear a binge on rhubarb crumble and custard may be the order of the day.

Maybe these fat binders could take away all the custard molecules and leave me with the rhubarb? I can only dream.

Just some thoughts on what might improve my future and perhaps yours too. In no particular order....

1. More money

Personally I don't need millions of pounds, just enough to live without having to worry about how I'm going to pay the bills. I have a day job but the salary I earn does not provide enough money for a life, just an existence.

2. A better job

Not necessarily one with a greater salary, but one that actually gives me some job satisfaction.

My current role does have its challenges at times but is generally boring and repetitive. This pretty much sums up my working life so far. Unfortunately, without any great ambition, I have tended to drift aimlessly through a succession of uninteresting jobs, even though I consider myself fairly bright and capable. As I approach 40 I wonder whether any potential employers could see my latent talent and I begin to think I may soon be unemployable! It's a chilling thought.

3. Weight Loss

This one is specifically for me as I embark on yet another attempt to shed some pounds. It could just as easily read weight gain for those people who need to put on some weight and perhaps should better be called "Improve your Self Image" which is what it's all about.

For many years I have had such a downer on myself due at least in part to my physical appearance (plus my social disabilities - more of those later) leading to a lack of confidence and failure to fulfill my potential. And it's a vicious circle - my problems lead me to binge eat and I just feel worse about myself. It's a familiar story for many no doubt.

4. Find a partner

This one is not for me, I'm happily married, but for many the love and support provided by a "better half" is missing in their life. The support of a good woman has certainly helped me with many of my other problems although there is still work to do.

5. Expand your mind

I've never been a great reader of books but I do love browsing the internet and clicking from link to link you can pick up some amazing facts and learn some worthwhile lessons.

There is also the opportunity for further study. Is there a subject you are interested in that you would really like to pursue? Go back to college or study from home. Knowledge is never wasted.

6. A positive attitude

This one I need. I have a great tendency to look on the black side, to assume things will go wrong (and thus never attempt anything worthwhile). I've read self-help books in the past and, for a few days afterwards manage to smile and think positively but it never lasts. I'm soon back to my normal pessimistic self, even though I know it can never lead to happiness.

For now these are the first things that popped into my head. I'm sure many more will come to me as soon as this entry is posted but I can save them for another day.