Grill party on a budget

It’s almost weekend and I’m happy for 3 gorgeous reasons. First, I’m thankful for my mother for being in the right place at the right time. The second because it’s Friday and I’m closing a fantastic week and as for the third it’s Summer. Hurray! 

The weather is nice, the birds are twittering and I can hardly wait to join my close friend's grill party. I must say, I’m a lucky person to have friends with a similar mindset as mine. Thanks to this, we get together as often as we can without spending a ton of money.

Organizing a grill party from a low budget is easy as can be. 

Let me share some tips how to organize a grill party in a frugal way.

Try the potluck way

Ask your friends to join you for a get-together grill party. You may also ask them to bring something to throw on the grill. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should be inconsiderate but your get-together grill party should be something like a potluck supper. Bring and share :). Tell them to bring what is best for them to bring and eat. It’s fun and cheap. I really think most of your friends prefer to contribute to the BBQ parties, this way you can actually take stress off of their shoulders.

But in order to avoid unpleasant situations I would advise this only for those dear readers who are in a good relationship with their friends.

Farmers’ market 

Those of you who aren’t vegetable growers, my advice is to visit the farmers’ market in order to buy fresh vegetables and meat products. It has a lot more benefits than hypermarkets. There is a large variety of fresh seasonal vegetables and healthier fruits. A great place to meet with your neighbours and start a nice chat.

Granny’s drinks

Search your kitchen for granny’s concentrated juice. If you’ve run out of it, don’t worry, you will find plenty of it at the grocery store. Concentrated juices can be great frugal refreshments. Depending on the juice, from one bottle you can actually make 3-4 liter of tasty refreshment. I recommend to serve it with water or soda.

Juice on the loose? 

Are there all kinds of juices hiding on your kitchen’s shelves? That’s even better. Make cocktails by adding a bit alcohol and a couple of ice cubes.

 

Save energy

Save energy by using economical solar lamps. It’s efficient and pretty. Once you’ve purchased it you don’t need to use classical garden lights anymore.

Enjoy

Now that you had dinner and a few drinks it’s time to play by the lights of the energy efficient solar lamps. Turn on some good music and enjoy the party.


Till now I tried corn on the cob, grilled eggplant, fruit and meat kebabs, these are my favourites.

Do you know some great frugal recipes? 
What is your opinion about potluck dinners?

Share them :)

Make money out of your phone-chat-addiction!

You dream with a cell phone in hand?

Then why don’t you make money out of your telephone-chat-addiction? Apply for a job in the telecommunication – sales industry!

Image Source Mobile Weblog

How to squeeze money out of your phone-chat-addiction?

Some of the applicants of this profession may say that this is an easy job, and there is nothing special about selling known products by phone. 
Well they are right … you shouldn't worry if you have a cute and friendly nature, in order to tolerate the hassled customers who refuse to buy from you, or might send you away in a rude manner.

Most of the companies offer this job with pay plus commission. Practically speaking, you get a base salary for your everyday work, but you get a commission as well. So this means the more sales you make, the more money you earn in addition to your previously negotiated salary. 
So you are highly motivated to sell as many products as you can. But of course, this motivation method depends on the    company itself. But if you have luck you might get hired to a company which uses this kind of motivation strategy.

How to demonstrate your knowledge through a phone-interview?

Your future employer might want to interview you by the phone-line. Hurray!!! You've made the first step. You have been asked to demonstrate that you are the suitable applicant for this job. This will be a defining moment because the employer will develop your profile. The future employer may evaluate your personality, communication-, and negotiation skills.

Body language isn't important, unless the phone call is accompanied by a camera through which the employer may evaluate your body language and professional appearance as well.

If the employer might get interested, you should mention your previous experiences with some difficult customers along your sales journey through the telephone line. You've got a chance to show how well  prepared you are for this job. Speak about how your previous workplace has helped you develop your problem solving skills and personal interest in selling goods.

How to impress your potential employer?

We all know that different skills, talents or appearance are needed to impress your potential employer. There are also a few things that you may consider less important but still essential to success. For instance:

Have a positive attitude!

You are selling yourself for your future employer, and  if you obtain the job you will be selling yourself each and every day, for your clients as well.

Get serious!

Treat the interview as if it were your last chance to convince the employer that you are the proficient person for this job.

You might learn something useful from the funny episode below.

There is a movie where Danny DeVito played the main character of a salesman at a car dealership.  He just started his job when his colleagues decided to trick him by betting him that he is unable to sell a car exposed in the parking lot. Danny accepted the bet and flounced out from the shop, to a man who was looking over the tire of a car. A few minutes later the guy entered the shop completely stunned, saying: “I just bought one of my own cars!”

I wrote this funny episode just to emphasize that if you have the talent to sell a person’s car to himself there won’t be recruiters who will reject you.

What to do next? Find a job, of course. 
For instance visit job aggregator

The Nations Weekly Food Consumption

A new survey has been released by the Daily Mail, about the global food shopping habits of different nations. The research was made by Peter Menzel and will serve as a subject of his new book The Hungry Planet.
The writer and his wife visited thirteen families from twenty four countries around the world and asked them about their weekly food purchasing habits. 
The infographic below will summarise the nations weekly food consumption emphasising the differences between price, quantity and quality.
The infographic is divided into two main parts. The first part is visualising families weekly purchase cost range which is between 320£ - 103£ in case of the affluent families and 99£ - 3.20£ in case of less affluent families. It is followed by the affluent and the less affluent families weekly food consumption, then I focused on the quantity and quality differences.

I’m looking forward to read the book in order to find out more details about the families interviewed by the Menzel’s.


Summary:
Affluent families tend to spend more money on sweets, fast foods, takeaways rather than on fruits and vegetables. These meals are less healthy due to the lack of vitamins and fibre, and may seem to be more expensive than healthy foods. Less affluent families eat cheaper but healthier foods. Their weekly meals contain foods rich in fibre and vitamins such as: fresh fruits, vegetables, rice, baked goods, etc. In the meantime, there is no data available about why is their food cheaper or why are they spending less money on weekly groceries. It’s highly likely that they cannot afford more. We may also assume that there are families growing their own fresh vegetable and fruits and because of that they spend less money on grocery purchases, while city residents cannot, mostly due to the lack of vegetable gardening space and not just. Hopefully more details about these families will be published later in the book by Peter Menzel and his wife Faith D'Aluisio.

Click here to enlarge the infographic.

Please note, the information shown on the infographic were gathered only from the Daily Mail website. 
Click here to see the outstanding photos taken by Peter Menzel showing families’ weekly purchases.

Eco-friendly way of cleaning silver

A good start for my first week money-saving challenge: Cleaning Silver with Household Products

Silver is one of my favourite precious metals. I found it more elegant and fashionable than any other jewelries. Unfortunately it is more fragile than its fellow metals. Neglected silver jewelries can get tarnished and may even stain your clothes.

Tarnished silver jewellery before cleaning

There are many ways to get them shiny again. You can take them to a jewelry expert or look up for silverware cleaning and polishing creams in homeware stores and jewelry shops. Choosing the frugal way of cleaning silver jewelry will leave the money in your pocket. 
Why should you pay for it when you can achieve the goal with a simple, cheap and eco-friendly method?

Here it goes!

Accessories:

• A glass bowl or a dish
•  Aluminum foil
• Boiled water
• 2-3 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon salt (sea salt or iodized salt) 
 

Cleaning process
Cover the inner surface of the glass dish with the aluminum foil. Place the silver items into the dish then sprinkle the baking soda and the salt on them. Pour the boiled water on the sprinkled silver items. The items should be fully submerged in the solution. If you can smell the penetrating odour of the sulphur, then you will know that you are on the right way.

Depending on how badly the silver is tarnished the cleaning process should take between 20-50 minutes. My jewelleries were badly tarnished, so I left them for 50 minutes.

After the silver becomes brighter place them on a clean fabric. Don’t wait until they dry start scrubbing them with the clean, soft fabric or you may use a soft toothbrush as well.

This cleaning process can also be used for larger silver items like tableware, candle holders, jewellery, etc.

Voilá!

Silver jewellery after cleaning

Good to know!
For my experiment I used 925 sterling silver
If you have larger silver items I recommend you to use a larger bowl, because the reaction will only be successful if the silver gets in contact with the aluminum foil.
Don’t wear them while you are washing the dishes, having a bath, or getting in contact with mineral water.
Silver jewelries with stones should be handled with care. Use a waterproof plaster in order to protect the stones, then you may place them in the solution.
Never put your silver tablewares into the dishwasher.
If the water is warm the cleaning process will be faster.

Storing Silver
Store the silver in a well sealed box free of excess moisture and chemicals. Place moisture-absorbent near the silver wares, for instance silica gel packets. You can purchase it in most of the pharmacies.

Cleaning silver with baking soda instead of using industrial compounds is not just cheaper but eco-friendly as well. 
Plus, I’m sure all of you have the necessary accessories in your homes.
How about you? How do you clean your silverware? 

Let me know :)

Locksmiths - future profession?

Living the world of computer science and technology, sooner or later everything will be automated. While robots start to take over the production process, human power gets less important and by that the number of unemployed persons starts to increase. Why do I write about a perspiring blue-collar work, now? You might ask.

I do believe that locksmiths have high potential to become the profession of the future.

Now I can imagine the faces of my favourite readers, rolling their eyes and thinking: "Come on Sparrow! Locksmiths can be so pushy and annoying. No one likes them. Why should I become a locksmith?"

Annoying or respectable?

I know what you are talking about. I’m an internet geek. I’m surfing the net sixteen hours per day, mostly looking for new ideas and odd things to write about. I've visited tons of directories, online newspapers in which most of the entries were about handyman guys like locksmiths. It can become annoying when you type in a word like ‘key curriculum’ and the result page gets filled with locksmith entries with ‘key cutting services’. Even though it angers me, I must say these guys are doing a great job.

Why? The reason is obvious, because of the high competition. It’s a cruel world we’re living in. They are trying to overrun the competitors in order to remain on the market. They are willing to face everyday challenges with the high competition. Truly giving their best to advertise themselves even if they have to pass hundreds of captchas and wait until business directories or other advertising platforms grant them access. These people do care about their business. As a message for those enterprises who aren't willing to turn a few hours on finding (free) advertising platforms, no worries, you will do a favour for these little guys.

When and why do we need locksmiths?

Most of the times one hires a locksmith for two common reasons.

First when you lock yourself out from your house (like I did, in the middle of a cold winter) and no one’s home to open the door only your hungry dog is barking inside the house, disturbing your totally frustrated neighbours. After a couple of minutes you may realise that you have no choice, time to ask for a professional locksman to unlock your door.

            The second when you purchase a house and for security reasons you change the door lock. Additionally you may claim for a key cutting service as well.

These guys are really sweating to give their clients the best service possible. Most of them are accessible in twenty four hours a day. You might think - "So what? . . . I’m a waiter/waitress working in 24/7." Yes you may be right, but imagine these guys are working in the security field, if they go wrong, you might become a victim of a robbery. Each one of us needs security, this isn't a desire it’s a necessity, so show them some respect.

Where and how to find a job as a locksmith?

Most of the handyman companies offer courses for locksmith-to-be’s. All you have to do is to find a reliable locksmith company. Sounds easy enough?

I know your time is precious so I will write down some hints just to save your time and energy.

Media

Dare to attend locksmith courses. Look up in your local newspaper for advertisements. If you are impatient you can also add an advertisement where you mention that you are looking for a locksmith job or you would like to join the upcoming courses.

Internet

Post your CV on job portals. Visit some of your local business directories in order to look up for possible hiring companies. Most of them are advertising their vacant jobs on business directories as well. For instance you could look up in this Job Portal.

 Drink a coffee with your friends

You would be surprised how many job seekers find a job with the help of  a few whispered words:  "I think i saw a job advertisement that you might be interested in . . . "

This is the profession that was and will remain vital in the era of information technology.

There will always be a need of locksmith jobs, because there are things that cannot be automated. You may acquire a Japanese housemaid robot to open the door if you locked yourself out, but this presumption is highly unlikely. Or do you have one already?

I hope you will have more luck than these guys . . . :)

Image Source Weblearn