1. Place hard avocado in a bag with a sliced apple for a couple of days. This is meant to speed-ripen the avocado but in doing so you are sacrificing an apple in the process. If you haven’t got that long then:

2. Stick it in the microwave. Pierce the skin and blast it in the microwave for batches of 20-30 seconds until the avocado’s softened up. It can get pretty hot in this process and will loose it’s colour but is just about acceptable if you’re in a real hurry to make guacamole.

Avocado image attribution

Mint Alloys bring the repair center to you. They’ll work in your garage, drivewway or even at your place of work and give you the same finish as you get in an expensive bodyshop.

Prices start from only £50 a wheel.

Mint Alloys can come to you if you live in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire or Buckinghamshire.

Visit Mint Alloys website.

If, like me, you find yourself stunned at the lack of cheap Christmas trees this year you’re not alone. Real Christmas tree prices have soared across the UK and appears to be blamed on a reduction of imports of trees from abroad leading to higher demand for those trees that are available.

If you’re desperate for a real Christmas tree, the cheapest option is probably going to be one of the biggest buyers such as B&Q. Even if their prices are higher than previous years, you could secure a cheaper tree by “downgrading” from the ever popular Nordman Fir back to the cheaper Spruce tree. These tend to be around £10 cheaper for a 5ft tree. The problem with these trees can be needle loss. The solution is to use a tree stand that holds water in it and cut a bit off the bottom of the tree (at an angle) to maximise water uptake. Obviously don’t sit your tree beside a radiator or over a heating duct if you wish to maximise it’s chances of making it to christmas.

Charity trees – in the weekends before Christmas, many local community groups such as Round Table, Scouts etc hold Christmas tree sales around the country. These trees are usually sourced from local growers. While they might not be the cheapest, you know that a good chunk of the money you are paying goes to the group selling the trees and it might make it easier to pocket. Check your local paper to see if any groups are selling trees in your area.

For the risk taker searching for the cheapest Christmas tree, you could wait until the day or two before Christmas and head down to your local garden centre or DIY store. Often these places apply massive discounts to their trees just to shift the stock as it’s useless stock as soon as they’re past the 24th of December.

And finally, if you really want the cheapest tree, you should maybe consider artificial. Many of them now look fantastic and are a great price. With a life of several years, these are definitely the cheapest option in the long run but you might want a pine scented candal or two in your living room to complete the experience. However you find your tree, I hope you have a happy Christmas.

Tree Photo by brockvicky

The Bushbaby Pinnacle brings a new dimension to carrying; it is the first carrier to offer the baby and adult the added comfort of a proper suspension system in the frame.

The wearer’s comfort is enhanced by spring absorption in the frame, removing excess stress from the spine. It’s ideal for extended trips on rougher terrain, and daily use. Featuring the new Bigeye back-system, fully adjustable and non-slip for peace of mind while carrying.

Pinnacle features:

* Frame designed for improved shock-absorption
* Easy adjustable back system
* Easy child seat adjustment
* UV protective sun canopy with mesh front & sides included (folds flat and is stored in base)
* iPod size hip pocket and mirror to check baby
* Ergonomic swivel hip belt for enhanced fit
* Easy reach drinks bottle pocket
* Secure easy reach pocket
* Viewing mirror included
* Foot stirrup loops included for a more comfortable ride

Back Carrier specs

* Age range : 6 month – 4 years
* Carrier weight : 2.5kg
* Carrying weight limit : 20kg
* Storage capacity : 25 ltrs
* Adult height range : 5ft – 6.4ft
* Max waist / chest : 50″ / 52″

The Bush Baby Elite child carrier is a great looking back carrier, very comfy and comes with a zip-off changing bag. A new frame design improves stability whilst wearing and the swivel hip belt allows for independent movement of the hips. It’s ideal for daily use as well as extended trips.

The Bush Baby Elite has a fully adjustable back system.

• Pack weight: 2.5kg
• Carrying weight limit: 20kg
• Age range: 6 months to 3 – 4 years
• Adult height range: 5′ – 6′4″ (152cm-192cm)
• Capacity: 32 litre storage
• For extended trips or daily use
• Sun/rain canopy and full length waterproof raincover
• ACS back system for extra comfort
• Secret zipped pocket for valuables
• Zip off changing bag with mat
• Longest back system available

Put it this way, I used Tesco Clubcard points to pay for a £270 ferry to Belfast last week. I didn’t use a penny of my own money.

Tesco rewards are worth 4 times the value of the original Clubcard vouchers and can be used for travel, days out, restaurants and a whole variety of other things. You can even swap them for Air Miles. So for the ferry voucher we used £70 of Tesco clubcard vouchers. OK, it took a bit of time to save up all those vouchers but in the end we’ve got a summer trip to Northern Ireland for the family.

The booking process for the ferry was fairly straightforward. We received our vouchers then went to the Tesco Clubcard website where we swapped the vouchers for Ferry rewards tokens. When they arrived in the post we phoned up the ferry company and booked a month ahead of time. We posted off the rewards tokens to the ferry company and when they received them they confirmed the booking.

Even if you don’t want to save up for the big value items, a tenner of Clubcard vouchers will buy you £40 of restaurant vouchers. That should be enough for a meal for 2 in many of the restaurants they list.

It’s the time of year when people start looking in the shed for their barbeque on a sunny afternoon. If your old BBQ is no longer usable you may well be looking for a new cheap gas BBQ. Gas has the advantage of being ready to cook on very quickly and compared to charcoal is very clean and a lot less smokey.

Before you run off to the local garden centre though, have a look at Tesco. Their cheapest gas BBQ is just £50. It’s got two burners and side tables.

Bear in mind that you’ll need to add the cost of a gas bottle on to this if you don’t already have one, and also the cost of a regulator if the provided one doesn’t suit your bottle manufacturer.

If that adds up to too much then Tesco have a good range of charcoal BBQ’s too.

At the other end of the process though is the cooling grid at the back of the fridge. This grid is like a radiator. It gets rid of the heat that has been sucked out of the fridge and puts it back into your kitchen.

You should leave enough room behind and above the fridge that the heat expelled can escape into the kitchen.

In addition, in most kitchens this grid gets covered in dust.  That dust acts like a insulation blanket and prevents the fridge from getting rid of the excess heat efficiently. You can’t really help that but what you can do is pull the fridge out and vacuum all the dust off the cooling grid. Your fridge will work more efficiently and you’ll reduce your energy bills. If you make this part of your regular cleaning duties you’ll stop wasting so much energy on running your fridge or freezer.

It seems a lot of people missed the fact that Amazon now offer an MP3 download store. And it’s cheap. Take U2’s No Line on the Horizon album, released just a few weeks ago. Itunes are selling it at their standard £7.99. Amazon MP3 have it at £4.50. Add to this that your music is DRM free in MP3 format and it’s a pretty attractive option. MP3 format means you can use it on all music players, not just Apple Ipods and it can be managed in any music software. Not all new albums are discounted this much but it’s definitely worth a look. Who would ever have thought that a new U2 album could be legally purchased for just £4.50? Good on Amazon.

It doesn’t have to be like this though. The Internet can be used to make informed product choices before purchasing locally.

Take for example your local outdoors store. It stocks a couple of jackets by the manufacturer you want but they don’t have a style or colour that you like. You go online, check out the manufacturers website and find a model that you do like. You can then search for that product in Google with the word “review” in the search box after the product name. This will give you loads of review sites letting you know exactly what other people think of the jacket you’ve got your eye on. If the reviews aren’t good, repeat the process until you find one you like that has reviews you are happy with.

Finally, once you are settled on a product go back up to the shop you first looked at and ask them if they’d be willing to get you the exact product you’ve asked for. 9 times out of 10 they’ll say yes. You probably wont have to pay delivery and depending on when the retailer next places an order with that supplier, you could have the garment pretty quickly.

Congratulations, you’ve just helped your local shops.