Planning a bike ride around the Isle of Wight I knew straight away I wanted to cross the Solent by hovercraft. Costing the same as the ferry but making the journey in just 10 minutes it really was an easy decision for me, but it really became a no-brainer when I realised I was able to take advantage of a special £1 fare offer. Compared to the usual price of £8 each way, I was able to save £14 and have a little bit of fun too!

Whilst it sounds like a lot of money the gym did serve it’s purpose with me shedding 45 pounds helping to get my weight down to a more reasonable level.

There was no fad dieting, no extreme workouts and no personal trainer. Instead I built my fitness levels up slowly, making working out part of my regular routine and slowly the weight came off.  In many ways this approach is similar to Millionaire Adventure where I am gradually increasing my wealth, changing my spending habits and without the aid of paying for any financial advisors.

I’m not however going back to my lazy ways and I’m determined not to put the weight back on. From now on I will be looking for free (or at least cheap) ways of staying fit with plenty of bike rides planned, including a quick tour around the Isle of Wight next week.

Giving up the gym this month and switching to other forms of free exercise means I’ll save £218.75 over the rest of the year, which gives my Millionaire Adventure total a nice little boost.

I’d love to hear your suggestions for how I can keep fit for free. You can leave your suggestions using the comment form below.

This time it was betting against United winning the Premier League, and having edged Liverpool to the title this ended up costing me £99.97. This however was partly offset by the £23.58 I earned when Barcelona comprehensively beat United in the Champions League final (and the reason why it has taken me so long to write this post).

I also lost a fair bit of money betting against United on single matches but these losses were offset by taking advantage of some free bet offers. In total I have earned £74.56 in the last couple of months betting and it would have been far more if only I could stop betting against United.

I also strongly believe that the majority of voters cast their votes knowing very little beyond the marketing hype that surrounds each party. However, failing to engage in the political process would be far worse and I am very disappointed to hear that voter turnout is predicted to be around 25%.

Such a low turnout undoubtedly leads to questions about whether those elected really represent our nation, but you can not blame those individuals elected or the 25% that did make the effort (even if they did spoil their votes!). The blame rests solely with the 75% of people that felt they had something more important to do today and they can have no complaints if they later disagree with the policies those elected introduce. Whilst those 25% of us that did vote can go back to complaining about MP expenses.

So if you haven’t already cast your vote, please go and do so now!

The truth is we are no where near the end of this recession, despite the recent surge of bright economic news in recent weeks. Whilst stock markets may have turned a corner it is well known that they rally long before the real economy does. Unemployment is still rising and that along with GDP should be the key indicator of a nations economic health.

So why the optimism?

I’d argue that people just got fed up of feeling down, and the press are reacting to this by writing positive stories that people want to read (that and stories about MP expenses!). All they need is a simple statistic showing house prices starting to rise again or consumer confidence stabilising and you have a front page headline. Few people want to read about the difficulties of extrapolating from a single month of data, which can easily be skewed by one-off events such as bank holidays or desperate price cutting measures by retailers, so the press don’t bother and just run with an optimistic story about recovery.

Property is too emotional to be a real economic indicator and the data is questionable at best. For example just how many of the properties sold in the past month had bizarre deposit paid, part interest free loans, buying fees included or were shared equity schemes. All of these result in a higher price than was really paid being recorded in the house price indexes, and with so few property transactions being completed right now they could be skewing prices significantly.

Consumer confidence is at a 11 month high and some believe that’s a sign we are on the road to recovery. But it’s still at minus 27, and came in below the consensus forecast of –25. Worse still consumer confidence is probably artificially high due to all the 50% off sales we are seeing in shops, restaurants and even now from airlines. Unfortunately all of these are unsustainable with many of the companies behind them making huge losses.

For what it’s worth I think we might be near the bottom, but we may be running along the bottom for some time before we all join an economic recovery. How long is hard to tell, but in the UK I still believe that it will be late 2011 going into early 2012 that we will see the whole economy recovering. The Olympics might be costing us a lot of money but they might just be the feel good kick start that the UK will need to spur a recovery.

The terms and conditions that students signed up to stated “Interest is linked to the rate of inflation and is adjusted each year in line with the Retail Prices Index (RPI)”. So with RPI at –0.4% graduates expected their loans to be reduced by 0.4%, especially as the government always promised that the amount to repay would never go up in real terms.

But this new legislation allows the secretary of state to charge no interest, regardless of what the rate of inflation is. Clearly he would never do this when RPI is positive, but he now has the power to effectively increase the amount that has to be repaid when RPI is negative.

Whilst -0.4% isn’t a lot of deflation, what happens if it accelerates over the next year? Well graduates could suddenly find they have to repay back a lot more depending on what the government decides… this is normally referred to as taxation!

Even if inflation returns, the government has set a worrying precedent. They just need to pass a quick bit of legislation and they can charge what they like regardless of the level of inflation, although students have little to worry about as Labour stand about as much chance of winning the next election as I do of winning the lottery!

Having spent the best part of a day listing over 50 items, painstakingly photographing them and writing the descriptions I was hoping for a good return.

However only 9 sold for a total of £45.14 and after eBay fees, PayPal fees and postage left me with a profit of just £24.30. Which is disappointing to say the least.

I don’t think there was anything wrong with the items, and with starting prices of just 99p they were not overpriced so I think this might be another symptom of the current recession. I don’t think it’s demand that’s dropping, but rather a case of over-supply.

Everywhere I look there is another how-to guide screaming for attention with titles like “How-to beat the Credit Crunch”, “Recession Busting Tips” or my personal favourite “Happy credit-crunch Christmas”. And just about everyone of these imaginatively suggests making some extra cash by selling your unwanted goods on eBay.

So lesson learnt. The ‘herd’ are now on eBay so I’ll wait for the recession to end and the ‘herd’ to move on to the next frenzied bubble.

So what do I think he will do? And what would I do?

ECONOMY

All the focus will be on his updated projections for the economy which are sure to make grim reading along with just how much debt we have as a country, but he’ll try and convince us that he thinks will start to improve late this year. If I was him I’d opt for playing the classic REM track “It’s the end of the world as we know it” as I walk up to the dispatch box!

HOUSING

Expect stamp duty levels to remain as they are, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he announces some headline grabbing policy of more house building. Ironically, increasing the housing supply is actually likely to push prices downwards but it will win some votes anyway so he’ll press ahead.

CIGARETTES AND ALCOHOL

Last year Darling announced that duty on alcohol would rise by 2% above inflation for the next 4 years. Any further increases this year would be very unpopular given how stretched peoples own budgets are so he’ll probably leave it alone this time but I expect further increases on Cigarettes. Personally I’d do the same, but if I was in a controversial mood I’d hike cigarette duty much higher in an attempt to price more people off them.

CARS, FUEL AND ROAD PRICING

The car industry will be on the edge of their seats watching Darling deliver this years budget as they are desperate for help. 

Last time out he was keen to push his green credentials announcing an increase in fuel duty from 2010, higher road tax for the most polluting cars and funding for road-pricing proposals. He might conveniently forget to mention these policies this year. If I was him I’d stick with the changes to road tax as it included reductions for the least polluting vehicles which is both good for the environment and the pocket.

PENSIONERS

I wouldn’t blame pensioners if they were cursing Darling before he even opens his mouth. The past 12 months has been a nightmare for them as interest on savings has dropped to practically nothing. Not only has their income reduced dramatically but also their two biggest outgoings, utility bills and food costs, has been rising rapidly. Last year the Chancellor tossed them an extra £50 in winter fuel allowance and I expect him to do something similar this year.

Quite frankly the way this country treats its pensioners is shameful. It’s about time state pensions were raised to a level that allows them to enjoy a comfortable retirement. Most of their spending remains here in the UK so some of that quantitative easing should be channelled through them, a win win scenario for both pensioners and the UK economy.

And I completely support what Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesman) wrote in the Daily Mail this weekend, "When deciding what benefits a pensioner is entitled to, the Government assumes, unbelievably, that they earn a 10.4 per cent annual return on their savings (a policy which dates from 1987 and Margaret Thatcher’s Government). This must be cut to fair and realistic levels – say the annual average base rate".

BENEFITS

Last time he said all long-term recipients of incapacity benefit will attend work capacity programmes from April 2010, but I expect this will have slipped off the radar as the focus switches to dealing with rising levels of unemployment. If I were the Chancellor I would announce a new policy of jobs for all, cancel unemployment benefit and replace it with a guarantee of at least 20 hours work per week for everyone. Put simply, making people work for their benefits. Just imagine what the 2 million people that are currently unemployed could achieve.

Darling believes that the measures he has already announced regarding housing and council tax benefit  will mean families on benefit are better off in work from October 2009. In the coming months I plan to work through the numbers and see if he was right, so watch this space. But how do you define better off? They may earn an extra £50 per month by working but is that worth getting up at 7 o’clock in the morning and going to work 5 days a week? It’s time we acknowledged that encouraging people back to work has to be more than simply being slightly better off financially.  

BUSINESS

A big focus for this years budget will be on what the chancellor can do for businesses in this country. Corporation tax was reduced from 30% to 28% last time and whilst Darling might be tempted to reduce this further to help companies during the current economic downturn, he still needs the valuable tax receipts as he attempts to balance his own books (largely unsuccessfully!).  

ENVIRONMENT

The environment normally gets plenty of mentions in the budget but rarely is there anything of any substance beyond throwing around some targets for worrying about far into the future (such as raising the UK target for emissions cuts to 80% by 2050 in the last budget). Expect more of the same this time round.

EDUCATION

Previously he declared that by 2011, every school "will be an improving school". Which can surely be read as an admission that currently schools are in a pretty bad state. He also announced that there would be a £30m fund to improve science teaching, that’s barely enough to buy every pupil a test tube! Worse still you can guarantee that most of that money would be eaten up by the agencies that will be created to deploy this initiative. 

Investing in education is the equivalent of investing in the UK’s long-term future, but the economic problems are in the here and now so expect to see education dropping down the list of priorities in this budget. Sure there will be some headline initiatives, but nothing of substance. If I was calling the shots I’d be pumping some more of that quantitave easing money into refurbishing schools across the country. Not only will that help improve education but it will give builders something to do now that house building has dried up. If these builders are out of work they’d be claiming unemployment benefits anyway, so the government might as well get something for it’s money.

POVERTY

Both Darling and his predecessor Brown always pull at the heart strings with this one and I expect more of the same this year. The phrases "eradicate child poverty", "families better off" and "better deal" will be stringed together in a rousing speech but are rarely backed up with any real measures to achieve them.

SAVINGS

Beyond confirming what the annual ISA allowance will be, savings have slipped down the agenda every year. Whether this is a symptom or cause of our current debt addiction is an argument for another day, but this year savings will be making a comeback. Perhaps he’ll increase ISA limits significantly, but with interest rates so low any tax saving will be minimal and of little benefit to most people. 

ARMED FORCES

In the months leading up to the last budget the papers were full of stories about the armed forces struggling with faulty ageing equipment, so Mr Darling tossed them £2bn more to spend on troops in the frontline, including £900m earmarked for military equipment. This time round he’ll be looking for savings to help balance his books so expect a similar amount of savings to be announced from reducing the number of troops in the frontline.

We have spent billions searching for weapons of mass destruction, in my opinion it’s time to change the policy and search for an alternative to oil instead.

I was therefore very disappointed when I logged in to discover that tickets were not available for some of the events they had promised and absolutely furious when I discovered that prices ranged from £179 to £399 for the events they had originally mentioned in their email. So within hours of signing up I fired off a complaint by email requesting a refund.

What followed was over a month of being either being told I couldn’t have a refund or simply ignored. However I knew I was entitled to a refund as the advertising regulations state that “any stated price should be clear and should relate to the product advertised” which in this case was arguably not the case.

Regardless of that, the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations gives me the unconditional right to cancel an order as long as I give notice within “seven working days from the day after that on which I agreed to go ahead with the contract”, which I clearly did.

And my commitment and conviction finally paid off after 5 weeks of arguing my case as they agreed to refund me the £50. Result!

I also discovered last week that I had been charged 48p by O2 for mobile internet charges despite the fact that all my attempts to connect to the internet had failed. So again I fired off a quick email stating my case and requesting a refund. Within 48 hours they responded to tell me they would be crediting my account. Result!

Now you might think that chasing a 48p refund is a waste of time, but writing that short email took me less than a minute. So if I spent a whole hour writing similar emails I could potentially earn £28.80 per hour, although clearly O2 wouldn’t keep paying out for the same thing.

In contrast chasing my £50 refund took 6 far longer emails stating along with a couple of phone calls, taking in total about 2 hours of my time which works out at £25 per hour. So chasing a 48p refund actually worked out as a more profitable use of my time.

I also finally recieved £30 cashback from GreasyPalm that I have been waiting for a while and by getting paid in Amazon vouchers I also earned a 5% bonus worth an additional £1.50.