Gareth's Interests

When I don’t travel or work like a dog (95% of the time), I spend time reading and watching movies (DVDs) with my home cinema system. I am also passionate about consumer issues (well, getting high quality products by identifying the best model via research, and finding the best place to buy them from). I also want to provide market transparency, so, hopefully you will find something useful, money saving or inspiring for you in your personal or professional lives.   

VODAFONE USERS: Cheaper way to make/receive calls when abroad. Vodafone's just launched a free add on the 'passport'; you only get it if you ask for it though. See the updated 'Using your mobile when abroad: Roam for less, call 5555 to activate'

Buy London Theatre tickets?? Want a good deal but don't want to be 'stung'? Read the 'check list' from the official London Theatre Guide of how to avoid the sharks.

Trying to find the best school for your kids in UK? go to SchoolsNet.

Not sure where to bring kids to during half term (why sooo many holiday in British schools!), see Kidslovelondon.com

Games & fun for kids from UK museums.

Lost or looking for a good online map site? I use Multimap in UK and other english using countries, and Centamap for Hong Kong.

Flight checker, compare cost of all low cost airlines, get the cheapest flight from MoneySavingExpert. Once you got the tickets (I personally prefer to fly scheduled flights), you should check out SeatGuru to make sure that you get he best seat on the plane!

Fancy Visiting Disneyland anywhere in the world? suggest you read what are the best deals & tips on the MouseSavers first!

ADSL guide/comparison: For UK market: ADSLguide, For France: go to Comparatel.

Below are some of the key sites which I visit to keep up to date or to shop:

HOW to Stay SAFE banking online? Please refer to this web site just launched by UK's APACS (Association for payment clearing services) on 1st of Oct 2004. It lists all the scams and how you can protect yourself, must read!

Avoid Financial Scams, check out the list of warnings from UK FSA's consumer website.

Starting up a business? Get some business cards from here with 25% off

I got most of my personal cards from KallKwik printshop so far (£60 of value per pop). For my new venture, I tried out Vistaprint. Print quality is good however the paper thickness could have been better. Saying that, it only cost £12.99 - you cannot beat that. Follow this link and you can get a further 25% off. I wish there was a link for me to get that discount when I ordered.

Talking of business, I was agonising over whether to go through all the expenses to setup merchant account to collect money for CXO which will all be paid to the restaurant for business lunch anyway (as we just split the bill!), and voila, found that I can already use paypal to just that! see it for yourself:

and if you signup via the above link, I will also get a small fee also, why not support each other huh?

Need to get a business account in UK? suggest you check out the comparison guide from moneyfacts, endorsed by the British Bankers' Association: see this site to help you to get the best business account!

What's HOT now in UK?

I would reckon it is HOMECHOICE, essentially, its TV on demand, with 512Kb/s with lowest contention ratio in UK. I wanted to sign up 3 years ago, but I could not get ADSL, now I am happily using Sky+ since they were first launched. I may just swap out my ADSL and still pay the same with HomeChoice but get more data & TV on demand. hmm.

Consumer Champions:

As a member of Consumer's association and for many years in UK, I recognise that UK does gear towards at least oligopoly (or key 3-4 players) for most markets, competitions really skewed towards the incumbents. Hence, I am particularly keen to see genuine bargains and innovators, below list key sites to make that more transparent. 

This is a very useful site: www.moneysavingexpert.com, to help switching: www.uswitch.com

Indeed, check via this link to see the best buys for all services from our one and only MoneySavingExpert

Hottest topic at present on Petrol:

UK your Cheapest Petrol Finder locator

Want to avoid congestion charges? Check whether you can convert your car and get exemption here.

Very Cheap International phone calls:

New VOIP from 1899! See this link!

www.onetel.co.uk, I used to use OneTel, until I found www.call18866.co.uk Only 1p to most international destinations! Even better, how about a FREE call to all national numbers?? Yup, with 1899. Without sounding like an advert, suggest you check out the country you want to call from this site to see which provider can give you the best price!

Why Pay more to call a 0870 numbers when you can call their national numbers getting rate of half a pence per minute?? find their 'true' numbers on SAY NO TO 0870!

For people who are based in France, and you can use TeleRabais to get as cheap prices as we do in UK.

Free Conference Calls??? yes, combined with above, try: Free Conference, they are based in US but so what! with 1899, you pay only 0.5p/min to US (pls check on their site for latest prices & connection fee) For those of us in UK, you can try FreeConferenceUK, but as everything in UK, its not what it seems, not free, but 5p/min, I would still prefer to call US then, as it cost us only 1p/min if not less! work that one out!

Where I buy most of my DVDs now:

www.play.com , www.dddhouse.com and www.cd-wow.com



Keep up to date of the latest DVD releases:

DVD Times , Internet Movie Database 


My Sunday Read

www.sundaytimes.co.uk, great bargain for just over a pound, and the financial mail: thisismoney.co.uk


Where I get my books:

www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.com


Where I compare the DVDs from different regions
www.dvdcompare.net



Keep up to speed with my remote control:
www.remotecentral.com , my Marantz RC500i is now broken, need to fix it, know where I can get it done cheaply? please get in touch, as I hate to shell out another £250 pounds!



The Home Cinema Mag that arrives at my door

www.whatvideotv.com, What Hifi, Need reviews on existing kits? go to Home Cinema Choice site.

Bric-a-brac for the home (e.g. I only buy my vacuum bags there, no need to be ripped off by high street vendors)

www.everydayessentials.com

Cheap but good quality glasses, pay no more high street prices:

I bought a pair of Hingeless prescription glasses with sunglasses attachment, with postage included, and arrive at my door, all-in, less than £100!!!!  www.Optical4less.com

Espresso Coffee?? 

After Research at Coffee Geek, Too Much Coffee and Whole Latte Love.

I got a new Gaggia Classic in the end from Red Coffee Monkey, but I was going to get a refurbished one directly from Gaggia UK but fancied the two year guarantee instead. 

Spreadbetting?

Get a XDAII from CantorMobile for £99! I got the XDAI free, but this new one is better despite you having to pay for it (warning: you have to bet 50 UK pounds within 9 months on index though!). Want to learn about trading? These books came highly recommended to me: Market Wizards, and Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. I bought them but not got time to read them yet! Got problems with your XDA? Check out the XDA developers forum.

Blackberry?

Finally, someone stole my XDA, had to get a more reliable device, went for the BlackBerry 7100v from Vodafone. Arrived quickly, everything is great, only forwarding two email accounts there, lets hope the data cost will not cost more than my O2 subscription with XDA. Meanwhile, also fingers crossed that the battery can sustain my heavy voice & data usage. If you got one also, see some tips & tricks here or here. Want to see if it is for you? Read up on RIM forums, try PDAstreet, or RIMRoad.