4 Alternative Ways Of Obtaining A New Business Vehicle

If it is time for you to renew or replace a car in your company’s fleet, then what options are open to you? Must you only pay up front for it, or are there other, better, methods to replacing vehicles?

1) Buy the car with money
If you can afford to pay for the whole price of the brand new vehicle in one go, then this may seem to be the option for you. Straight from the start the vehicle is yours in its entirety, along with all future bills.

The downside of owning the car, which you can sell if you need to raise money, is that even if you may pay all of the cash in one go, you might have to write off the costs of the new vehicle over a few years. This could be a huge tax disadvantage and might cost you dearly in excess of time.

2) But the car with a loan
Very similar to buying the new car outright, here you own the whole car from the start. And because you are paying for the purchase via a loan in excess of a few years, the repayments might be closer to matching written off value of the car. So the tax problems might not be so noticeable. But the problem is the loan.

Within no time at all from taking the car away from the showroom the value of the car has dropped and could even exceed the value of the loan, because car loans might have stacks of interest charges. Plus, should you sell, or lose, the vehicle you still have to pay all of the installments and there are no benefits for early repayment.

3)  Rent the vehicle
Renting a new car for your company is another option. Here the tax writing off is not an issue as you declare the cost of the rental fees in the accounts. Plus, should the car suffer any breakdowns, it is then up to the rental firm to replace the car, get it serviced and back on the road. The rental payment will also cover insurance, taxes and wear and tear of the tyres, brakes and so on.

However, there is a big problem. After a year or two of payments, you have nothing to show for it. The payments do not give you an asset at the end of it. Having said that, vehicles depreciate that quickly that after some years this may not be a big issue, but the rental company will be covering this loss and the rental fees might therefore be quite significant.

4)  Contract hire
In a way this method of purchasing merges buying with a loan and rentals. You get stacks of the advantages from both in several different ways. You basically come to an agreement with a provider who will make available a vehicle and you pay costs, which include covering the depreciation. You might also want to include the costs of maintenance and servicing in the monthly fees, to help in the budgeting.

Oh NO! Dr. Marc Schneider has got a new assistant

Tell the person in charge of your international clientele.

Stone House Signs

It’s been about 6 months now since I got rid of the old beehive that we were using as a house sign, and having missed a delivery earlier in the week because the driver couldn find our house, I thought it was about time we started looking at some Stone House Signs

I’ve always preffered the rustic look rather than the uniformal look which a lot of wooden house signs or slate house signs tend to be, so was happy to find a house signs website which has a wide range of stone house signs in all shapes and sizes.

Not only do they provide a range of rustic stone signs, they also make house signs out of natural Welsh slate which is hand picked by the craftsmen.

Pond Filter for Koi Carp Pond

Ever since my father started keeping Japanese ornamental Koi Carp I’ve been fascinated by these graceful, tranquil fish, but until recently I lived in an apartment, so there was no room at the inn for Koi.

Now I’ve moved into a house, the first thing I did after unpacking (much to my wife’s surprise as she was expecting a new bathroom suite!) was to start work on my Koi pond. Koi are pretty particular when it comes to being happy in their habitat, so there I was digging down 1.5m into the garden to make a nice deep pond for the Koi.

One thing I always remember from my father’s pond is that the water was never really clear, which always seemed a bit of shame. After all, Koi come in a variety of magnificent colours and patterns and if your water is cloudy, you can’t see them and they can’t be having much fun either.

So for my project, I started researching Koi pond filters on the internet to see if this could be the solution. I discovered a Koi pond filter not only keeps the water clear, but it also processes organic waste, so your pond doesn’t get a build up of bacteria that can be harmful to the Koi.

Of course, once you start looking at filtration systems for your Koi pond, you soon realise that there’s a whole range of different options out there. One thing I soon picked up is that you need to make sure the filter that you select is big enough for the size of Koi pond you have, so it can cope with the amounts of pond water being circulated through the filter.

Luckily, I had only just started digging out my Koi pond when I came across these filter systems, so I had the choice between using a gravity filter or a pump filter. This is because you need to build in drainage to your pool plans if you want to plump for a gravity fed system. On reading that these gravity Koi pond filters require minimal maintenance and cleaning, this is the one I opted for.

Last week I finished the pond (complete with drain!) and installed the Koi pond filter I bought. I couldn’t wait to get stocking my pond with Koi and I’m hoping these graceful symbols of love and friendship will prosper in their new, filtered Koi pond. I hear the oldest Koi in the world lived to be 226 years old, so I’m hoping my Koi will be happy in their pond and enjoy an equally long life.

Free SEO Reports

I asked a very simple question on a business forum today

Does anyone here offer free seo reports?

Rather than a simple, “Yes, we provide free SEO reports”  I got a number of replies;

Doubt it

Why would anyone do that?

Proposal/Quote but not report

Send me a link to your site and I will do a report

A reply about how SEO reports are done

I then got a reply implying I was a competitor as though I was asking the question for some other reason

I did get one reply which I responded to by PM but only the 1

It is so frustrating that when you try to ask a simple you get people trying to read something else in to the question.

Sing Hosanna Lyrics

Last year I set a page up with the Autumn Days Lyrics

My daughter starts at big school in September and at the end of next week her primary school is holding a leaving ceremony at the local church for all the year 6 students who are moving up.

I’ve been to the last 3 leaving ceremonies and every year one of the songs is Give me joy in my heart (Sing Hosanna).

This year I will be prepared as I have written the Sing hosanna lyrics down and will know them off by heart before we get to the service.

Sing Hosanna has always been one of my favourite hyms and luckily it is also one which I find easy to sing along with.

Ban the Vuvuzela from World Cup

It may sound good if your sat in the Stadium but when you’re 6000 miles away sat trying to listen to the world cup games on the radio the Vuvuzela is killing the game.

Ater 10 minutes of listening to the first game I just couldn’t stand it any longer and had to switch off.

Surely the annoying Vuvuzela will effect viewing figures and radio listners so will the big broadcasters allow this to happen or will they call for the Vuvuzela to be banned?

Vuvuzela Ruining World Cup

House Signs Made From Slate

Came across a nice site last night which sells House Signs made out of slate or natural stone.

After my latest episode which involved a FIAT Punto, a verry sorry old dear, and a broken house sign, I have decided this time to get a nice Slate House Sign and bed it in to the verge.

Next time some old dear decides she would like to park her Punto on top of my sign, hopefully it will do more damage to her car than it does to the sign.

Portable wheelchair ramps

I had decided that my first website was going to be about wheelchair ramps the next thing to do was start building it.

I started of on just free webspace on Geocities (no idea where it is now) but soon decided I should register a domain and start learning basic HTML.

I registered by first domain via easyspace, got the most basic hosting package and started to teach myself HTML.

Initially it was all just centered multicoloured text with the odd image in the center of the page, I then started learning about tables, and thought it was great because I could now put text on the side of an image rather than just under it or above it.

I was having fun doing this and just treating it as a hobby (much like I do now).

I found a site with some nice images and info, so started using the images of portable wheelchair ramps and started describing them.

It was only about 5 pages, had a *what I thought was cool at the time* dark brown background and a mixture of yellow, gold, white, red and blue fonts.

Looking back at it now, the images were all fuzzy, the text looked a mess and it basically lookd like what it was, a homemade experiment.

Dance like the stars – if I knew who half of them were!

Flicking through the newspaper this morning I saw a photo of ex-Baywatch ‘actress’ Pamela Anderson in a somewhat compromising position. Nothing new there then you might think, but actually this position was her doing the splits at the end of her latest dance routine in US reality show Dancing With The Stars!

It seems telly fans on both sides of the Atlantic can’t get enough of this tenth series and I wouldn’t be surprised if it inspires kids and adults all over the country to take up dancing lessons to become as nifty on your feet as our Pammy.

But wait, just who are these people on Dancing With The Stars? I can’t believe someone managed to convince astronaut Buzz Aldrin that it’d be a good idea to dance live on TV. Nicole Scherzinger from the Pussycat Dolls clearly wants to be known as more than being just the ex-squeeze of F1 driver Lewis Hamilton. Then there’s TV has-been Shannon Docherty accompanied by a splash of soap and z list reality stars I’ve never heard of, all dancing away.

The oddest addition to the show has to be Evan Lysachek who happens to be a gold medal winning ice skating champion at the recent Vancouver Winter Olympics…that’s cheating surely?!

Even so, it’s all great entertainment and enough to inspire anyone to pull on their glad rags and get indulging in some dance lessons.

Top 10 Car Leasing Deals

I’ve been re-structuring a Contract Hire site over the past couple of days.

It’s not so much a case of getting it more SEO friendly but more a case of getting it easier to edit and add content to, and making the navigation and site crisper and cleaner.

The colour scheme isn’t my cup of tea and the main banner/logo isn’t exactly appealing, but the rest of it I just set up in a very simple no nonsense fasion.

We will be creating a page for the Top 10 Car leasing Deals but at the moment are just displaying the top 5 on the homepage.

Car leasing is one of those industries I’ve never really looked at and don’t really know what  the difference is between car leasing and contract hire.

I assume contract hire is more for people who are looking to lease a car for business use, but apart from that I don’t really know.

If I was going to lease a car myself I would probably go for a 12 month car lease or a 24 month car lease at the most, and then at the end of the contract have a brand new car and start again.

After looking at the prices for leasing a Fiat Punto Evo I’m wondering if it would be better to buy though. I’m pretty sure that 12/18 months ago you could get some good 24 month deals on similar cars for under £200, but the cheapest I have found so far for leasing a Punto Evo is over £250 and that’s without the tinted windows and body kit

I worked it out it would cost me more than £6k over the 2 years, I know depreciation is bad, but I wouldn’t have thought it was that bad on a Punto.

The guy who I am doing the site for has a Fiat Car Leasing page but at the moment doesn’t have a Punto Evo on it,  if he  can’t get a better deal than the others I’ve seen I might try and buy an ex demo of dealer with just a few miles on the clock.

Comments on the London Olympics Logo

Negative Comments on the London Olympics Logo

Possitive Comments on the London Olympics Logo

• I like the prety colors
  Lucy B
  (aged 4)
• The design and the structure represent the awakening of a sleeping giant, it is cutting edge yet strangely old fashioned, the painstaking work that has gone into this must not be underestimated and one needs to view the logo through the eyes of a new born child to appreciate the full complexities. I truly believe this will become a major iconic feature of the 21st century, will influence a new generation of artists/designers and will encourage many more children to take an active part in sport and the community.
  S Coo,
  Surrey

Dominoes Results – Top of the Hill Dominoes League Banbury

The first week of the Top of the Hill Dominoes League which consists of local pubs from villages to the west of Banbury (Oxfordshire), started on 10th September 2009.

The George at Brailes came from behind to gain a close victory over arch rivals The Brailes Boys.

The first round finished all even at 2 games each, but the boys went 5 – 3 up after round 2 after winning the round 3- 1. The following round was again tied at 2-2 leaving the Boys needing just one game in the final leg for a draw or 2 for the win.

Undaunted by the fact they had to win all 4 games to take maximum points the George Hotel started strongly when T Simmonds and D Knight finished strongly to take the first game, this was soon followed by another victory for the George by A Evans and J Mills which leveled the match up again.

The tension was growing as the end drew nearer but R Hibberd and S Anon kept their heads to take The George in to an unassailable lead 8 – 7 leaving Team captain F Evans and old stalwart K Hinds with the responsibility of closing the match out.

They didn’t disappoint the home team supporters and easily won their game to give The George Hotel a narrow 9 7 victory which takes them to the top of the league.

Commenting after the match, George Hotel team captain, F Evans, said

“It was a great result for us, it’s always nice to get one over the Boys, they have always been our bogey team”

Next week The George Hotel take a short trip up the B4035 to take on last years league champions, The Lampet Arms, Upper Tadmarton, in what looks on paper to be an equally tight game.

Wine Coolers – This years must have appliance

Despite the bleak economic predictions it looks like this years must have home appliances are likely to be Wine Coolers.

We’re not just talking about small every day wine coolers here, we’re talking luxury wine cabinets.

Wine cabinets come in a wide range and offer options of; single temperature, three temperature or multi temperature. They also range from small under worktop units to superbly styled cabinets that don’t look out of place in any dining room.

Designed for long term wine storage, the three temperature and multi temperature wine cabinets also have compartments that store both red and white wines at perfect serving temperatures.

Upholsterers in Nottinghamshire

Set up a listing in my main directory site tonight for Upholsterers in Nottingham which bought back memories of when I was still living in Aldington.

I helped the next door neighbour convert one of their old outbuildings in to work studio where she would re-upholster old furniture.