Home-made Halloween costumes save a bundle of money

By Danielle Braff

GateHouse News Service

The only thing more important than the candy you receive on Halloween is the costume you wear. After all, it’ll be commemorated in pictures decades from now.

Parents shelled out nearly $1 billion for their children’s costumes last year, according to a survey by BIGresearch Consumer Intentions & Actions, and the average person spent about $66 on costumes, candy and decorations, says the National Retail Federation.
Costumes accounted for $23.37 of that cost, and took up the largest portion of a person’s Halloween budget, the survey found. They also spent an average of $20.29 on candy, $18.66 on decorations and $3.95 on spooky greeting cards.
And while dressing up may have been something fun and whimsical decades ago, it’s become an even bigger, more important and costlier event today. The National Retail Federation found that last year – the latest year for which data is available – the highest percentage of people in the survey’s history were expected to don costumes: 40 percent, up from 33 percent the previous year. Twelve percent were planning on dressing up their pets.
Halloween was expected to come second only to the December holidays in terms of decorations, with 50 percent of people planning on adding some orange-and-black décor to their homes or yards.
Popular costumes for kids
With the bulk of the money still being spent on costumes, the outfit you select for your child had better be worth the money.
While Dora the Explorer, Handy Manny and “Toy Story” costumes were huge last Halloween, costumes this year will be more gory, says Laura Texter, assistant buyer for Halloween Adventure in New York.
Little children are expected to be dressed in Green Lantern costumes after the 2011 movie based on the DC Comics superhero, while older kids and teenagers will be decked out in vampire, zombie, “Pirates of the Caribbean” and Hive Monster – from the Nick show “The Troop” – gear, Texter says.
And while “Cars,” “Toy Story” and Dora are still very popular, they’re fading from their top spots last year.
Saving money
Texter finds that most people spend between $30 and $40 a costume when they go to the store to buy a ready-made outfit. With 1,814 costume rental and retail stores in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it won’t be hard to find a place to buy your outfit, even at the last minute.
But making one for just a few dollars at home can also work. With this year’s zombie theme, it’s easy to make an inexpensive outfit.
“Get cheap makeup kits and start from there, and create your own costume,” Texter says. “Get green and black makeup, and some gauze to become a zombie. The more creative you are, the less money it will cost.”

Leaving children home alone? Consider maturity, safety

By Heidi Knapp Rinella

Child-education experts say that at 8 years old, some kids are mature enough to let themselves into their homes after school and spend the afternoon alone. Confronted with that fact, Mike O'Day looked incredulous.
"I think that's too young," said O'Day, who was picking up his 10-year-old daughter, Devon, from the Safekey after-school program at Treem Elementary School in Henderson. "She would never stay home by herself. Her older sister was in Safekey until eighth grade."
Given the same information, Anela Kaheaku didn't even stop to consider before starting to shake her head.
"No," said Kaheaku, who was picking up her 10-year-old son, Drake, from Treem Safekey. "No."
It's an issue that confronts every parent when a child reaches late elementary school and starts the familiar lament: "I'm not a baby. I can go home by myself."
And in some cases, that is true for kids as young as 8.
"At 8, they get the reasoning they need to problem-solve," said Julie Waterhouse, elementary counselor specialist for the Clark County School District.
But, Waterhouse said, the latchkey issue is awash with caveats.
"It does depend on the child and the parent," Waterhouse said -- "how the parent sets up the situation." And, "You wouldn't want to leave every 8-year-old alone."
For one thing, she said, many kids are afraid to be on their own.
"If a child feels like they're OK to stay alone, it's a good indicator," she said.
"You have to evaluate and assess your child," said Arlene Hummel, coordinator of the district's Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program. "Do they feel comfortable? Are they fairly responsible?"
It's important, both women noted, that children not be thrown into a latchkey situation; they suggest practicing by leaving them alone for an hour or two on a weekend. And it's vital, they added, that parents stay in touch with their children's feelings to ensure the situation is a positive one.
"The parent is key," Hummel said. "What kind of structure does the parent need to put in place for the children?"
That, she said, includes safety measures, such as a temporary ban on using the Internet. The parent needs to communicate expectations about the child completing his or her homework and household chores. And there should be weekly meetings with the child to see how things are going.
"The parent needs to be educated to warning signs that they aren't doing well," Hummel said. "Not sleeping, nightmares, not doing well at school." ParentLink provides a means of checking homework progress, she said.
"The parent has to be involved," Hummel said. "The kid may say they're fine, but signs may prove otherwise."
And Waterhouse said that if parents are trusting a child to take on some degree of independence when the parents aren't home, they should trust them to do the same when they are home.
"It builds confidence and gives the parent a chance to see if they're not making the right decisions," she said.
A good indicator of a child's maturity, Hummel said, is if he or she follows rules when the parent is home, including doing chores and homework as assigned.
She added that a child younger than 10 should not be expected to oversee a younger sibling.
"You do not want to parentify any child," she said.
It's important, Waterhouse said, to be honest with the school if a child is going to be going home alone, so the school can watch for such issues as behavioral changes.
And Hummel noted that a child who is following safety rules -- typically, he or she can't go out to play, have anyone in the house, or go on the Internet, including Facebook -- can develop a sense of isolation.
"They need to have opportunities to play and have their friends over," she said. "You don't want them to have too much responsibility. That does matter in their own development."
Which is a point Kaheaku clearly understands. When Drake is at Safekey, she said, "there's adult supervision if something goes wrong." Plus, "he gets interaction with kids."
The various before- and after-school Safekey programs in Clark County are run by municipal parks and recreation departments with the cooperation of the school district. Kim Becker, a spokeswoman for the city of Henderson, said Safekey is available in the city's 25 elementary schools, with Teen Scene in seven middle schools. On a daily basis, the programs involve 1,600 elementary students and 75 middle-schoolers, she said. Some attend on an as-needed basis, as opposed to daily; she noted that the program can involve 3,000 to 4,000 children during the course of the school year.
Exact hours depend on a school's bell time, beginning at 6:45 or 7 a.m. until school starts, and school dismissal until 6 p.m. -- or 6:30, for $10 a week extra, if needed. The average fee is $35 per week for one child in the after-school program or $58 for two siblings, with further discounts for more siblings.
Becker said the elementary schools, in particular, have fitness programs, with outdoor activities in good weather.
"Even in play, a lot of the children were getting winded," she said. "We also were seeing overweight children. This program gets them out and about with game-type activities. Within a month, you can see that they've built up their stamina. And we keep track of how many pounds they've lost."
Sara Abdelrahman, supervisor of the Safekey program at Treem, said the roster differs daily, averaging about 35. The children participate in a variety of activities, including snack time, homework time, scheduled activity and time outside. The popularity of the activities differs by the school, she said, arts and crafts tends to reign supreme at Treem, where the kids were fashioning pipe-cleaner creations on a recent afternoon.
"Every kid is different," she said, "but they really like arts and crafts. They went a little crazy with the pipe cleaners."
Ed Jost, division manager of parks, recreation and neighborhood services for the city of Las Vegas, said Safekey programs are in 68 elementary schools in the city -- like in Henderson, in all or virtually all of them. Last year, he said, 9,137 children were enrolled, with total attendance of 516,000. The daily average is 2,800.
The fee, Jost said, depends on hours used, with afternoons running $35 to $41 a week. Multi-children discounts aren't available, but scholarships for as much as 75 percent of the fee are.
Something Jost said he's particularly excited about this year is that the program got a grant through the Southern Nevada Health District that incorporates physical fitness, health awareness and education, lifestyles awareness and good nutrition.
Las Vegas' Safekey program incorporates "some homework stuff, coloring and arts and crafts -- and a lot of physical activity is what we're emphasizing this year to try to combat the childhood-obesity issues," Jost said. The health district-funded program "comes with everything you need -- fun stuff the kids enjoy doing. They used to come in, sit down and watch a movie," he added.
Jost said the city's after-school recreation programs extend through middle and high school; the high-school programs have youth councils that plan activities and trips.
"We really encourage kids to get involved in that, because it's very much kids-led," he said. "The lone thing we know from all the research is if the kid is busy with a positive activity after school, they're a lot less likely to get into trouble and get into mischief. We try to channel them into positive things."
Henderson has programs at its recreation centers as well, and Devon O'Day is champing at the bit to join one, but Dad's not in agreement because he likes Safekey's structure.
"I'd save a little money," he said. "But the peace of mind is worth it."
Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474.

Pembrokeshire coast park introduces single homes charge

A controversial new property development charge has come into force in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

 The levy on one-off housing developments will be used to help finance affordable housing.
It will be be phased in over three years. People building a three-bedroom home could eventually face a £25,000 charge.
But developers claim the charge is flawed and could hinder house building.
There are currently about 400 people on the area's housing waiting list and the park authority said it wants to see 530 new affordable homes by 2021.

A percentage of developments of two or more homes already have to be given over to affordable housing.

From 1 October, one-off homes will also have to make a contribution by paying into a pot of money which will be used to finance local affordable housing.
Martina Dunne, head of development plans for the park authority, told BBC Radio Wales' Eye on Wales: "If you understand that we're asking for 50% affordable housing on sites of two or more in the national park, what we wanted to do was to be equitable in our approach and ask for a similar contribution from the smaller developments."
Once it is being charged at its full rate, the fee for an average two-storey, three-bedroom home with a 100 square metres of floor space would be £25,000.
'Shambles'
Lawrenny dairy farmer and developer David Lort-Phillips said he fears the policy may lead to more holiday homes being built, as they are exempt from the charge.
When the national park authority consulted on the charge it received just one response in favour, he said.
"We think it is a shambles, quite frankly.
"It's the wrong policy applied in the wrong place at the wrong time by the wrong people."
Fellow developer Michael Ritchie of Dragonsway Wales signed an open letter to both the park authority and Pembrokeshire council raising concerns the policy could hinder new homes building.
"There are many planning applications that five years ago I would have had a stab at because I felt the land was suitable for development," he said.
"Now you wouldn't bother because it's such a complicated business."
The park authority said it has made significant changes to the details of its new charge to address people's concerns.
Ms Dunne said only a small number of developments would be liable for the charge, as affordable housing and buildings replacing existing properties would be exempt.
The money raised will be passed to the council for two housing associations - Pembrokeshire Housing and Cantref - for future affordable housing projects.
Source http://www.bbc.co.uk

The real Downton Abbey

By Elizabeth Grice 

In a new book Lady Carnarvon, whose home is the setting for Downton Abbey, reveals how Highclere was, like its fictional counterpart, a First World War hospital. She tells Elizabeth Grice her plans to raise money for today’s Armed Forces, and why living the stately life is far from luxurious 

Tomorrow evening, the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon will settle down in front of an unreliable television in the study at Highclere Castle in Berkshire and look forward to an hour of what the historian A N Wilson denounces as sanitised fantasy. Even if the fantasy in question, Downton Abbey, had not saved them from debt and made their home the most bankable country house in the world, they would still flop down in front of it, along with 12 million others, and thank their good friend Julian Fellowes, the show’s creator, for some harmless escapism.

“Everything we see on television is sanitised to some extent,” says Fiona Carnarvon, the Countess. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. In a television mini-series, you can’t necessarily engage with the darkness that is around us all the time. On a Sunday evening, I want to have something that’s pleasant and fun and engaging and a very nice way to start the week, not something grisly and depressing when you’ve got Monday approaching anyway.”

But the second series of Downton currently embraces a subject that is both grisly and depressing – the long shadow of the First World War – but Fellowes produces an essentially character-building version of its effects on the depleted but still lavish household of Lord and Lady Grantham. Their three daughters are stepping up to the plate admirably. Lady Sybil has gone into nursing, Lady Edith is driving tractors and Lady Mary finds some softening of her haughty heart now her spurned suitor is in the trenches.

War is where Lady Carnarvon, too, comes into her own. At top speed, to meet the moment in the series when Downton becomes a hospital for wounded soldiers, she has written a biography of her predecessor, Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon, a small dynamo of a woman who turned Highclere into a hospital and convalescent home at the outbreak of the Great War, with herself as all-powerful matron. Butlers served the patients meals and the nurses (hired for looks as well as skills) were kitted out in high-fashion strawberry-pink uniforms, with starched white aprons and caps, to boost morale.

“This detail set the tone,” says Lady Carnarvon. “She wanted Highclere to be a cutting-edge hospital but also a sensual retreat from the horror of combat. She was an amazing woman, full of joie de vivre and an instinctive master of what we’d nowadays call holistic medicine. I am in awe of her administrative skills because I find my own are stretched trying to run this place. There is perhaps something to be learnt from her approach when nursing today is ever more tangled in red tape.”
The rich and subtle confusions of costume drama and actual events have worked brilliantly for the owners of Highclere, for the television company and for Fellowes himself, who has become a lord and received six Emmys. Visitor numbers have doubled and Highclere is in better financial shape than at any time since 1895, when the cash-strapped 5th Earl landed £25 million in today’s money by marrying Almina, the 19-year-old illegitimate daughter of the banking tycoon, Baron Alfred de Rothschild.
“It’s been like a magic carpet for all of us,” says Lady Carnarvon. “The irony is that before this, we’d tried to present ourselves as a modern stately home rather than one settled in class. Now Downton Abbey has taken it back 100 years and the whole success of English tourism seems to depend on stately homes with this juxtaposition of upstairs, downstairs. So let’s celebrate it – which Downton does, the good characters and the bad. Julian cleverly does not caricature the upstairs people as baddies and the downstairs people as goodies.”
On the afternoon I arrive, Lady Carnarvon, dressed in jeans and a tunic, is in the middle of trying to secure the services of a vet and at the same time to get someone to plane a door at the top of the house because a carpet doesn’t fit. “That doesn’t make me very happy,” she says, sounding like a steelier version of Lady Grantham.
With no footmen to summon, a bell board that fell silent years ago and mobile phones that work only intermittently, she is sending her personal assistant to the top of the Victorian castle. “I could definitely do with some more men around,” she says. “There are never quite enough. You can spend a lot of time walking round in circles because you can’t find someone. You think: where’s the tin can and the bit of string?”
Just how fundamentally privilege has shifted for the present owners, compared with its fictional counterparts of a century ago, is summed up by Lady Carnarvon’s description of herself as Highclere’s daily firefighter, while her husband, Geordie, the 8th Earl, is more like its business manager. One day she is the still-room maid, making crab apple and quince jellies; the next, she’s climbing onto the roof to assess which sections need repair. “I sometimes wish I had not gone up there in high heels. I’ve never got the right shoes in the right place.”
A history enthusiast, she first eased herself into her new role by writing Highclere’s guidebook. The castle has a rich history; it was built on an ancient site by the architect Sir Charles Barry in 1842, although it has been home to the Carnarvon family since 1679; the original house was recorded in the Domesday Book. The castle’s greatest claim to fame before Downton was the 5th Earl’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 with his archaeologist friend Howard Carter. Lady C was about to embark on a life of Lord Carnarvon, who died of blood poisoning in Cairo at the age of 56, when “suddenly Almina shot to the top of the pile” as the Downton effect took hold.
Within two months, she had written 70,000 words, supplementing her knowledge of First World War battles with family archives detailing Almina’s war work. “I was completely in floods of tears at some of the letters from grateful surgeons and patients,” she says. “Towards the end I was getting up at 7am and working till 2am. Writer’s block? I didn’t have time for it. Some days were completely crazy.”
While Lord Carnarvon poured funds into his Egyptian excavations, Almina’s millions kept the castle afloat. But her inability to distinguish between capital and income meant that she relied heavily on handouts from her father to establish and equip Highclere for the wounded and dying. Thirty nurses were recruited. The family’s personal physician was hired as medical director. Arundel, a bedroom on the first floor in the northwest corner of the house, became an operating theatre. All the castle’s 41 south-facing rooms had to be fitted with exterior blinds. And when the men started to arrive, “it was like moving a house party of 50 people into the castle on a permanent basis” – with the same number of staff.
“Oh, puss-cat,” Rothschild would remonstrate, “I gave you £10,000 only last week. Whatever have you done with it, my darling child?” But he never refused her, says Lady Carnarvon. “He simply took out his chequebook and unscrewed the lid of his pen and signed away another £25,000. It was a formidable amount to come up with on a Monday morning.”
Only a few days after the hospital was up and running, Almina again travelled to her father’s offices off Fleet Street. And again the Baron’s protests were as fond as they were feeble: “Darling, it was only last month I gave you £25,000. What on earth have you done with it? I know it’s all in a good cause, but please do be careful.”
Good nursing practice, says Lady C, was her watchword. “Severe bacterial infections may have been a major problem in the trenches, but they would not be tolerated at Highclere. When the nurses went into Newbury, they did not go in uniform, so that they didn’t pick up germs in the street. Those practical things are lost to us today.”
Almina’s care for the victims of war started Lady Carnarvon thinking about what Highclere could do for today’s soldiers while the goings-on in Downton’s war-darkened towers are exerting such unexpected fascination. Her answer is a Heroes at Highclere day of family entertainment on October 16, when visitors will be able to mingle with the cast and crew of Downton Abbey to raise money and awareness for the Army Benevolent Fund, the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes.
Hundreds of “re-enactors” (many of them extras in the period drama) will be milling about in military and medical costume, some running field hospitals and kitchens. The Arundel bedroom will be returned to a First World War operating theatre.
The event will celebrate Almina’s contribution to nursing the war wounded, on a scale that matches her robust appetite for entertaining, but it will also recognise the military sacrifices exacted in Iraq and Afghanistan and the work of volunteers. “I thought: we’re on a magic carpet, let’s give something back to all the Army charities who are supporting soldiers physically, spiritually and financially. What started as a little bright idea has become a huge thing. I want to share it with soldiers and their families and to make sure those whose sons or husbands have died are included, too. But the crux of it is my pride in what Almina achieved here. On Heroes at Highclere day, I reckon every heartstring should be pulled.”
Lady Carnarvon sees Highclere Castle, like its alter ego, Downton Abbey, as an ensemble cast of characters, much as it was in Almina’s time, only there are far fewer of them and they don’t necessarily believe, as Carson the Downton butler does, that the world turns on the correct style of a dinner.
The atmosphere is altogether more egalitarian. Lady C says she has learnt to love the bones and stones of Highclere through its history and its people, taking her cue from Almina, who had the sense to remember that “she was only one part of a machine that would long survive her”.
Like the trustees, stewards and owners of Britain’s other stately homes, the Carnarvons had got used to the idea of soft-pedalling their class and privilege in favour of a workmanlike attitude to custodianship that blurred the distinctions. Then Julian Fellowes came along with his quaint notion of a period drama and they woke up to find there was no need to be defensive any more. It has been liberating.
When the Downton theme tune weaves through the credits and the gothic splendour of Highclere comes into view, Lady Carnarvon feels a swell of pride and revenue. “I feel the house has made it.”

• Downton Abbey is on ITV at 9pm on Sundays

• Lady Almina & the Real Downton Abbey (Hodder; £19.99) is available from Telegraph Books for £17.99 plus £1.24 p & p, 0844 871 1515, or books.telegraph.co.uk

• Heroes at Highclere day of family entertainment is on Sunday Oct 16, tickets from www.cornexchangenew.com or call 01635 522 733. From £15 each, with castle entry from £30. Includes First World War exhibitions, special guests from the Downton Abbey series, vintage cars and the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery

OC Designs Online keeps Upper Township mother home with family

By BRIAN IANIERI Staff Writer 

UPPER TOWNSHIP - Frannie Kline built a thriving website-design business from a small, one-window office in her Petersburg home.
But six years ago, that was not necessarily her plan.
The former real estate office secretary was just looking for a stay-at-home job so she could care for her newborn son.
The side business evolved into OC Designs Online, which creates business logos and designs websites for eBay store vendors and individual businesses.
Kline's Internet-based company now has five employees spread across the country and nearly $200,000 in annual revenue, she said.
"It's become my livelihood. I went from sitting at a desk making $14 an hour to creating this entire business that I could never have imagined would be bringing in the kind of money that it is," Kline said.
The 33-year-old mother said she had no particular training in website design when she started in 2005, and she never went to college.
Kline, a 1997 graduate of Ocean City High School, wanted to make money from home so she could spend time with her son, who is autistic, without putting him in day care.
She started small by creating and selling logo designs.
Two years later, she accidentally discovered what would become the bread and butter of her business - designing websites for people selling items on eBay stores.
As eBay became more popular, it evolved from an online auction site into one where individual retailers also sell their goods.
One day, a customer asked if she could design a site. So she taught herself.
Kline trained herself with videos and Web tutorials - from Photoshop to Illustrator - and solicited advice from others in the industry.
"I don't think people realize how much money there is in eBay and selling your inventory," Kline said. "It's not like an auction website. They are trying to be like Amazon. I have some sellers that are making $200,000, $250,000 a month just selling their stuff. It's amazing the kind of volume you can do on eBay."
Her company now designs e-commerce and Facebook commerce sites, areas where she sees big growth potential.
The business designs websites for about 50 eBay stores per month at about $800 each, she said. E-commerce websites can range in price from $1,300 to about $2,200, she said.
OC Designs Online customers include small brick-and-mortar stores, home-based Internet retailers and others who purchase their inventory from wholesale distributors and have it shipped directly from their warehouses.
"Basically they'll come to me, ‘I have a store and I want to sell my items online. What can you do for me?' I usually give them the option of eBay because it's the simplest, cheapest way to start," she said.
Her e-commerce business - which uses independent websites, not eBay's - has included some South Jersey businesses, although most of her customers are from other parts of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Italy.
She attributes her success, in part, to her high ranking on search results on Google, as well as word of mouth from past customers.
And her small office will soon be a thing of the past.
Currently, Kline is having an addition built on her house - a larger office space with more windows.
"I put my son on the bus at 9 o'clock every morning and I'm in there from 9 until 4, and then when he gets home, I make dinner, then I go back in there when everyone's in bed from 8 to 12," she said.
"I am so proud of my business, and it's very important to me. When I'm not with my son or husband, all my time goes into it."
Contact Brian Ianieri:
609-272-7253
BIanieri@pressofac.com

Smart homes: take remote control

 BY Miles Bignall

Your mobile phone will soon allow you to switch your domestic electrical gadgets on and off – and cut your bills – from anywhere in the world

 You get out of work early for once. How good would it be to be able to turn on your central heating before you get home so it's all toasty as you step through the door? Or you left for work in a hurry, and are worried that the hair straighteners are still plugged in. What a relief it would be to turn them off en-route using your mobile phone?

It might sound like something from Tomorrow's World, but both prospects are closer than you think.
In the next few months British Gas is set to start the first big trial of "smart home" technology, and, if all goes well, it plans to begin installing it commercially in customers' UK homes over the next year.
The final price is still to be settled, but the company hopes to bring the package in at under £200. For that, consumers will get the technology they need to create their first "smart home", although they'll need to pay extra for any smartplugs that allow you to turn off appliances remotely. These cost around £25 each.
The service is likely to excite gadget fiends and those hoping to reduce their gas and electricity bills. Buyers should easily save the installation cost through lower bills that result in not heating their homes when they are not there.
At its heart is a control box that is linked to the home's broadband hub. Users have to upgrade their thermostat to a (supplied) digital model, but apart from that, it should install in almost every broadband-linked home.
It effectively lets you talk to the central heating system from anywhere in the world. You can also use it to turn on, or off, other key appliances using the smartplugs that send and receive messages wirelessly to the central hub.
The technology to make it happen already exists. British Gas has set up the system in a mock home in its laboratory at its Staines headquarters, and a small group of staff are testing it in their homes.
This week Guardian Money had a sneak preview of the system that has been developed in conjunction with AlertMe, a company in which British Gas owns a 20% stake.
Sitting in our London office we were able to turn the heating and lighting in the Staines "smart home" on and off. The service has a dedicated web page which showed us which appliances had been left on.
We were able to see the inside and outside temperatures, turning the heating up and down accordingly – a boon for those who fear their partner overheats the home while they are at work.
If you don't have a smart phone, the system can be just as easily controlled with a basic text message sent from a standard mobile or any PC.
Paul Grosvenor, British Gas's head of innovation, and one of those who has been using it for the last year, says that he has definitely seen lower gas and electricity bills as a result of the tests: "Consumers are increasingly demanding the ability to do more with the latest technology, and we see 'smart homes' as the future. This technology gives you the ability to conserve energy because you use it more cleverly. You are in control, wherever you are."
He says he regularly used it last winter to change his heating settings, even turning on the system while he was away to protect the home from freezing during the really cold spell. He says he also found it a much easier way to set up his boiler timings than the original complicated system.
British Gas says the system will eventually have the ability to be customised. With smart key fobs it will be possible to configure it to shut down every appliance linked to a smart plug, plus the heating, when you leave the premises.
In the long run, it will also be linked to the home's smart meter, although it will also work with a conventional meter.
Along with the other big power companies, British Gas is already in the process of offering smart meters to every customer as they have their old ones replaced.
These are read remotely using the mobile phone network, doing away with the need for a call from a meter reader. They will also do away with estimated bills and can be linked to the latest in-home displays, that show householders exactly how much power they are consuming at any one time, both in kilowatt hours and, more crucially, in pounds and pence.
Leave too many appliances on, and the smart meter display will show a red warning light – great for those with children who tend to leave everything on.
Meanwhile, there is one drawback to the introduction of a remote control heating system – it could promote "couch potato syndrome".
Grosvenor is ashamed to admit he has used his mobile to turn up the heating from his sofa, instead of walking over to the thermostat.
"If you're lying in bed on a Saturday morning and the heating's gone off, it's very tempting to send a text to turn it on again rather than going down into a cold house," he says.

 Source http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Six tips to help your kids become entrepreneurs

By Cindy Perman, CNBC.com

When you hear about kids like Abbey Fleck, who helped her parents achieve their dream home, adopt a few more kids and put all five through college on her Makin' Bacon money, it makes you wonder, how did she do it?

Well, if we're honest, it makes you wonder how your kids can become entrepreneurs and maybe millionaires  too.

We talked to several kid inventors and their parents about what makes them different from the rest of us. What are they doing that we're not?

The good news is you don't have to give up your TV.

Sure, some of the kids are home-schooled and watch ZERO hours of television per week, like Oink-a-saurus inventor Fabian Fernandez-Han, but Cassidy Goldstein, inventor of the crayon holder, said TV is where she gets some of her best ideas. Admittedly, she's usually making jewelry or doing something else while watching TV, but still, it's OK — even helpful.

Some kids had a way in — their parents were inventors, like Fleck, or CEOs, like Sarah Bucknel, who invented Magnetic Locker Wallpaper. Others competed in contests through organizations like By Kids for Kids or FIRST Robotics — like Fernandez-Han, Nicholas Fornario, who invented the Tic-Tag-Tac vest, and the Inventioneers, who invented the Smart Wheel.

Still, Fernandez-Han's dad said he thinks it's important to teach kids not just to solve problems — but to find them.

Here are six tips from the kids and their parents for how your kids can become entrepreneurs, too.

1. Get them started experimenting young. It's not enough to just teach your kids: Eat your dinner, clean your room, do your homework, says Norm Goldstein, the CEO of By Kids for Kids and the dad of crayon holder inventor Cassidy Goldstein. Give them a lot of things to tinker with. Cassidy, for example, used to make animals out of pipe cleaners or clay while she was watching TV. Some kids respond to those "artsy" materials, others may be more technical, preferring Legos, for example. Whatever it is, let them find out what they like and what they're good at and, most important, give them the encouragement and confidence to take it to the next level. And don't just stand above them — get down on your hands and knees or sit with them at the table to help them or just to give them encouragement, Norm said.

2. Take your kids seriously. It's easy to park them in front of the TV, say "Don't touch that, I'll do it," or laugh off an idea they come up with as "Oh, those kids and their crazy ideas!" But one thing every kid and every parent said was that it's so important to take your kids seriously. When a household problem arises, like Cassidy and her broken crayons, ask them, "What do you think we should do?" Or, if your kid has an idea, like Hart Main's idea for Man Can manly-scented candles, say, "OK, let's figure out how to make them." Whether your kid becomes a millionaire or not, it will be an amazing lesson in business and a super shot of confidence that says, "Hey, I can do it!"

3. Don't do too much — or too little. Kids can only do so much, Cassidy says. They need parents' help to take it to the next level. Or, to simply look at the child and say, "That's great! Now what?" Keep pushing them to take it further. By the same token, you have to be careful not to do TOO much. KK Gregory, inventor of Wristies wrist warmers, says her mom was very involved in the business, but let KK do a lot of the legwork. It's so easy for a parent to take over the kid's school science project — but you have to resist that urge, KK explained. Hart's mom said you have to allow them to try things — and even fail. "Let them make their mistakes and learn from them," she said. "It's hard when you see that they're setting themselves up for failure. Hard to let them feel pain. But, when they feel that pain, they'll realize that it doesn't hurt as much as they think it would — and they keep moving." And, she quickly added, with the family's signature sarcasm: "I have never tripped them on purpose."

4. Don't waste time. If your kid has a good idea, don't waste time developing it right away. First order of business: Check if someone else has a patent on this idea. You can do that very easily through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office web site —uspto.gov. If you spend time producing a product that is already out there or that there's no demand for, that's wasted time — and money. Then, poke around, make some calls. Call that family friend who makes candles, Like Hart did. Find out about other companies in the business, potential manufacturers. Send 100 letters to Walmart asking that they sell your product, like Abbey. And, never underestimate the benefit of good PR — even by your mom. KK says her mom's PR campaign was crucial to the success of the business taking off!

5. Plug them into networks for young inventors. There are tons of organizations offered right through school they can join to get hands-on experience in being an inventor and entrepreneur, including Odyssey of the Mind, First Robotics and Future Business Leaders of America. Plus, organizations like Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and 4H also develop a lot of these leadership and entrepreneurial skills.

And, there are tons of competitions they can enter that will give them a good starting point. Intel and Google each have a science competition. By Kids for Kids is basically a clearinghouse for all kinds of competitions sponsored by companies — not just math and science competitions, but in all different types of categories including arts and athletics. Even if they don't go on to become an entrepreneur or kid millionaire, it will build valuable life and business skills. Plus, there's usually a cash prize involved, which gives a nice boost to their piggy bank to help fund their invention, pay for college or help them get a jump-start on saving.

6. Be prepared to dedicate a lot of time to the business. All of the kids talked about missing out on fun time with their friends because they had to work on their business many nights and weekends. Parents, too! Look at KK's mom, who took over the business while KK went off to college and then explored the world for a few years after that. That's not to say that they had NO fun, just that it required discipline and dedication. But, that work ethic paid off — not one of these kids became divas, asking that their M&Ms be separated by color, when they hit the big time! Hart still finds time to work at soup kitchens, Abbey works with autistic and other special needs kids and KK, in addition to running her company, is a firefighter in her town.