Home repairs: Knowing when you can do it yourself

By CAROLE FELDMAN

Happy New Year? When it comes to financial resolutions, surveys say we think we're doomed to fail. But it's not true.

Source: Money Talks (http://s.tt/152mq)

In times of economic hardship, "do-it-yourself" is a tempting mantra for many homeowners with dripping faucets, running toilets, leaky windows or sticky locks.

The savings can add up when you don't have to call a repairman, especially for things like painting, plumbing and appliance repair, said Ken Collier, editor-in-chief of The Family Handyman. "Parts are a small part of the cost. Labor is huge," he said.
And if things go wrong? With a small job, Collier said, "worst case, you have to hire a pro and eat some crow."
There are some home repairs, of course, that an unskilled homeowner should avoid, among them "situations where having heavy equipment makes the job go much better, especially outdoors," Collier said.
Do no damage
Avoid jobs where you could injure yourself or damage property.
Chris Long, a member of the Home Depot do-it-yourself team, recommends calling an expert to replace a tub or shower valve, or do more involved electrical work. And while "any reasonably careful person can hang drywall," Collier said, taping it to cover the seams and joints is "very much an art where a practiced hand makes a huge difference."
But many other household repairs and projects can be tackled by a do-it-yourselfer who takes the time to learn what's required.
David Frank, of Libertyville, Ill., does just about all his own home repairs and remodeling — "from electric to plumbing to concrete. Any of it can be done." He started working on his first house, a fixer-upper he bought in college, to save money. "I had to learn to do it, or it wasn't going to get done," he said. Over the years, he has taught himself by reading books, watching home-improvement TV shows and talking to experts.
Besides the money saved, there's "definitely a sense of accomplishment" in doing the work himself, he said.
His advice to beginners: Use common sense, take your time and read as much as you can.
When taking on a project, begin by finding out where in your home you turn off the water and gas, and how the circuit breakers work. If you need a professional to show you, hire one.
Right tools
You'll also need a good set of tools. Collier recommends such things as a 20-ounce straight claw hammer, a utility knife, linesman's pliers, a flexible putty knife, a four-in-one screwdriver, a cordless drill-screwdriver, a 25-foot measuring tape and an adjustable crescent wrench. Add to that a plunger, groove-joint pliers and duct tape.
If you're going to do any electrical work, be sure to have a voltage sniffer. "Electricity is scary stuff, and a voltage sniffer is a really safe way to know everything is off," Collier says.
There's a wealth of material online, including videos for the do-it-yourselfer.
Even unskilled homeowners should be able to do some basic appliance repairs, Collier said, such as changing a dryer belt.
And as winter approaches, homeowners can do a lot of weatherizing themselves, including adding insulation, and applying adhesive-backed, foam weather stripping to prevent cold air from seeping in around doors and windows.
Other jobs that a do-it-yourselfer can learn include repairing drywall, replacing a deadbolt, or installing a new light fixture or ceiling fan.
Here's where that voltage sniffer comes in. "If you know how to confidently turn that breaker off and you can test it to verify it, you can change that fixture," said Danny Lipford, who hosts nationally syndicated TV and radio shows.
Be your own plumber
Plumbing repairs also can be accessible even to the novice.
"A toilet is really a very simple mechanism and the parts are readily available to change out," Lipford said.
First, the cause of the problem has to be diagnosed. Find information online, in books, or talk to a worker at your hardware store.
If the toilet is running, for example, one way to figure out what's going on is to add a little food dye to the water in the tank, said Long, of Home Depot. If the water turns the same color, the flapper valve is likely the problem. The flapper seals the tank, then lifts to allow water to flow into the bowl when the toilet is flushed. If the seal isn't tight, water will leak into the bowl.
It could be that the chain connecting the flapper to the handle is too long or too short. Or, it could be the flapper itself. In most cases, the flapper snaps out and you can easily replace it. But remember to turn off the water to the toilet. It's also a good idea to bring the old part to your hardware store to make sure you're purchasing a compatible new one.

Make money from social media

By Tiffany Tift 
ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - As social media has evolved, so has its purpose. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are now for more than just staying connected. They can also help you make a pretty profit.
“Café Annie is directly across the street from IZEA and they're giving away 50 points, or 50 cents, because each point is worth a penny to do a specific task,” explains Ryan Schram, chief marketing officer at IZEA.
Welcome to the world of IZEA, where making money off of social media is the name of the game, and you're the one that gets paid.
“You can earn real cash for taking a picture of you having a sandwich at Annie’s across the street,” Schram says.
Here's how it works: IZEA has an app that finds restaurants, retailers, and brands near you, and gives you the platform to market their products.
The app's called WeReward , and right now hundreds of thousands of people across the country are posting pics, checking in, and making money.
“Here's someone checking in at McDonald’s right now with some sweet tea in what looks like Scottsdale,” Schram shows Fox 35.
It's like couponing with a modern day twist. How much you earn depends on the size of your social network and your influence on your audience.
“You can make 50 cents, a couple of bucks, but as you grow and grow that can become hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Schram says.
The money goes right to your pay pal account.
You can even earn a pretty penny to tweet on SponsoredTweets.com . All you need is a Twitter account, and you can start sharing sponsored messages with your followers.
“We have celebrities who have learned that balance and they'll pay tens of thousands of dollars off of just one tweet,” Schram says.
For us regular people, we're not going to make tens of thousands off a single tweet, but we can off a blog. If you like to blog, you can bring home the bacon on SocialSpark.com . The website hooks you up with sponsors who pay to advertise on your site. All you do is submit your blog and begin accepting ad opportunities. From there, it's up to you to make the money.
“We have many bloggers in our network that literally make their livelihood off of social media sponsorship, but the average everyday person can still earn good money in the process and maybe pay down those holiday bills too,” Schram says.

Periodic home inspections make sense for everybody, not just buyers and sellers – Indianapolis Star

You probably take your car in to your mechanic for regular maintenance, but do you give the same kind of care to your largest investment: your home?
Keeping up on your home’s maintenance issues will help you identify problems early, which could help save you money in the long run.
Though many people think of a home inspection as a tool to use only when they are buying or selling a home, hiring a home inspector can be useful for homeowners who have been in their house for a number of years.
“Most people are too busy with work, kids and everyday life to properly maintain their home,” said Mike Chamberlain of MC2 Home Inspections, LLC in Plainfield. “Their number one investment tends to get put by the wayside and not taken care of. We can come in and do a home inspection for a current homeowner and let them be aware of some of the items that are being neglected because they are so busy.”
Chriss Cheatham with Homeworx Inc., Indianapolis, recommends her company’s “Home Preservation Inspection” every 12 to 18 months.
“We have yet to perform an inspection that the homeowner did not learn or discover something new about their home,” Cheatham said. “When we are performing an inspection for a homeowner, as much as anything else, they appreciate the inspection findings and utilize this information as input when prioritizing repair needs.”
Chamberlain said he frequently sees problems with homeowner do-it-yourself projects for which the proper building permits were not pulled or the work was done improperly, and often, unsafely.
“Electrical items and plumbing items are probably two of the most common violations that we see,” Chamberlain said. “People that watch a little too much HGTV get in and do electrical work themselves and will double tap on breakers (using one circuit breaker for multiple wires) stuff like that. Another one would be if the homeowner had an addition put onto the house and didn’t obtain a permit. That would probably hold up the closing (if the homeowner tried to sell) quite a bit until the permits are obtained.”
Cheatham said she often sees issues related to poor insulation and exposed moisture entry points.
“The most common maintenance items found during a home preservation inspection involve caulking around the home’s windows and doors,” Cheatham said. “Recommendations are made to make sure gutters are cleaned on a routine basis and that downspouts are free of debris. Homes of all eras benefit from regular and routine exterior maintenance to prevent moisture entry from creating larger issues and concerns.”
Just as with a home inspection for buyers, reputable inspectors will look at your plumbing, heating, electrical, structure and roof.
Home inspectors aren’t required to be licensed in Indiana, so do a little extra research to find a qualified and reputable inspector to examine your home. Ask for proof of insurance and independent certification, like the National Association of Home Inspectors or the American Society of Home Inspectors.
Cost will vary according to the size of the home and other factors, such as if there is a basement or crawlspace, but typically ranges from $200 to $400.

Angie Hicks is a Fishers resident and founder of Angie’s List, a national provider of ratings in more than 550 categories of service.
Source http://sfluxe.com/

Wichita Children's Home gets a little help

By Melissa Scheffler

(WICHITA, Kan.)—

Sitting behind piles of paper work, Shauna Morris sometimes calls her job hectic.
"I feel like I'm on roller skates all the time because I'm running up and down, making sure everything is getting taken care of,” Morris said.
She's an intake case manager at the Wichita Children's Home.
"I just try to make them feel comfortable.  I know a lot of them are scared, or, some of them are so upset they don't want to talk,” Morris said.
More than 18-hundred kids have been admitted this year.  Most of them are from Sedgwick County.  But area counties use the home too.
“We've always opened our doors for any child in the state,” Director Sarah Robinson said.
Robinson said some of the state's burden could be lifted with the Sunshine Children's Home in Butler County.  Out of all the counties, Butler uses the Wichita Children's Home the most.  It sent 70 kids here this year.
"It's hard enough being taken away from their home and then having to take a long ride and come to a place they're not familiar with,” Morris said.
Robinson says the new home would also save law enforcement time travelling with the children.  And, it could save the Wichita home money.
"We have been working together with them so that we can streamline our services for economies, because it's expensive to run a shelter,” Robinson said.
Robinson says the two homes could share staff, training, and health services.  It will also leave more time for Morris to concentrate on her favorite part of the job.
"I love dealing with children period,” Morris said.
The idea for the Butler County Children's Home started in 2008.  A task force is currently raising money for the home and hopes to start building it in the near future.

New Year's money-saving resolutions

By Adam Shell, USA TODAY

NEW YORK – Being financially fit is just as important as being physically fit. So it makes sense to make — and stick to —New Year's resolutions that will slim your waistline or boost your bottom line.

Step off the scale, put down the cigarettes and fire up the spreadsheet and calculators. It's time to roll out some 2012 resolutions that will make the balances in your 401(k), 529 plan and savings account go up — and make your mortgage payments, credit card debts and investment angst go down.

Here are a few must-do resolutions to put your personal finances back on track in 2012.

Stop trading

on emotion

In 2011, it seemed as if the Dow Jones industrial average would soar 300 points one day only to swoon a few hundred points the next. Those sharp up and down swings, or "volatility," can make people super-bullish or downright scared. More often than not, investors make poor investment decisions when they let their emotions get in the way, says Michael Farr, president of money-management firm Farr Miller & Washington.

"Resist emotional trading," Farr says. "Don't let short-term volatility shake you out of your long-term investment plan. Keep saving, keep investing, keep contributing to your 401(k) no matter what."

Lower your mortgage

payments

Interest rates remain at historically low levels, with the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage now below 4% for qualified buyers. If you haven't already, now is the time to lower your monthly payment by refinancing your current mortgage at a lower rate, says Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com.

Homeowners, even those in hard-hit markets such as Florida, Arizona and Nevada who owe more on a mortgage than their home is worth, will have a better chance to refinance through the government's Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, which has been enhanced and extended through the end of 2013, McBride says.

"Reducing your mortgage rate a full percentage point, from 5% to 4%, will save you roughly $120 a month on a $200,000 loan," McBride says.

Fund college 529 plans early

A coveted Ivy League education at Harvard University this year cost $52,650, and costs for college aren't going down any time soon. Start saving for Aidan and Amanda in a tax-deferred 529 as early as possible, preferably right after they're born, says Steve Janachowski of financial advisory firm Brouwer & Janachowski.

"Start saving now, as college costs keep going up," he says, adding that the sooner you invest, the more time the money has to grow.

Don't invest on news headlines

Hitting the sell or buy button in reaction to breaking news is a losing investment strategy, says Andy Brooks, head trader at mutual fund company T. Rowe Price.

"It's a loser's game," he says. "People watching the news or CNBC who have their finger on the trigger, that's a dangerous game. It's anything but investing. It's more like putting your money on 32 black at a casino."

Next time there's a news flash out of Europe that scares you, turn off the TV.

Save more for retirement

The government has boosted the maximum you can set aside in a tax-deferred 401(k) account in 2012 by $500 to $17,000. "The burden of retirement saving is increasingly falling on the individual, which means everyone has to save more," McBride says. Raise the percentage taken out of your paycheck to ensure you take advantage of the new higher savings limit. If you got a raise this year, or a bonus, plow that extra cash into your 401(k) if you're not already maxed out.

Other resolutions to consider: Stop spending foolishly and stash some money away for an emergency, such as a job loss or an unexpected car repair or medical bill, says Lewis Altfest, chief investment officer of Altfest Personal Wealth Management. To make sure you're ready when disaster strikes, he recommends having the cash deducted automatically from your paycheck into a savings account.

Daniel Seiver, a finance professor at San Diego State University, offers a few other tried-and-true personal finance tips that can also be added to your list of money-saving resolutions. "Investors should only invest money in low-cost, index mutual funds," he says, adding that the less you pay on fees the more cash you have to invest.

Lastly, Seiver recommends this resolution for everyone: "Do not run a balance on your credit cards."

Home rain barrels save residents money, water

 By Dan Eakin, deakin@acnpapers.com

Submitted Photo - Rain barrels allow users to conserve and reuse rainwater from roof runoff, which can sometimes lower their monthly water bill. The McKinney Office of Environmental Stewardship on Jan. 21 will host a rain-barrel seminar, during which participants can get the supplies and instruction necessary to constuct their own rain barrels.

With the drought in North Texas expected to continue at least through next summer, the city of McKinney is offering a seminar that will help participants build their own rain barrel.
The seminar, hosted by the McKinney Office of Environmental Stewardship (OES), is scheduled for 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Jan. 21, at McKinney Fire Station #7, located at 861 S. Independence in McKinney.
For $50, participants will be provided with supplies and training so that they can build their own rain barrel at the seminar. Such rain barrels often retail for as high as $250.

Rainwater from a roof may be channeled through a gutter or pipe into the netted rain barrel. While rainwater collected in the barrel is typically not recommended for drinking unless treated, it can be used for flushing toilets, washing clothes or cars or watering a lawn, plants or garden.
A significant use of rainwater via a rain barrel may result in a lower water bill. Residents can save money and, more importantly, conserve water.
With the drought expected to continue, we all need to save as much rainwater as we can," Martha Cavazos Fipps, McKinney environmental education coordinator.
Dotty Woodson, water resource program specialist for the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Dallas, will be on hand to teach the importance and advantages of rainwater harvesting. Texas AgriLife Extension will provide the supplies for the rain barrels.
Fipps said rain barrels are constructed from blue, re-purposed food-grade containers with a 55-gallon capacity. The barrels are 24 inches in diameter and 36 inches tall. Each participant will receive insect netting, a hose bib (faucet), caulk and an adapter.
"Some will attend the class to only watch and learn," Fipps said, "while others will want to build one or more rain barrels."
Those who do not plan to build a rain barrel will not have to pay to attend. However, they will be admitted only as the classroom size will permit.
Attendees may build up to three rain barrels at $50 each. "Just make sure they can fit in your vehicle," Fipps said.
Residents who live in subdivisions with a homeowner's association should make sure they follow guidelines and architectural requirements if the rain barrel would be visible at their home.
To register for the seminar, visit www.mckinneytexas.org-greenevent. For more information, call the OES office at 972-547-7335 or email green@mckinneytexas.org.

Home care costs soar over £10,000: Elderly left struggling to pay bills as town halls drive up charges

By Kirsty Walker 
Around half a million elderly and vulnerable people are being hit with soaring costs to pay for basic support in their own homes, figures have revealed.
The cost of home care has now topped more than £10,000 a year in some areas as councils increase charges for services such as bathing, cleaning and help with shopping.
A survey of local authorities has also revealed a postcode lottery with wide disparities in the levels of services provided.

The figures will fuel concerns that local authorities are using taxpayers as ‘cash cows’ by quietly increasing the price of their services to claw back money in the wake of Government cuts.

The poll of town halls shows that the average charge for home care has this year soared to £13.49 an hour – a rise of 6 per cent in the last two years.
The increase means the average yearly cost for an older or disabled person who pays for ten hours of home care a week is now £7,015 a year.
The poll shows huge differences in the price of care around the country. 
An elderly person living in Cheshire East has to pay £20.34 per hour for home care – or £10,577 per year for ten hours a week. In contrast, those in Tower Hamlets, East London, get it for free.
Meanwhile, the price of meals-on-wheels lunches or dinners has increased by 13 per cent in two years to £3.44 per meal and the average charge for transport to a day centre has soared by 33 per cent to £2.32.

Older or disabled people who get meals on wheels every day as well as home care now pay an average of £8,271 a year. Those who also need transport three times a week pay £8,633 a year.
The figures come at a time when millions of elderly people living below the poverty line are already struggling with the rising cost of food and energy bills.
Liz Kendall, Shadow Minister for Care and Older People, who commissioned the survey of 153 local authorities in England, said: ‘These increases in home care charges for older and disabled people are a stealth tax on the most vulnerable people in society.

The increase means the average yearly cost for an older or disabled person who pays for ten hours of home care a week is now £7,015 a year.
The poll shows huge differences in the price of care around the country. 
An elderly person living in Cheshire East has to pay £20.34 per hour for home care – or £10,577 per year for ten hours a week. In contrast, those in Tower Hamlets, East London, get it for free.
Meanwhile, the price of meals-on-wheels lunches or dinners has increased by 13 per cent in two years to £3.44 per meal and the average charge for transport to a day centre has soared by 33 per cent to £2.32.

Older or disabled people who get meals on wheels every day as well as home care now pay an average of £8,271 a year. Those who also need transport three times a week pay £8,633 a year.
The figures come at a time when millions of elderly people living below the poverty line are already struggling with the rising cost of food and energy bills.
Liz Kendall, Shadow Minister for Care and Older People, who commissioned the survey of 153 local authorities in England, said: ‘These increases in home care charges for older and disabled people are a stealth tax on the most vulnerable people in society.

Five ways to save money on your energy bills

By Emma Wall
As Saga urge wealthier pensioners to donate their fuel allowance payment, we offer top tips on how to save money on your utility bills this winter.

Bruce Forsyth and Terry Wogan are among the celebrities urging wealthier pensioners to give up their fuel payments to help those struggling to heat their homes this winter. For those who don't yet qualify for help with their utility bills, read on for tips on how to cut costs this winter.
Insulate your home

There's no point in spending money heating your house if it is simply leaking into the atmosphere, so make sure your home is as insulated as possible. According to the Energy Saving Trust, cavity wall insulation is the most effective energy-saving measure you can take.

This simple measure, which involves injecting foam into the gap between your walls, can save £110 a year. There are grants available for installing this, especially if you are over 60. Try the Energy Saving Trust's grant search tool on www.energysavingtrust.org.uk

Loft insulation, which saves around £40 a year on the average house, can also be installed at a subsidised cost, if you can get a grant. Most homes have some loft insulation, but normally fall short of the recommended level of 220mm.
Switch to the cheapest provider

The biggest change you can make to energy bills is by making sure you are on the cheapest tariff for gas and electricity. This won't make any difference to the quality of the energy supplied to you, but it could make a vast difference to the cost.
The average customer can save more than £250 over the course of a year just by switching energy companies, while if you've stayed with the same gas and electricity company for many years you could save far more.
Over the summer price increases took k the typical household energy bill up from £1,132 to £1,293 – an increase of £161, so it is more important than ever to make sure you are with the cheapest possible provider.
Use a comparison site such as uSwitch, Confused or Energy Helpline (who will also talk things through with you over the phone on 0800 074 0745). Have your monthly bills ready, since you'll need this information to calculate which tariff is best for you.
When choosing your tariff consider low-cost options such as online only deals, combined gas and electricity duel fuel tariffs and paying by direct debit.
Give your boiler an MOT
If you buy boiler insurance cover you may get a service with it – however, this has risen by as much as 20pc since last year and now costs between £150 and £200, so it pays to check whether you really need it.
npower recently launched a new boiler care product for £10.50 a month, which is the same as with British Gas' HomeCare cover, but with the twist that if you don't claim on the cover at the end of 12 months you'll get half your money back.
It is possible that you may already have your boiler covered by your home insurance policy; check before signing up to anything. Often it is covered but limits tend to be relatively low. For example, Prudential includes as standard home emergency cover of up to £500 for call-out fees, labour costs and materials.
Sheilas' Wheels also includes emergency cover in its home policies. This pays up to £500 for call-out charges and two hours' labour costs, and parts and materials up to £100 for the sudden failure of the main heating system.
If your boiler is really old and does need replacing, it may pay to do it sooner rather than later. The Energy Saving Trust calculates that the difference between gas bills from a home with an old boiler to one with an ultra-efficient new one is as much as £225 a year for an average three-bedroom semi. Getting a new one sorted before winter kicks in could be sensible if you know that yours is on its last legs.
Keep an eye on your usage
Some companies, are energy monitors out free to customers; or you can buy one from theOwl.com for from just over £20.
These can be attached to your electricity meter, and can act as a powerful incentive to switch off lights and appliances by showing you exactly how much your usage is costing.
Studies suggest you could save 5pc of your electricity bills by using one, although of course this is a behavioural saving – you won't get cheaper bills just from looking at the monitor.
Sadly, these do not yet exist for gas meters.
Stop up the gaps
You can also increase your winter comfort factor by blocking draughts, especially if you have single-glazed windows. Just fitting draught stripping across your doors could save you £25 in winter. Even when the figures sound unimpressive, don't underestimate the extra comfort that thick curtains, draught excluders and other cheap measures can bring.
Rosalyn Dungate, of the Energy Saving Trust, suggests blocking cracks between floors and skirting boards with material, newspaper or decorator's caulking, a cheap home-made solution that could save money and make life far warmer.
Plenty of heat is also lost through your chimney if it is open, so if you're not having fires, try using a chimney balloon to seal it. These are easily deflated and removed.

Home Fund campaign for 2011 ends Saturday

By John Brewer

End the year on a high note!
Offer struggling families “a hand up, not a handout” through the Peninsula Daily News' Peninsula Home Fund.
For 22 years, the Home Fund has helped thousands of families in ­Clallam and Jefferson counties.
Gifts to the Home Fund make a daily difference in lives across the North Olympic Peninsula — thanks to our readers' generosity.
All contributions are fully IRS tax-deductible.
And Saturday is the last day to make a donation and get a tax deduction for 2011.
To donate online, push the “Click Here to Donate” button at the www.peninsuladailynews.com home page.
Thank you!As of our last deposit at First Federal on Thursday, $218,506.22 from people and organizations in Jefferson and Clallam counties had been donated to the Home Fund.
While that's below the record total amount we received last year, $248,367.35, it's a terrific amount.
Thank you, readers!
Next week, we will tally the remainder of donations.
A final total, and a final list of donors and donations, will be published in our Sunday, Jan. 8, edition and at www.peninsuladaily news.com.
The $248,367.35 raised by the Home Fund in 2010 allowed OlyCAP to help more than 2,600 families, many with children, and hundreds of other individuals in 2011.
These are your neighbors, with nowhere else to turn.
These are local people that OlyCAP (nonprofit Olympic Community Action Programs, the Peninsula's No. 1 emergency-care agency) wouldn't have been able to assist otherwise.
The Peninsula Home Fund — which began in 1989 — is carefully rationed every year.
With heavy demand again this year, only a few dollars are left from the 2010 campaign and will go with the new money right away to make sure no one falls through the cracks during the dark, days of winter, the most demanding time of the year.
Home Fund specificsA safety net for local residents when there is nowhere else to turn.
From Port Townsend to Forks, from Quilcene and Brinnon to Sequim and LaPush, the Home Fund provides hot meals for seniors, meeting rent, energy and transportation needs, warm winter coats for kids, home repairs for the low-income, needed eyeglasses and prescription drugs, dental work, safe and drug-free temporary housing . . .
The list goes on and on.
But the Home Fund is not a welfare program.
Assistance, which usually averages less than $100, is also limited to one time in a 12-month period.
The average amount of help this year was about $95 per family.
But even though the dollar figures are small, the impact can be big, in huge, life-changing ways.
Instances of help are designed to get an individual or family through a crisis — and every effort is made to put them back on the path to self-sufficiency.
That's the “hand up, not a handout” focus of the fund.
In many instances, Peninsula Home Fund case managers at OlyCAP work with individuals or families to develop a plan to become financially stable — and avoid a recurrence of the emergency that prompted aid from the fund.
And, as needed, Peninsula Home Fund contributions are often used in conjunction with money from other agencies, enabling OlyCAP to stretch the value of the contribution.
OlyCAP oversees the Home Fund for the PDN, screening the applicants and distributing the funds.
■   No money is deducted by Peninsula Daily News.
Every penny goes to OlyCAP to help the most vulnerable members of our community, from infants to families to seniors.
Because of the extraordinary demand experienced by OlyCAP in 2011 — and plummeting cutbacks in grants and government support — for the first time in the 22-year history of the Home Fund, OlyCAP will use a portion of the fund in 2012 to pay for the helping hands who see clients.
The amount will be limited to 10 cents of every dollar donated.
The fund is not set up to hand out money passively.
OlyCAP can no longer absorb the costs of managing all the facets of the Home Fund — screening applicants, providing counseling and carefully disbursing the funds — without financial assistance.
It must tap a small portion of the fund this year as tough times compound the challenges it faces to help those in need.
■   Your personal information is kept confidential.
The PDN does not rent, sell, give or otherwise share your address or other information with anyone or make any other use of it.
Applying for a grant
To apply for a Peninsula Home Fund grant, phone OlyCAP at 360-452-4726 (Clallam County) or 360-385-2571 (Jefferson County).
■ OlyCAP's Port Angeles office is at 228 W. First St., Suite J (Armory Square Mall); 360-452-4726.
■ Its Port Townsend office is at 803 W. Park Ave.; 360-385-2571.
■ The Forks/West End office is at 421 Fifth Ave.; 360-374-6193.
OlyCAP's website: www.olycap.org; email: action@olycap.org.
If you have any questions about the fund, phone John Brewer, Peninsula Daily News editor and publisher, at 360-417-3500.
Or email him at john.brewer@peninsuladailynews.com.
PDN publishes the donation coupon and information about the fund every Sunday during the fundraising campaign.
While most of the Peninsula Home Fund money is raised every year between Thanksgiving and Dec. 31, the fund itself never closes.
Donations of any amount are always welcome.
They can be sent at any time to Peninsula Home Fund, Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362.
Or, through this month, you can click on the Home Fund logo at www.peninsuladailynews.com.
New contributions will go toward the 2012 campaign.

Upsides to the downturn for property investors

By Graham Norwood 

The uncertainties facing the market in 2012 will create unexpected bargains for keen-eyed property investors. Graham Norwood explains how to make the most of the tricky year ahead. 

New Year resolutions tend to be about losing something from your life. Weight, cigarettes, or that third glass of wine. But canny house buyers will be doing just the opposite; using 2012’s uncertain outlook to make fresh fortunes from anticipated price cuts.

Industry pundits say values in most areas will tumble by as much as seven per cent in the year to come. This is thanks to a triple whammy of rising unemployment, public sector cuts and a weakening UK economy. Add in the effect of inflation, currently at five per cent, and the price fall could be the equivalent of 12 per cent, or £60,000 on a £500,000 home.

Even estate agents admit the market is on the ropes in many areas. Grainne Gilmore, head of research at Knight Frank, sums it up: “To achieve sales, vendors will have to cut their prices.”

But there are two sides to today’s challenging market. Every seller’s panic price cut can be a buyer’s bargain opportunity.

One person hunting for a good deal is businessman Paul Beamish, who believes the downturn is the perfect time to upsize. Next week he is putting his three small homes on the market. He owns a farmhouse in Bury St Edmunds, a Norwich town house and a holiday cottage in Gloucestershire. Their combined value is about £1.2 million.

He is willing to pay up to £1.5 million for his dream home, which would be in East Anglia and have an indoor pool and several acres of land.
“With the market flat or falling, the price gap between smaller and larger homes has reduced, so it costs less for me to step up a rung or two,” says Paul, who runs a food-labelling firm and imports custom-built motorbikes.
“I’ll get a bargain I wouldn’t find if prices were rising. There’s a lot more choice, too.”
The experts say he is right to make the best of the difficult market.
Knight Frank predicts price falls in 2012 of up to seven per cent in Wales and six per cent in the West Country, northern England and Scotland. There will be four per cent falls in Yorkshire, the Midlands and East Anglia. Even in Greater London, which has seen price growth in recent years, values will dip by about three per cent.
But there will be two exceptions to the rule. First, those places benefiting from transport improvements announced by George Osborne in the Autumn Statement may well buck the trend. Second, the most expensive properties in parts of central London such as the West End, Docklands and Mayfair are also forecast to show price growth of up to seven per cent. Most properties in these areas will be snapped up by wealthy overseas buyers.
Luxury homes in rural areas, however, will not be so lucky. Savills warns that the price of country piles may drop by about four per cent.
Yet crafty families can play this market to their advantage, as Michael Ward and his family are doing. The civil engineer from Didsbury in Manchester has just sold the three-bedroom semi-detached home he shares with his wife and two children, but only after slashing the price from £295,000 to £250,000.
“Some would be deterred by cutting so much from the asking price, yet I believe it works in my favour. The four-bedroom terraced house that I’m about to buy has been reduced by £60,000. This means in effect I’ve saved £15,000 thanks to the downturn,” he says.
So if you sell your home now and want to land the best deal possible when you buy your next property, what should you do?
The queen of property bargain hunting is Tracy Kellett, who runs the BDI Home Finders buying agency. She says the key to purchasing at the lowest price is to do your homework and be open-minded about what, when and where you buy.
“Look for properties that are compromised a little, but can be improved once you’re in. For example, a Seventies house is now out of fashion and tends to be cheap because it’s considered ugly. However, you can transform it by using an architect to add capital value even in this market,” she says.
“There are ex-local authority flats and houses too, usually with large rooms and tall ceilings. The middle-aged believe they carry a stigma, but the younger generation will buy them happily. This is mainly because they don’t know what council housing was,” explains Tracy.
She has two other tricks of the trade to help bargain hunters track down the best deal.
“Remember that cash is king. If you don’t need a mortgage, consider buying a property that is hard to get a mortgage on, such as an apartment above commercial premises. The seller will be desperate to get rid of it because they know there are so few buyers who can purchase without a loan. They’ll really compromise on price,” she suggests.
“And exploit what I call the 'vendor position’. If the seller is in debt or is in the throes of a divorce, they will want to sell immediately and settle for a lower price.”
There is one other tactic that fearless bargain hunters may deploy. Sell now, then rent for at least six months until finally buying again late in 2012. By then, prices will probably have fallen further. There is a property industry nickname for the growing number of people trying this tactic – the “in-betweeners”.
This approach is risky, though. If you sell and then prices unexpectedly rise before you purchase again, you will lose money. Likewise if you sell now, but cannot find the right property to buy later, you may end up spending more on rent than you expected. Yet some believe the possible risks are outweighed by the benefits.
“If you have the nerve, it’s probably the best way to secure a bargain,” adds Tracy. Although she acknowledges anyone taking this approach must budget not only for the rent they pay, but also for two moves, from the home they sell and from the one they then rent.
But if the experts’ pessimistic forecasts for the year ahead turn out to be true, there may well be a need for unorthodox selling and buying strategies.
During a boom market, they say that a rising tide carries all boats. Now that the waters are receding, only the shrewdest navigators will find something solid to hold on to. Fortune will favour the brave in 2012, and if you look hard enough, bargains can be found.
House rules / How to bag a bargain
If you buy a new-build, negotiate hard. Some developers will cut a deal to secure a sale and impress their shareholders at the end of the financial year.
Consider buying at auction, but inspect the property before you bid. Auction dates are on propertyauctions.com.
If you are looking at the top end of the market, hire a buying agent with a track record of finding properties and landing a lower sale price that more than covers their fee. Good buying agents include Black Brick (020 3393 6091; black-brick.com) and BDI Homefinders (0845 603 6110; bdihomefinders.co.uk).
Measure property on a price per square foot basis, and compare the asking price with nearby properties.
Buy a home with a friend or relative to increase the size of property you can afford, boost the deposit you can pay and secure a better mortgage deal.
If you are happy buying a repossessed property, sometimes advertised at keen prices to secure quick sales, there is a new website called begbies-traynorgroup.com.
Stamp duty rises for homes above £250,000, £500,000 and £1 million, so always drive prices down to below the lowest possible threshold.
Ruthlessly exploit any weakness shown in a survey. Insist on problems being repaired at the seller’s expense or try to agree a hefty price reduction.
Use sites such as mouseprices.com and propertysnake.co.uk to show what nearby homes actually sell for – often much less than asking prices suggest.
Remember to save money when you sell your own home. Bargain hard with estate agents on commission, which in many parts of the UK need not be more than one per cent.
Paul Beamish’s Bury St Edmunds farmhouse is on sale for £495,000 through Bedfords (01284 769999; bedfords.co.uk)

Close out 2011 on a high note! Donate to the Peninsula Home Fund!

By Peninsula Daily News staff
END THE YEAR on a high note.
Offer struggling families “a hand up, not a handout” through the Peninsula Daily News' Peninsula Home Fund.
For 22 years, the Home Fund has helped thousands of families in Clallam and Jefferson counties.
Gifts to the Home Fund make a daily difference in lives across the North Olympic Peninsula — thanks to our readers' generosity.
All contributions are fully IRS tax-deductible.
And this coming Saturday, Dec. 31, is the last day to make a donation and get a tax deduction for 2011.
To donate online, push the "Click Here to Donate" button at www.peninsuladailynews.com or go directly to the donation page -- https://secure.peninsuladailynews.com/homefund/
To learn more about how the fund operates, click on "Peninsula Home Fund" in the search box above to see this year's news stories.
Home Fund specifics 
A safety net for local residents when there is nowhere else to turn. From Port Townsend to Forks, from Quilcene and Brinnon to Sequim and LaPush, the Home Fund provides hot meals for seniors, meeting rent, energy and transportation needs, warm winter coats for kids, home repairs for the low-income, needed eyeglasses and prescription drugs, dental work, safe and drug-free temporary housing . . .
The list goes on and on.
But the Home Fund is not a welfare program.
Assistance, which usually averages less than $100, is also limited to one time in a 12-month period.
The average amount of help this year was about $95 per family.
But even though the dollar figures are small, the impact can be big, in huge, life-changing ways.
Instances of help are designed to get an individual or family through a crisis — and every effort is made to put them back on the path to self-sufficiency.
That's the “hand up, not a handout” focus of the fund.
In many instances, Peninsula Home Fund case managers at OlyCAP (nonprofit Olympic Community Action Programs) work with individuals or families to develop a plan to become financially stable — and avoid a recurrence of the emergency that prompted aid from the fund.
And, as needed, Peninsula Home Fund contributions are often used in conjunction with money from other agencies, enabling OlyCAP to stretch the value of the contribution.
OlyCAP, the No. 1 emergency care agency in Jefferson and Clallam counties, oversees the Home Fund for the PDN, screening the applicants and distributing the funds.)
Local, local, local.
Begun in 1989, the Home Fund is supported by Jefferson and Clallam residents.
Individuals, couples, families, businesses, churches, service organizations and school groups set a record for contributions in 2010 — $248,367.35.
With heavy demand this year, the carefully rationed fund has been rapidly depleted.
Since Jan. 1, the Home Fund has helped more than 2,600 households on the North Olympic Peninsula — about 4,000 men, women and children.
As we move into winter, the toughest time of the year, all of the money collected in 2010 is now down to its last dollars.
No money is deducted by the Peninsula Daily News.
Every penny goes to OlyCAP to help the most vulnerable members of our community, from infants to families to seniors.
Because of the extraordinary demand experienced by OlyCAP in 2011 — and plummeting cutbacks in grants and government support — for the first time in the 22-year history of the Home Fund, OlyCAP will use a portion of the fund in 2012 to pay for the helping hands who see clients.
The amount will be limited to 10 cents of every dollar donated.
The fund is not set up to hand out money passively.
OlyCAP can no longer absorb the costs of managing all the facets of the Home Fund — screening applicants, providing counseling and carefully disbursing the funds — without financial assistance.
It must tap a small portion of the fund this year as tough times compound the challenges it faces to help those in need. 
Your personal information is kept confidential.
The PDN does not rent, sell, give or otherwise share your address or other information with anyone or make any other use of it.
Applying for a grant
To apply for a Peninsula Home Fund grant, phone OlyCAP at 360-452-4726 (Clallam County) or 360-385-2571 (Jefferson County).
 OlyCAP's Port Angeles office is at 228 W. First St., Suite J (Armory Square Mall); 360-452-4726.
Its Port Townsend office is at 803 W. Park Ave.; 360-385-2571.
The Forks/West End office is at 421 Fifth Ave.; 360-374-6193.
OlyCAP's website: www.olycap.org; email: action@olycap.org.
If you have any questions about the fund, phone John Brewer, Peninsula Daily News editor and publisher, at 360-417-3500.
Or email him at john.brewer@peninsuladailynews.com.
PDN publishes the donation coupon and information about the fund every Sunday during the fundraising campaign.
While most of the Peninsula Home Fund money is raised every year between Thanksgiving and Dec. 31, the fund itself never closes.
Donations of any amount are always welcome.
They can be sent at any time to Peninsula Home Fund, Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362.
Or, through this month, you can click on the Home Fund logo at www.peninsuladailynews.com or go directly to https://secure.peninsuladailynews.com/homefund/ .
New contributions will go toward the 2012 campaign.

Five home-improvement ideas for new year

by Rosie Romero
New Year's Eve is a good time to write out your list of home-improvement resolutions for 2012.
I've offered tips and instructions throughout the year to help keep your house protected, save money and do your part to protect the environment. Now it's time for you to put a plan into action.
Do the math and figure out how much you can afford to spend on your home this year. Then, make room for these five important home-improvement recommendations:

1. Secure your home. Don't wait until someone breaks in before finding the peace of mind that comes with knowing you've done everything you can to keep intruders out of your home.
While most of the steps you need to take can be performed by a handyman or security professional, there are a few you can do yourself.
Start by increasing the visibility of your windows from the street by cutting down shrubs and bushes, so intruders have no place to hide. Replace door locks at any access points to your home. Leaving outdoor lights on overnight or installing motion-detection sensors can also help ward off bad guys.
A handyman can help with the following:
Building a hidden safe into a wall or floor.
Upgrading single-pane to double-pane windows with security glass.
Adding metal screen doors or decorative wrought-iron gates (they provide security while adding value to your home).
Covering up unused doggie doors or replacing them with a secure, locking version.
Installing solid-core doors or sturdy steel models to replace hollow entry doors.
Cutting a mail slot into your door instead of using an outdoor mailbox (preventing thieves from stealing checks and credit card numbers) and drilling a peep hole into your front door if you don't already have one.
A security professional can install an alarm or upgrade your current system to include some of the exciting innovations in smart-home automation. Together with a few well-placed exterior and interior cameras, you can easily monitor the action around your home while you're away by simply taking a look at the screen of your smartphone, notebook or iPad.
While it used to be a luxury of only the very wealthy, mobile home security monitoring is now within reach of any homeowner.
2. Resolve to recycle. One man's trash is another man's treasure. Salvaging second-hand materials before they reach the landfill not only helps the environment, but can also save you money.
More builders, remodelers and homeowners are recognizing the great opportunity that using salvaged building materials can present. Often, these second-hand treasures cost far less -- and come with more character and whimsy -- than similar accessories you could buy new.
Always recycle or reuse leftover lumber, misfit windows and doors, scrap metal and spare masonry materials.
For a remodeling project, the waste might be even more valuable, especially if the home is older. Items such as decorative hardware, light fixtures, sturdy wood cabinets, ornate molding, appliances, hardy oak floor boards and plumbing fixtures can easily be repurposed.
3. Get a permit. You may be aware you need to get a permit to add a new addition to your house, but you may be surprised to learn that other more simple improvements also require permits. Anything you mess with in your home -- including electricity, plumbing or structural changes -- will most likely require a permit.
Projects that require permits include replacing a water heater; putting up a fence or retaining wall; replacing shingles; changing the location of a toilet, sink or tub; converting your carport or patio to an enclosed room or garage; adding electrical outlets; changing a window to a door; replacing a small window with a bigger one; removing or moving a wall inside your house; or altering your driveway.
It's safe to say, before you start any home-improvement project, you should check with the city.
4. Stay up to code. While you're not required to update your house as codes change, you may want to consider doing it for safety's sake, especially if your home was built before 2000. If you're considering doing some remodeling or additions, it's never a bad idea. While there are probably hundreds of outdated codes an older home faces, voluntarily upgrading a few can save you money and keep your home safe:
Hard-wired smoke alarms in every bedroom and in the hallway outside of sleeping areas.
Ground-fault circuit interrupter receptacles in the bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room, garage and any other space where both water and electricity are available.
Powerful and efficient toilets to replace old, water-guzzling ones.
Larger, dual-pane, windows -- with at least 3½ feet of open, removable area -- big enough for a firefighter and his air tank to fit through.
Handrails on all staircases -- indoors and out.
A water heater expansion tank, which can prevent extra pressure and the possibility of an explosion.
5. Prep for the monsoon. If there's one thing we can predict about the Arizona monsoon, it's that you never know from which direction the wind and driving rains will come. Take some precautions to make sure your home stays protected from a beating by mid-summer storms.
You can start by plugging leaks in the roof and trimming branches that are close to the house. But your windows and doors are equally at risk of causing problems during the storm if they let water get inside.
If you have a skylight, check to see if there are any weep holes that need sealed, as the caulking only lasts a few years. If you need to reseal any areas, make sure you remove all the old and cracked caulk completely before adding a new layer. Use a polyurethane caulk, which will ward off the wet better than acrylic or latex.
Replace worn-out door sweeps so water doesn't come through the bottom. Also, change hinges and door locks if they're preventing the door from latching securely.
For more do-it-yourself tips, go to rosieonthehouse.com.

New Year bash at home

KOCHI: A home party for New Year’s can often be as much fun as spending the time swinging at a hip bash. It means not having to spend thousands on passes, and instead keeping the celebration close-knit and personal. But still there are a few things you need to do if you are planning for a party at home. This will ensure it stays special and memorable.

Chalk out a guests list: This isn’t too difficult if you are sure you want to kick-start your New Year only with your near and dear ones. However, not all necessarily look for a personal gathering and many do want to use the occasion to ‘expand-the-social circle’. So besides chilling with your friends, if you also dig into the opportunity of meeting new people, just invite friends telling them they are welcome to bring along their friends (whom you might not know personally). Include games where there is a prize for those who know the maximum number of names in the crowd. This will surely be an incentive for people to try hard at getting introduced to as many guests� as possible. And who knows, you may just bump into your new best buddy, future employer, potential business partner or the future

darling.

Send across invites: Don’t call people over phone but invite them with cards or notes. If printing cards look costly, then maybe it’s time you revisit your art class-days from school. Take charge of sketch pens and crayons and add a personal touch to your invitation with hand-made cards. If you fear that you are not very artistic, then design cards on Photoshop and send across the prints. If that too sounds tiring, then you can always opt for free online cards with personalised messages. You can find some at Evite.com and 123greetings.com. Pop into your friend’s mailbox and ask them to hop in for the party at your place. �

Set the mood. Depending on your personal choice and taste of your friends, plan a theme for the New Year's eve and make sure it reflects everywhere in your party scene. Themes can vary from wacky cartoon characters to some favourite movie to something broader like Bollywood, slapstick, colour code to anything else that captures your imagination. For a James Bond movie fan, it can be various avatars of Bond, James Bond and Bond chics swinging across the hall.

Let the theme show up in the décor as well. Like for the sports theme, you could set the table as a snooker table with green linen topped with coloured dishes and cutlery, with some edible goodies wearing sporty look. The Bollywood theme could have clichéd heart shaped balloons on the floor and scented candles around the room. If you looking for something less flashy, then a dress code or colour combo will do just fine.

Pick the right music: Music can make or break a party. Pick music that will get people to sink into the skin of the theme. However, make sure to keep building up the tempo with a perfect mix and timely change. You certainly don’t want to see your guests raising their hands not to dance but to signal time-out. Ideally, you can start with some low soft music giving people ample time to connect. Build the music tempo slowly, till you finally hit the peak. If you manage to play the right tracks, you may even be requested to burn some CDs for your friends to take home.

Ensure entertainment.

The biggest challenge in making a party a success is keeping guests entertained throughout. Personally attending to each one of them is not only a Herculean task but also restricts people from opening up and enjoying themselves. The best way to get your guests to drop their inhibitions is to have a karaoke night. You can find free karaoke setups online at karaokeparty.com, singsnap.com, amusicalbox.com etc. Save a corner in the living room, mark it as stage and be the first one to start the party on a musical note. If you are too shy, then drag along your partner or a friend for a duet performance. Just make sure to pick the most popular numbers and a New Year special song when the clock strikes midnight. If karaoke is too loud for you then you could opt for group games like asking everyone to write down their New Year resolutions on a piece of paper, mix them all, pick one randomly and take turns in making guesses at the owner of that slip of tongue (oops! piece of paper). Other traditional games are cards, tambola, pass the parcel, truth or dare etc.

Cater to taste buds. Food certainly plays an important role in making a bash memorable. And on the New Year’s, people have added expectations. If you wish to fill the table-top with home-cooked food then make sure you don’t choose a menu that is very time consuming. Plan ahead and cook well in advance so that you only need to reheat as many dishes as possible, except for the fresh items like salads. Otherwise, an easy way out is to order from a popular restaurant. If you and your friends are more of drinkers than foodies, then maybe you’d like to expand the options for snacks and starters with limited main course. Very few people take notice of the main course once their stomachs are full with the liquid diet. Some sure shot hits like lemonades and fruit punches can be made before hand and be chilled for good number of hours. Also, consider BYOB (Bring Your Own Bubbly) for your party. It saves on a lot of money and adds variety to suit individual tastes.

It’s a lot easier to pay to be a part of the party meant for half the world, but it is not so difficult to organize your own party and get the celebrations rolling your own way either. Every moment is a memory in the making then!

Source http://ibnlive.in.com

FastWorkoutNow.com Offers 7 Minute Workout Home Business Opportunity

Scarborough, Ontario (prsafe) December 27, 2011 - If you have ever been interested in getting in shape wile also making money from home, than I encourage you to check out http://www.fastworkoutnow.com which details a very unique and powerful opportunity waiting for you. Literally you can start your home based business today while transforming your body into a fat burning machine.
"The main reasons I personally got involved with this and encourage people to get involved is that it helps you with two important things which include staying healthy and adding an additional income stream in tough economic times," said Robert Johnston an independent consultant and representative for 7 Minute Workout. "Many business opportunities out there sell products that are hard to get excited about, and this one is great so it is much easier to promote something I personally believe in."
The 7 Minute Work is a program created by Joel Therian who is a former body builder. He placed 6th worldwide in Natural Body Building. Not only does Joel have a fitness background, but he also is the CEO and Founder of Global Virtual Opportunities, more commonly known as GVO. It is a successful network marketing company that has been in existence online since 1999 for around 12 years now.
"The leadership of the 7 Minute Workout with Joel is another serious thing I looked at when choosing to get behind this product," said Johnston. "It is rare to find an opportunity with such good experienced leadership in place already."
Some of the information you will learn more about at http://www.fastworkoutnow.com is how to make money in the large fitness industry, how to run this business completely from home with only a computer being required, information on the product which has proven to help get people in shape, and more.
"Literally by being a part of this program you can get paid to lose weight!"
To get all the details and a free digital home based business information package make sure you go now to http://www.fastworkoutnow.com.
Source http://www.prsafe.com

One in four hospital patients 'could be recovering at home'

By Randeep Ramesh The Guardian

Patients are facing increasing delays in being discharged from hospital. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

One in four patients are occupying hospital beds when they could be sent home to continue their recovery, according to the head of the NHS Confederation.
Mike Farrar, chief executive of the confederation, which represents NHS management, said there was now "a potential loss of confidence in the NHS".
In a shot across the government's bows, Farrar said key challenges for the service were the forthcoming cash squeeze; concerns about the quality of care, especially for older people; "minimising distraction" during the upheaval of NHS reforms; and a lack of political will to fill the black hole of social care funding.
The veteran NHS executive said that making £20bn in efficiency savings while embarking on the biggest shakeup of the NHS in 60 years was never going to be easy but argued that politicians had "failed to support the NHS even when the case for change has been clear".
With the NHS bill still stuck in parliament almost a year after it arrived, he said it was time for MPs and ministers to be "honest about the issues, bold about the solutions and decisive in taking action".
One big issue is elderly care. Farrar said NHS leaders believed that at least 25% of patients in hospital beds could be better looked after in the community or could look after themselves at home rather than in the "outdated hospital model of care".
With money short, there has been increasing concern that support for vulnerable patients from social care, paid for by councils, or from NHS-funded nursing in the community, has been cut back. The result is bed-blocking as patients face increasing delays in being discharged from hospital.
New data from the Department of Health shows delays in discharging patients from hospitals are increasingly being blamed on the NHS rather than local authorities. This is despite the fact that councils' social services budgets have been cut by 7% on average whereas the health service is looking for "efficiencies" of just 4%.
The number of days of delay for acute patients recorded as "attributable" to the NHS rose to 47,000 in September. This is 14% higher than in April. There were fewer than 14,000 delays due to social care, a rise of only 4%. Farrar said: "Care would be better for frail patients who would have fewer crises, shorter hospital stays when they need them, and more time in the comfort and safety of their homes.
"Hospitals play a vital role, but we do rely on them for some services that could be provided elsewhere. We should be concentrating on reducing hospital stays where this is right for patients, shifting resources into community services, raising standards of general practice, and promoting early intervention and self-care. There is a value for money argument for doing this, but it not just about money and the public need to be told that."
Labour seized on the figures. Liz Kendall, the shadow social care minister, said that more than £250m had been spent on "delayed discharges" since August 2010 – amounting to £550,000 a day.
Kendall said the NHS Confederation was "right to say this will require real leadership, from the NHS and politicians – leadership this Conservative-led government has completely failed to provide".
She added: "When the NHS should have been focused on meeting the biggest financial challenge of its life and on improving patient care, the government has instead wasted 18 months forcing through a costly and risky reorganisation. Frail elderly patients and those with long-term conditions need joined-up NHS and social care services that focus on prevention and early intervention."
The health minister Simon Burns said: "Every health system in the developed world faces the challenges of rising demand, an ageing population and increasing costs of treatment, and these challenges won't be met by the NHS doing more of the same. That is why our plans give doctors, nurses and frontline professionals the freedom to make the best decisions for patients."

Penn State case highlights power of money-making football

By Bloomberg News
Joe Paterno sat in his kitchen one morning in March 2002 as a graduate assistant described a locker-room shower encounter he saw between a boy and a longtime friend and colleague of Penn State University's football coach. Paterno slumped in his chair, "shocked and saddened," according to court testimony.
Mike McQueary's words couldn't have come at a worse time. Paterno was trying to fix the Nittany Lions' money-making football program he built on a motto of "success with honor," after the low point of his coaching career. The State College, Pa., university was near the end of a $1.4 billion fundraising campaign, six years removed from the opening of a $55 million basketball arena and had just expanded the football stadium to the nation's second-biggest.
Paterno, in his 37th year as coach, told McQueary he had done the right thing describing what he saw involving Jerry Sandusky, a former Nittany Lions defensive coach. The biggest man on campus then sent the case to his immediate bosses and did nothing else. That set the stage for his firing nine years later, 11 days after his record 409th win, amid a scandal over alleged child-sex abuse and coverup that has echoed far beyond the Central Pennsylvania region known as Happy Valley.
"The revenue opportunities are so substantial that the pressure placed upon the athletic department and coach, specifically, make it ever more difficult to pursue a school's mission," Warren Zola, 44, assistant dean of graduate programs at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, said in a telephone interview from his Chestnut Hill, Mass., office.
Paterno, who turned 85 on Dec. 21, was unable to comment for this story because of health issues, said Dan McGinn, a spokesman. Paterno is being treated for lung cancer found after his firing and broke his pelvis in a fall at his home this month.
The dependence of universities on sports to help fund everything from money-losing gymnastics teams to general scholarships has created a system where the needs of coaches and their programs supersede the educational values of their institutions, said Robin Harris, executive director of the Ivy League, whose schools don't give athletic scholarships.
It also creates an environment where a coach like Paterno, a Brooklyn native known as "JoePa" whose bronze statue stands outside 107,000-seat Beaver Stadium, had the power to tell the university's president that he wouldn't help raise another penny if the school's top disciplinarian wasn't fired for being too strict with his players.
"There is so much money tied into big-time college athletics that it forces some people to make bad decisions," Harris said in a telephone interview. "They may be people affiliated with a program, or coaches and administrators who do things purposely wrong, or turn a blind eye, because they are focused on generating revenue and not necessarily the integrity of the enterprise."
Paterno and Graham Spanier, 63, Penn State's president, were fired by the school's trustees on Nov. 9, four days after Sandusky, 67, was charged with sexually assaulting eight boys from 1994 to 2009. While neither Paterno nor Spanier was charged in the case, the trustees said the two leaders should have done more.
Athletic Director Tim Curley, 57, was placed on administrative leave and Gary Schultz, 62, a vice president in charge of finance and the campus police, retired after they were accused of lying to a grand jury about what McQueary told them about Sandusky's actions. Sandusky, Curley and Schultz all have denied wrongdoing.
McQueary, 36, testified at a Dec. 16 preliminary hearing for Curley and Schultz that he went to Paterno's house the day after the shower incident and told the coach what he had seen, although he didn't offer explicit details. About 10 days later, McQueary met with Curley and Schultz and told them he had seen Sandusky and a boy, both naked, in the shower.
"I conveyed to them that I saw Jerry with a boy in the showers and that it was severe sexual acts going on and that it was wrong and over the line," McQueary testified.
Educators said they see plenty wrong with big-time college sports.
Winning generates money from television, ticket sales, sponsors and alumni, according to a 2010 report by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, an independent, non- profit group dedicated to reforming college sports.
Networks including ESPN and Fox will combine to pay the top five conferences and the Bowl Championship Series that determines the national football title about $14 billion in rights fees through 2032.
ESPN is an investor in the Longhorn Network, which guarantees the University of Texas an average $15 million annually for 20 years. Texas had a nation-leading operating profit of $70.1 million last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Penn State football generated $63.3 million in fiscal 2010, about 60 percent of the athletic department's revenue.
Coaches like Paterno are the most powerful people at their universities, including the presidents, said Lewis Katz, a former owner of the NBA's New Jersey Nets who donated $15 million to Penn State and whose name appears on a campus law building.
"Football trumps everything at Penn State," Katz said. "There's nothing that comes close to second."
JD Reive is in his second season as the men's gymnastics coach at the University of Iowa, where the football team accounted for 52.6 percent of athletic department revenue last year. The gymnastics team lost almost $600,000 in fiscal year 2010, according to university figures obtained through open- records laws. Reive said his program might disappear if the football team falters.
"There isn't a gymnastics coach in the country that doesn't worry about what happens if the football team doesn't make a bowl game," Reive, 35, said in a telephone interview. The Hawkeyes play in the Insight Bowl on Friday against Oklahoma.
Ohio State University's football program had an operating profit of about $18.2 million last year. It hired Urban Meyer, a two-time national title winner at the University of Florida, as coach last month at $4 million a year, more than triple the $1.3 million paid in the fiscal year ending June 2010 to Gordon Gee, the Columbus, Ohio, university's president.
Meyer, 47, succeeded Jim Tressel, who quit in May in a memorabilia-selling scandal involving top players. Tressel produced a national championship at Ohio State before the NCAA said he kept information about rule-breaking from school administrators for more than nine months. Asked early in the case if he was going to fire Tressel, Gee, 67, responded, "I hope he doesn't fire me."
Gee, through a university spokeswoman, declined to comment for this article. The NCAA on Dec. 20 banned the Buckeye football team from postseason play next year.
Behind Paterno's Coke-bottle eyeglasses and grandfatherly exterior was a bully, said Vicky Triponey, Penn State's former standards and conduct officer who said in a 2005 email to Spanier that Paterno believed she should have no interest in holding players accountable to general student standards.
"I do not support the way this man is running our football program," Triponey, 54, said in emails first reported by the Wall Street Journal last month. "We certainly would not tolerate this behavior in our students, so I struggle with how we tolerate it in our coach."
Triponey also said she was told by Spanier that the coach had given the president an ultimatum: Fire her or Paterno would stop raising funds for the university. Spanier told Triponey that he would pick her, though he didn't want to have to make that decision.
The content of the emails was confirmed to Bloomberg News by Triponey's husband, Michael Meacham, a former Penn State professor. Triponey, through her husband, declined to comment further.
Raymond Marsh, a spokesman for Penn State's Office of University Development, wouldn't say how much total money Paterno had helped to bring in.
"Penn State clearly raised more funds because he was involved," Marsh wrote in an email response to questions.
Spanier declined to comment through Bill Mahon, a university spokesman. The former president remains a tenured professor in the College of Health and Human Development and the College of the Liberal Arts.
Triponey quit in September 2007, a month before the university limited the ability of its judicial-review process to end a student's participation in activities, including sports.
Walter DeShields, a 2004 graduate of Penn State and head of the Philadelphia chapter of the African American Alumni Organization, said in a telephone interview it was clear during his time at the university that football and basketball players were given more leeway when it came to behavior and punishment.
"But playing on Saturday in a multimillion-dollar business is the only thing that matters," he said in a telephone interview.
John L. Lahey, president of Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., said the biggest headaches in college sports seem to come from the more visible and valuable teams.
"When any part of the university, in this case athletics, becomes so important to the university, to the university's brand, image, resources, as certainly is the case with the Penn State football program, it can cloud the better judgment of people with high intelligence and integrity," Lahey said at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum in New York this month.
Of 53 universities surveyed by Bloomberg this year, 46 diverted money to sports in their fiscal years ended in 2010, based on financial reports to the NCAA obtained from state schools under open-records laws.
Bobby Bowden took Florida State to 31 bowls in 34 years and won 76 percent of his games. Toward the end of his tenure, Bowden, who went 33 years without a losing season, said he began receiving office visits from university administrators voicing concerns about empty seats on game day. He left under pressure after the 2009 season with a total of 377 victories.
"At the end, I didn't win enough," Bowden, 82, said in a telephone interview from his home in Tallahassee, Fla., where the university is based. "You can bet your life if you're not winning and filling the stadium, got to sell those seats. Football pays 90 percent of our bills. Got to win to get those TV contracts."
With reporting by Curtis Eichelberger, Sophia Pearson, John Lauerman, Aaron Kuriloff and Heather Perlberg.
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Builders are slammed for putting land trading first

By Julian Knight 

Construction firms are more interested in profiting from land sales than building homes to ease Britain's ever-worsening housing crisis, a leading think-tank says.

The Institute for Public Policy Research warned that UK housebuilding was facing a "lost decade" with pitifully few homes being built, while developers looked to make money from increased land values.
"Our construction industry has for too long prioritised trading land over building homes. This has to change," Nick Pearce, IPPR director, said. "The Government's new housing strategy does not make sufficient demands of the housebuilders. Instead, it offers them public land, money and guarantees without a serious quid pro quo. The Government must demand more bang for the taxpayer's buck – if it doesn't, the result will be subsidised stagnation and another lost decade of housebuilding."
The IPPR said developers with the right to build on public land should have strict time limits set on when they should complete construction, or risk losing their permission. Developers should also be split in two, with parts that speculate on land values separated from the housebuilding operation, the IPPR said.
Steve Turner, head of communications for the Home Builders Federation, responded: "Suggesting home builders prioritise land trading is an absurd claim. Separating the development process into land and building would do nothing to increase home building.
"Imposing build-out rates for public land disposal ignores the fact that home building for the private market is sales-led, not building-led," he added.
As for developers sitting on land that has planning permission in the anticipation that its price will rise, Mr Turner said this was a "myth" that had been debunked by an Office of Fair Trading investigation.

Going the distance to make specialty spirits at home

By Jeff Gordinier

It was while my station wagon sat stuck behind a dump truck as I inched across New York's Westchester County, trying to find a bottle of Italian chestnut honey distillate, that I realized I was probably not cut out for this mixology thing.

I had the passion, to be sure, even if my after-work bartending adventures only sporadically get beyond the pour-bourbon-on-top-of-ice stage. And the mission had seemed simple enough. The idea was to attempt to make a few recipes from the most buzzed-about cocktail guide in the country, "The PDT Cocktail Book" (Sterling Epicure, 368 pages, $24.95) by Jim Meehan.
It's a mesmerizing volume. Start flipping through it and you can't help but be transported, sort of like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining," to some faraway Jazz Age bacchanal where the bartenders muddle blueberries with half an ounce of Creme Yvette, pour in some cognac and Champagne, and top off this ambrosial sip with an edible orchid. (At PDT, in the East Village in New York City, they really do that. See Page 147: the Imperial Blueberry Fizz. Sigh.)
What would happen if I tried to conjure up a few of these speak-easy dreams in my own home, in the gridlocked, Yellowtail-friendly suburbs?
I'm certainly not the first guy to try. Recipes for labyrinthine libations have been showing up all over the place lately, and not just in insider's guides like Imbibe magazine. Look around and you'll find a proliferation of intricately brand-specific recipes on food blogs, in new books like "Northstar Cocktails" and in publications like The Wall Street Journal, GQ and Food and Wine.
The implication is that you, the home bartender, have bottles of Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, Hayman's Old Tom gin and Fee Brothers bitters. And if you don't, you've got the budgetary leeway and a nearby liquor store that's ready to fill your order.

Cocktail culture

Which you might. Such is the spread of craft-cocktail mania in the United States that the Holeman & Finch Public House, an Atlanta hot spot, opened the H&F Bottle Shop this year to meet Georgia's exploding demand for small-batch arcana.

"Cocktail culture has taken root in people's homes, and your average consumers are so much more educated than they were even two years ago," said Greg Best, a bartender and one of the owners. "I mean, I have people coming in and asking me what Torino-based vermouth I carry. We get runs on allspice dram. People are coming in and not even thinking twice about dropping 100 bucks on a bottle of yellow chartreuse."
All the PDT recipes I wanted to try called for specific and obscure spirits -- a few of which I'd never heard of.
My search began with a splash of hope. The first shop I wandered into, Rochambeau Wines and Liquors in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., carried a surprising bounty of the ingredients that I needed. It had Cherry Heering, Clear Creek Kirschwasser and Gran Duque d'Alba Brandy de Jerez, all of which I had to find in order to create a cherry-tinged elixir called the Mount Vernon.
"That's what we're known for," Jeffrey Wooddy, the general manager at Rochambeau, said proudly. "A customer will say, 'I haven't been able to find it. Can you help me?' And we'll have five of them on the shelf."
Indeed, the store also carried two of the five elements of a drink called the Kina Miele (Dolin Dry Vermouth and Clear Creek Pear Brandy) and one of the things I needed for the Nigori Milk Punch (Hine V.S.O.P. Cognac).
That's when things got complicated.

Rare ingredients

That Nigori Milk Punch also called for Kamoizumi Nigori sake, three dashes of Feldman's Barrel Aged Bitters and something called Navan Vanilla Liqueur. Rochambeau didn't have these. In fact, it was unlikely that any store would have the Navan.

"No more," Rochambeau's owner, Dieter Kannapin, said after hanging up the phone by the cash register.
"Navan is no more?" Wooddy said.
"Off the market," Kannapin said. "They don't make it anymore."
Which meant the Nigori Milk Punch was already toast.
At this point, Wooddy was kind enough to perform a computer search for Nonino Gioiello, another element of the Kina Miele. The good news?
Zachys, a short drive away in Scarsdale, N.Y., had some. The bad news?
"Oh my God," Wooddy said. It turned out that this Italian chestnut-honey distillate, presumably made by angels who extract gossamer threads from ancient beehives when the moon is blue, sold for about $100 a bottle.
As I stood there, mildly stunned, Wooddy sagely observed that the resources available to a home bartender are not the same as those available to a celebrated Manhattan cocktail wizard.
"It's a different mind-set when you're playing with house money," he said.
A fine point. My bill for the six bottles from Rochambeau was $244.75.
I followed that by paying $132.60 at Zachys for the chestnut honey potion, along with an assortment of Bitter Truth bitters. Then I drove across the county and scored a $29.99 bottle of Lustau Pedro Ximenez sherry at Varmax in Port Chester. After getting lost in downtown Port Chester, I made landfall again at Tarry Wine, a shop opened by Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich; there I paid $22.55 for a bottle of an aperitif called Cocchi Americano.
Finally I schlepped back to Stop & Shop in Dobbs Ferry for $12.79 worth of ice, precise measuring spoons and (forgive me, elite mixologists of the East Village) a container of Florida's Natural grapefruit juice. By this point, I didn't have any time to squeeze my own.
As the sun set on the Hudson River and I headed home, my tab was nearly $450, and I'd managed to round up the complete ingredients for only one of the cocktails that I'd daydreamed of concocting.
I recounted the adventure to Meehan the next day. He gently suggested that I had aimed a bit high.
"The Nigori Milk Punch, the Mount Vernon, the Kina Miele -- those are, like, the super-advanced level drinks," he said. "They're the fetish cocktails for the people who already have a humongous collection of booze, and are bored, and are like, 'I do have 100 bucks to blow on an obscure bottle of honey distillate.' "
PDT has a budget that a speak-easy-minded suburbanite doesn't.
"I have an $18,000 liquor inventory on a daily basis at PDT, and it's because there's a lot of ingredients," he said. "I've gone to great lengths to find great products that are off the beaten track and to share them with my customers."

Via Denmark

For more perspective, I called Gary Regan, the author and cocktail expert. He was about to try a cocktail recipe that a bartender in Copenhagen had sent his way. It involved a shot of sea buckhorn juice.

"I just took a sip of it," Regan said. "It is weird, man. It is very weird."
Bartending is showmanship, Regan said. The vogue for freaky drams and droplets is a bit like a band's urge to break out the didgeridoo.
"Let's face it, being a bartender is a look-at-me job," he said.
Mix specialists like Craig Schoettler in Chicago, Johnny Michaels in Minneapolis, John Coltharp in Los Angeles and Thad Vogler and Jackie Patterson in San Francisco know that the careful use of rare, artisanal ingredients helps a bartender stand out from the appletini-slinging herd. And they have a reason for being obsessively precise about their measurements and flavors.
"These ingredients do actually make a difference," Regan said. "If we're talking about the Dolin vermouth, you've got to use Dolin vermouth, because nothing else tastes like that."
I now had the Dolin, but I'd never found the final ingredient in the Kina Miele, Bitter Truth lemon bitters. So after I had hauled several bags and boxes of odd bottles into the house, I set out to make the one cocktail for which I had all of the elements: the Mount Vernon, which Meehan had created in sly tribute to George Washington.
I cannot tell a lie. The Mount Vernon was spectacular. Cost and labor and traffic snarls aside, it was the most delicious cocktail I'd ever made at home.
And that was a good thing, because by now I needed a drink.