Keep your wedding from turning into a financial funeral

The average wedding now costs the bride, groom and their families a stonking £25,000 – that’s more than many of us earn in a year. But declaring your love needn’t mean financial ruin if you use a little invention and imagination.

The venue
A fairy-tale castle or Jane Austen style country house might be every bride’s dream wedding venue but consider your personalities and shared passions.
Perhaps you’ve always loved your parent’s garden or your husband-to-be is mad on motors. ‘Wedding venue’ doesn’t have to mean a glittering lake dotted with pure white swans and often brides forget their priorities when arranging the perfect wedding. Think carefully and you may realise that you’d be just as happy with bangers and mash in the local like Kate Winslet who enjoyed just that at her first wedding.
Don’t write off that Caribbean beach wedding either. When the guests are whittled down from 100 to 10 and the grand reception becomes a beach BBQ, savings of thousands can be made as the bride and groom relax in the sun.

The dress
For most brides their wedding is the one and only time a single item will set them back more than £1000 – ridiculous when you consider that a wedding dress is worn only once.
Many high street retailers, most famously Monsoon, offer affordable wedding dress alternatives while websites such as www.thedressmarket.net sell second hand and sample dresses at incredible prices – no-one will ever know that you’re not wearing new.
However, if you’ve always dreamed of a handmade dress consider taking your honeymoon BEFORE your wedding. The cost of having a dress handmade in Thailand or Hong Kong can be as little as £200 including materials. Likewise suits and bridesmaids dresses can be created from measurements provided by your wedding party.

The food & drink
In an ideal world your guests will feast on caviar and sup champagne. In reality food and drink bills make up one of the biggest expenses of any wedding.
Swap champagne for sparkling wine, cava or prosecco – few guests will know the difference – and introduce a pay bar, standard at most weddings nowadays.
Hog roasts, BBQs, picnics and buffets meanwhile are a relaxed and cheap alternative to a sit-down meal and presented upon tables decorated with posies of wild flowers (cheaper than roses and orchids) make for a sweet and stylish look.

The cake
If you can’t rope a willing auntie in to baking and icing the cake of your dreams avoid marzipan bankruptcy by simply buying three plain iced fruit cakes of increasing size from your local bakery or supermarket, adding pillars and decorating with flowers matching the bride’s bouquet. Pure class for just a few pounds.

The photographs
Who needs a pricey photographer taking over your day when everyone you know will be feeling pretty snap happy? Provide a couple of easy-to-use digital cameras for guests to make use of or offer each a CD to download their photos on to before sending to you. It’s the candid shots that will tell the story of your day better than any posed portraits.

Starving to be cool

If you only had enough money left at the end of the month to buy either your groceries for the week or the latest pair of designer shoes, which would you go for? If this seems a difficult question to answer then chances are you could have “fashiorexia”.
Almost a third of UK women would starve for their fashion, while half of them are spending more on clothes and accessories each month than they are on food. These shocking findings are from a survey conducted by celebrity fashion website Mycelebrityfashion.co.uk – prompting the new diet phrase “fashiorexia”.
So far this summer, British women have been gorging themselves on fashion not food, with nearly half admitting to spending more on looking good than eating. 18 per cent said that they spent more than half of their wages each month on clothes and accessories.
Despite the credit crunch and reports that the public are now spending less on non-essential items, 49 per cent of fashion hungry shoppers are spending more on their appearance on a monthly basis than they are on food, according to the study of 4,315 women by the celebrity style website.
For most of us, if it came down to a choice of whether to buy food for the week or whether to buy a new top, you’d like to think the vast majority would be sensible and buy food. However, 32 per cent of women said that they would actually prefer to go without food if it meant making a fashion purchase and they even went so far as to confess to being “fashiorexic”.
Even more worryingly, 28 per cent of women see nothing wrong with this lifestyle and even say their fashion “diet” keeps their weight in check. Unfortunately, they are not alone in their view as 52 per cent of 18-25 year-olds also agree that spending their money on the latest trends instead of food is a good way of watching their weight.
With endless images of stick-thin celebrities in newspapers and magazines it seems the younger generation have also been influenced to put their looks before their health. More than 70 per cent of women aged 18-25 spend £150 or more, per month on clothing and accessories, while 16 per cent spend more than half their wages on looking good.
However, it’s not just the young that have these reckless attitude towards their health as 21 per cent of women in their 30s spend more than half of their wages on fashion purchases too, and more than half of these women admit to spending more on fashion than eating.
Speaking about the results, celebrity fashion website MyCelebrityFashion.co.uk Head Fashionista, Jill Tovey, says: “Fashion is clearly still a thriving industry, despite the economy. More people search for the best deals and bargains online rather than traipse the high streets and clearly are enjoying themselves whilst doing it. With regards to ‘fashiorexia’ I and MyCelebrityFashion would never advocate eating unhealthily for the sake of fashion and believe in balance.”
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look good but not at the expense of your health, after all what good will a wardrobe of nice clothes be when you’re too sick to wear them?

Picture caption: So that’s where this week’s food budget went.

Know your online rights

With no queues, no crowds and no closing time, its easy to see whey so many of us choose to shop online, but while most of us know the high street procedure for faulty goods, refunds and other customer issues, knowing where you legally stand online can be confusing at best.
If you have ever felt that twinge of anxiety as you hit the OK tab to complete your online transaction, then this guide is for you. Consumer watchdog Which? has come up with the following guide to help you navigate and negotiate your way round the legal parameters of the internet high street.
Changing your mind - once an order is placed online, there is a cooling-off period starting the minute you place the order and ending seven working days from the day after receiving the goods, during which time you are legally free to cancel. If you are buying a service, the seven working days starts the day after you place the order and if you agree that a service will start straight away you give up your right to cancel. Items which can’t be returned include: CDs, DVDs or software if the seal on the wrapping is broken; perishable items; and tailor-made or personable goods.
Online protection - the retailer must give both a geographical and an email contact address. If you receive an email confirming your order, you have a legally binding contract, but if it’s just an acknowledgment, then you don’t.
Faulty goods - whether purchased online or on the high street, the seller is still responsible for the condition of the goods on delivery and its also worth noting that the seller must also bear the cost of returning them if they are problematic.
Special offers – always check the terms and conditions, as some companies only accept the order when the goods are removed from the shelves and this may be after the offer expires. If you are charged full price, you don’t have to pay – you can simply send the goods back with the delivery driver.
Auction sites – when buying goods privately there is little legal protection. The law on auction sites is unclear, but there is an argument that if you buy the goods from a trader it’s not a true auction, so you have protection under the Sale of Goods Act. To date, the law has not been tested enough for any hard and fast rules to have been set.
Senior lawyer at Which? Legal Service, Peter McCarthy, says: “It’s a great time to buy online, especially with the new ruling on protection for credit card purchases abroad. But it’s also important to know exactly what your rights are before surfing the net for bargains.”

According to McCarthy, shopping from home can be extremely problematic if you are not familiar with internet etiquette. “Online shopping isn’t always a case of ‘what you see is what you get’. It can be difficult when all you have to go on is a photo. As well as your statutory rights, it’s worth checking returns policies, as these do vary. For example, online electronics supplier Dabs gives 10 days to return unwanted goods, whereas Amazon is much more generous, with 30 days,” he says.

Software piracy drops 1%, but value of losses rises: Study

The monetary value of "losses" to the industry (due to piracy) showed a record level of $53 billion, up by 11%.

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L.N. Revathy Coimbatore, May 22 The Sixth Annual BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Study findings reveal a one per cent drop in the software piracy levels to 68 per cent in India in 2008 and a rise in the monetary value of piracy loss to $2.7 billion compared to $2 billion in 2007. The study was conducted by market research and forecasting firm IDC and released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA). The study covers piracy of all packaged software that run on personal computers including desktops, laptops and ultra-portables, but does not include server- or mainframe-based software. The study shows that in 2008, the rate of software piracy dropped in 57 of the 110 countries studied, remained the same in 36 and rose in 16 countries. The worldwide software piracy rate though has risen for the second year in a row from 38 per cent to 41 per cent. And, this has been attributed to the fast growth in PC shipments in high-piracy countries such as China and India. In another sign of the scale of the problem, the monetary value of "losses" to the software industry (due to software piracy) showed a record level of $53 billion, up by 11 per cent. Industry sources say half of this increase was due to the falling dollar, excluding of course the effect of exchange rates. "We are continuing to make significant progress against software piracy, but it (software piracy) is widely prevalent giving illegal software users an unfair advantage in business and spreading security risk," the President and Chief Executive Officer of BSA, Mr Robert Holleyman, said. Mr Jeffrey J. Hardee, BSA's Vice-President and Regional Director, Asia-Pacific, observed that the average software piracy rate in the APAC region rose by two per cent to 61 in 12 months with losses reaching over $15 billion. "Even if such illegal activities were to go down in high-piracy countries, their growing market share for PCs could drive the regional average up," he said. China is moving in the right direction in bringing down PC software piracy levels, and many governments across the region have pledged their support through awareness campaigns, enterprise software legalisation initiatives, enforcement actions and stronger legal remedies. Nevertheless, challenges remain, Mr Hardee said and pointed out that it was due to the rising demand for assembled PCs in emerging markets. "The availability of pirated software on the Internet is facilitated by increasing broadband penetration in the region. This is another major concern," added Mr Hardee. IDC has predicted that lowering PC software piracy by 10 points over four years would create six lakh additional jobs worldwide. `This projection has been confirmed by actual experience in China and Russia', states the new study. Gradual decline in India Mr Keshav Dhakad, Chair of the BSA India Committee, noted that the software piracy levels were witnessing a gradual decline in India. "This could be attributed to the intellectual property (IP) awareness efforts being driven by governments, industry and the judiciary. While the domestic software industry has potential for tremendous growth, it continues to be challenged by high software piracy rates. We are hopeful that the new government, together with the state governments, will take positive steps in driving anti-piracy initiatives, such as the formation of a national anti-piracy taskforce, the setting up of special IP courts, the promotion of IP rights and the training of enforcement officials," added Mr Dhakad. "At a time when the Indian IT industry is moving towards product development, protection of IPR and reduction of software piracy should be taken seriously by all stakeholders. The findings of this study reinforces the need for collaborative effort between the government and industry to tackle piracy through stronger policy, awareness and enforcement initiatives to help enhance India's economic and IT competitiveness," said Mr Som Mittal, President, Nasscom. The findings showed that the global economic recession was having a mixed impact on software piracy. The piracy level was found to be less than 20 per cent in the US, Japan, New Zealand and Luxembourg and over 90 per cent in Armenia, Bangladesh, Georgia and Zimbabwe.

Slowdown or recession? -S. Hamsini Amritha

“The world is likely headed for a deep recession” says Paul Krugman 2008 Nobel Prize Laureate for Economics. But what is recession? Many mistake economic slowdown for recession. Textbooks define recession as a period of two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as measured by a country’s GDP and is expected to last anywhere between six and 18 months. Slowdown, on the other hand, is just a slower growth in economic activities. While a slowdown is industry specific, a recession results in a wide ranging impact.

How did this happen?

Trouble started with the sub-prime crisis in the US. Lending against homes to borrowers of doubtful quality resulted in debt defaults. to collapse. The defaults led to a fall in property prices as home loans were foreclosed and the property was put on sale. This set off a chain reaction. Securities that were based on repackaged loans and held by a wide range of financial institutions lost value, triggering massive losses and finally bankruptcies. The final blow came in the form of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy. These apart, since the beginning of 2008, Dow Jones and Nasdaq have seen a 29 per cent fall in their respective values.

Falling property prices and a sudden squeeze on liquidity and credit have set off fears about job losses and its subsequent impact on consumer spending in the US. For example, Pepsi, a consumer company, has in this quarter, reported a loss for its US operations, indicating a dip in consumer spending. A vicious cycle of fall in sales, fall in profits and decline in economic growth, ultimately results in unemployment and lower consumer spending, the key reflector of recession.

Not just the US

If you thought that the US alone is vulnerable to recession, think again. Global economies today are interdependent. If America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. America is the largest producer of natural resources. So when prices of oil and gas increase, there is a global impactMany Asian countries such as Taiwan, China and South Korea are major exporters of consumer goods to the US. Similarly, a good proportion of global consumption for goods and services is accounted for by the country.

India’s position

Is India vulnerable to a recession too? As of now, evidence points only to a slowdown in growth and not to recession. Though India is not an export-reliant economy, the impact of inflation and global recession is being felt here too. Inflation is now hovering at over 11 per cent. There are concerns that infrastructure spending may see delays. Worries about earnings have seen the Sensex plunging to new lows in this period. But it is early days yet to call it a recession in India, because companies still boast of decent profit growth.

Every economy is sure to go through repetitive cycles of boom, slowdown and recession. Maybe its just time to redo some economics lessons!