BRAINSTORM:

Jurgen Wolff's teaches creativity workshops around the world and he is the author of “Do Something Different". Through his website, you can subscribe to his wonderful e-bulletin which captures some wonderful pearls for creativity and productivity offered by its subscribers.

Businessballs is a free ethical learning and development resource for people and organisations, run by Alan Chapman, in Leicester, England. It's an online collection of learning and development ideas and is now used by about a million people each month. Essential if you want to know more about teams and management.

Learn hundreds of essential career skills, FREE of charge, and develop yourself on an ongoing basis with their popular free e-newsletter. It's quite a busy looking website BUT has a range of material ranging from leadership skills, project management, time management, stress relief skills to creativity. Did you know that you can even "manage" people above you (eg your boss). Click to find out more.

With MisterPoll you can create your own online polls on any subject with an unlimited number of questions. Email them to friends, plug them into your web site, submit them to MisterPoll's public directory, and more. Plus, every poll gets its own message forum! Really useful site when you want to do a "quick and dirty" survey of what people are doing. Again, it's FREE.

REMEMBERTHEMILK

What can I say other than I love this site and consider it a MUST HAVE. If you have lots of tasks to do and have many fingers in different pots and struggle to keep on top of them, then this website is for you. It's an online task list which means you can access it from anywhere and even have it on certain mobile devices like BlackBerrys. But there's lots more you can do with it - check it out..

LATEROOMS

These days I make nearly most of my hotel bookings with LateRooms - in advance or right uptil the last minute. Unlike Expedia, they don't charge an administration fee for cancellations either. You can book hotels, B&Bs, chalets, castles and lots more. Prices are really good and it really does take the pain out of finding a decent room.

TRIPADVISOR

I love this website too; it's one of my faves. Before booking with LateRooms, I check out what others have to say about the hotel I am about to book. Found a hotel you want to stay in but not sure how good it really is despite what they say on their own home page? Read comments from recent people who have stayed there. The site also offers free travel guides too.

NEARESTHOTELS

Nearest hotels is a super utility if you are looking for a hotel close to a particular place (only for the UK). All you need is the postcode or address of where you want your hotel to be close to. It not only displays a list, but also a map of where various hotels are in relation to your destination point. I often try this website to find a hotel I want, and then use LateRooms to find the same hotel but at a cheaper price.

GOOGLEMAPS

Google maps is also a great utility for finding a hotel close to a particular place, but unlike Nearest Hotels it covers the world! Just type "hotels in LS2 9JT" and it will do the rest for you and give you a list of hotels and their direct websites. Remember, you might find a cheaper quote on a website like LateRooms though. Google seems to be everywhere you look these days! (A bit like Matthew Kelly in the 1980s).

IMPORTANT

POINT:

Q. If I’m abroad spending on plastic & they offer to let me pay in pounds, is it worth it?

A. No. This is called dynamic currency exchange, and should be avoided. Often the rate you get will be appalling and someone’s making big money out of it. If you’ve got one of the specialist overseas cards you’ll get a much better rate paying in the foreign currency not pounds. And even if you’re using a normal card as you’ve no idea of the relative exchange rates they could be playing you for a fool; so it's always best to stick with paying in the foreign currency.

If you're travelling to Spain, be especially careful. Some Spanish banks, particularly giant Santander, have started to ask UK cardholders if you want to have your money converted into Sterling when withdrawing Euros from ATMs. Always say No; the rate you'll get is often much worse than the rate you’d be given by your own plastic provider when it converts Euro withdrawals, although the exact rates depend on which plastic you're holstering.

TRAVELSUPERMARKET

TravelSupermarket.com is a price comparison site which means it searches the market for you. You can book flights, hotels, holidays, ski holidays, UK breaks and much more. All of these are often at great prices but if you want more, click the 'Bargain Hunter' too. Need inspiration? Then click on 'top 10 desitnations'; and they provide online travel guides too.

FLIGHTMAPPING

This is a great site for finding out in which cities there are scheduled flights to specific destinations. For instance, you would be wasting your time trying to search a whole raft ofr travel sites for a flight from say Manchester to Seville. If you used flightmapper, you'd realise that scheduled flights to Seville are only available in Liverpool and London. That's what flight mapper is for.

SKYSCANNER

SkyScanner is a bit like Flightmapping.com but it also tells you which days the scheduled flights will occur and therefore helps you to book the right dates off work rather than sticking to the usual Sat-Sat rule. Ever booked a holiday from say Sat to Sat only to find out the flight for your destination only happens on a Tuesday and Thursday? Now what you gonna do?

VISITBRITAIN

Whether you’re looking for practical travel advice, or need information about visas or health insurance, if you want to learn more about British culture, or simply want to know what the weather’s like today, this site is full of fascinating and useful insider knowledge About Britain. It has a whole host of travel guides too.

Britain under one web roof; this site offers 20,000 quality places to stay, 20,000 things to do, 30,000 places to eat, 30,000 shops to shop in, History and Heritage, Culture and Leisure, Travel and Tourism, Theatres and Towns. Our Natural Beauty, Our Monarchy, Your reviews, Your reports. Thousands of pages of useful information, geography and gardening, services, society, sport - even schooling.

MONEYSAVINGEXPERT

Martin Lewis is an award-winning TV & radio presenter who spends his life focusing on how to cut bills without cutting back. This site is absolutely fab. It covers anything to do with money from how to find the cheapeast gas supplier, best credit card deal, finding a cheap holiday to buying books or CDs online. Tip: use the search box - just type in whatever you are looking for and Robert's your uncle! Also check out the money makeover section.

MOTLEYFOOL

Looking for a mortgage, a better credit card, having a dabble at shares or just some financial information, then this is your one stop shop. It now offers a 'compare and save' service for all the major house utilities one has to pay.

Try their question and answer tool: if you have a question about money, this is the perfect place for it.

GOOGLE PRODUCTS

Google Products used to be called Froogle. I always go to Google Products if I want to buy something: to see where I can get it at best price. Been to a high street shop and something's taken your fancy? Don't pay the extortionate prices in the shop. Take note of the make and model number and plug it into Google Product Search which will then scan the online market for bext prices.

Ebay

Of course, the other place to buy something you've seen in a shop is ebay where you can save lots of money. Be careful though of buying used electrical goods. Why not try and sell all the junk you have in your attic. I thought I had a whole load of worthless stuff in my attick and recently flogged it all for a total of £1500. How's that for just a bit of extra work. And it's nice to have the space back again.

ABEBOOKS

Score great deals on new, secondhand and international edition textbooks. There's even a rare book room and books signed by the author. The thing I like most about this site is the fact it promotes the recycling of something that has been used. Can be much cheaper than Amazon (the other big book trader) and many items have free postage.

LOGANBERRY BOOKS

Trying to remember the details of a book but can't quite remember the author or title? Send in what you can and 'Stump the Bookseller' will attempt to figure it out all for £1. How's that for service; and they'll try and locate a copy for you too.

Loganberry again is all about recycling used books.

CALLCHECKER

The call checker is an advanced tool to finesse cheaper prices for certain types of calls .Bought to you by moneysavingexpert.com

SAYNOTO0870.COM

Stop big companies ripping you off by getting you to call them on 0870 numbers (expensive rates) when you want to talk to them. Use cheaper or freefone numbers listed on this site. The SAYNOTO0870.COM web site has been featured on BBC's Working Lunch TV programme, and a host of other media including The Guardian, Which Magazine, Readers Digest, and many more.

SKYPE

Make calls from your computer — free to other people on Skype and cheap to phones and mobiles around the world. So many people use Skype these days and the programme will even search your address book and let you know who else is signed up. Then you can connect to them whenever they are online. Skype is now available for mobiles too - no need to make expensive mobile calls. Try it.

VYKE

Mobile VoIP (Voice over Internet Phone) by Vyke - Virtually free! Means you can make FREE CALLS to all Mobile VoIP and VoIP Phone users in the Vyke network. For calls to fixed phones in Europe, USA and Canada you only pay around 2p per call. For all other calls, it is just inexpensive. Vyke Mobile VoIP is an add-on service; you do not need a contract and you keep your existing sim card. Use Mobile VoIP instead of GSM whenever you are in a WI-FI zone, it saves you money!

COMPUTERAID

Computer Aid International offers a complete service to companies replacing their hardware. They are experts in end-of life IT asset management, including data destruction, computer refurbishment, reuse, and recycling. Donating your computers to Computer Aid guarantees compliance with all UK legislation, including the WEEE directive, Data Protection Act and Environment Act.

FREECYLE

Freecycle is a network of millions of people around the world who want to swap their unwanted gifts and goods for free. Sign up to the UK bit and recieve notifications of goods up for grabs or list your own. The rules are: a)there's no cost and b) items are legal and c) items are appropriate for all ages. Go and check it out - what have you got to lose?

MISSIONFISH

Missionfish will help you get rid of some stuff on Ebay and then help you donate some or all of the profits to charity. They mark your items with a charity ribbon to show others you're an ethically minded seller. You can choose from their list of charitable organisations to whom you wish the donation to go to or suggest one that isn't listed.