If you find it hard to keep track of exactly how beers you have had, you might want to try this beer counting bottle opener. The gadget is called the Beer Tracker and records the number of times it is used to lift the lid on a bottle. It keeps track of the number of beers opened with a digital display, unfortunately though it only seems practical for the beers you drink at home, so won’t help for trips to the pub.

We have spent the last few days packing up as much stuff as possible to try and declutter our house prior to selling. The result is that I currently have a house full of boxes instead of a house full of clutter, not a vast improvement. We do have a van coming today to take all the boxes to the storage area so hopefully later on today I should be able to walk around my house again without encountering a box mountain.

This article suggests that balance transfer deals are disappearing in what appears to be a clamp down on easy credit. Research has shown that there are only nine credit companies offering a long term 0% balance transfer deal. This is compared with over 200 companies a year ago. The research which was carried out by www.fool.co.uk found there are now only 20 cards from 9 providers that offer a 0% balance transfer for a minimum of 10 months. It looks like it could be time to pay off that credit card balance.

Nationwide have increased the minimum deposit required to secure its best interest rate. Previously anyone putting down a 10% deposit could secure its best rate but this has now been increased to 25% of the value of the property. The move will mean that anyone with less than a 25% deposit will pay 0.2% more interest.

I thought I was seeing things when I came across the headline “Tony Blair launches artistic career”. It gets much stranger than that, however, when you learn that the Tony Blair to whom the article refers, is a rat. The artistic rat has been causing quite a stir in art circles with his masterpiece which is made entirely out of avocado. The rat has also produced another piece which features a gnawed four leaf clover which he calls “Am I still Lucky?” Tony’s owner says "I first noticed his creative potential when he walked across some clay tiles and left his paw prints and it went from there." I must see whether any of my cats are hiding an artistic talent.

A house in Kensington has sold for £80 million making it London’s most expensive home. The previous record was £67 million for a property in Kensington Palace Gardens. This property is five storeys high and has an underground swimming pool, a sauna and a gym.

I came across this really cute article about a boxer dog called Billy who has adopted a goat called Lilly. Billy has become Lilly’s constant companion, sleeping with her, cleaning her and protecting her from danger. How cute is that?

We have been talking about moving house for a long time and are finally starting to do something about it. Whilst I love our house, it is starting to get a little small for our needs and with four cats and running a business from home it’s definitely time to move on. We made the first step by getting an estate agent around to value our property the other day and were surprised to find it is worth quite a bit more than we expected. Over the next few weeks we will be moving all of our stuff into storage in a major effort to declutter the house. Then we plan to replace the carpets and do a bit of painting, before putting the house on the market. We will also be looking at other properties over the next few weeks and months to try and get an idea of the sort of house we are looking to move to. We have two houses to see at the weekend as well as a meeting with Lok’nStore where we plan to store the contents of our house whilst we are trying to sell it. It’s all very exciting and there are sure to be many property related post over the next few months. If it all goes to plan, hopefully we will soon be settled in a new home.