Money Money Money

Make money by participating in clinical trials (UK)

Clinical trials have several phases - Phase 1 involves testing the drug on healthy patients to check whether it is safe for humans (only later is the drug trialed on sick people). If you are healthy, you can make some money participating in these trials.

Healthy men between ages 18 to 45 are most in demand, and they usually pay £100 to £300 a day, some residential and some non-residential. Note that sometimes trials go wrong, but the firms concerned should compensate you should this happen. Before you sign up, ask them what happens when things go wrong and what their procedure for compensation is. Then give this information to a trusted family member with instructions for what to do. The incidence of something going wrong is rare, but it does happen. The British Medical Association provides information and guidance about the regulations surrounding clinical trials.

Here are the firms in the UK that conduct clinical trials:

Roche UK

AstraZeneca

Quintiles

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Hammersmith Medicines Research

Veeda

Parexel

Are we looking at a double-dip recession scenario?

Financial markets around the world have been crashing and bon market vigilantes have been stalking sovereign governments, forcing them into cutting back on public spending. Whenever public spending is cut, the economy slows down a little. This doesn't matter much during boom times, it just slows things down and prevents the economy from going white-hot. During period of weak growth, cuts can make things worse, and send you back into recession.

That might be the scenario we are seeing now. How can you protect yourself? Well the only thing we can do is build up emergency savings and pay down debt. That way if the worst occurs, you won't be so badly placed.

It seems I'm not the only one thinking this way. Here are the top most popular articles on this blog this month:

1. How to Survive without any money

2. Losing your job and being made redundant

3. What to do if you can't pay your credit card debt

4. How to survive and prosper in a recession

5. How to increase fuel efficiency when you drive

As you can see, my readers are preoccupied with recession. Number 5 makes a comeback after having slipped in the last six months. I guess increased oil prices are once again putting pressure on family budgets.

Let's hope the worst doesn't happen, but in the meanwhile people should take precautions to protect themselves.

Year end summary

Yes I know it's not yet December 31st, but I thought I'd write my year-end summary now.

It's been an interesting year for me. I've branched out into setting up fashion websites, and it's consumed so much of my time I have neglected this blog a bit.

I hope to post more in the new year, and in particular will post about the value of becoming self-employed in the current economic climate. In particular working online gives you a degree of protection from domestic downturns, because if you know what you are doing, you should be able to make an income from any part of the world. Something to think about given that this downturn is severe and jobs may not come back quickly.

I wish everyone a happy new year.

Repay your mortgage

We are nearly at the end of the first recession year we've had in Britain since the early 1990's.

According to the Guardian, householders have reacted to the downturn by repaying mortgage debt - by £7bn in each of the first and second quarters, and £4.9 billion in the third quarter.

Which brings me to a post I wrote about repaying mortgage debt back in early 2007 when it looked like the good times would roll on forever. Many people in the comments of that post pooh-poohed my advice and said that instead you should put money in the stock market because "studies show it's the best investment"! Well that might have been true in the 20th century, but it's not true of the 21st century. The stock market has been flat over the last decade. The only people sitting pretty right now are those who took my advice to overpay their mortgages, as they now have little debt and can cope better with downturns.

Looking forward to 2010, it's not clear what the economic outlook will be. It looks like tax rises and govt cuts are coming, and these always slow down economies even more. So prepare by repaying as much debt as you can.

Small Business Websites

I've been following the fascinating 30 day challenge held every August by Ed Dale (and Australian Internet Marketer) who helps people (especially small businesses) to set up and optimize websites.

His credo is that no matter what your business, whether you are in the industrial safety supplies business or perhaps a pop band looking to break out, you will benefit from optimizing your site for keywords related to your business. Even the smallest business would benefit from understanding how the net works, but sadly most won't have heard of his free course.