A few months ago, I found a near-unprecedented cause for celebration. Marriage? Birth of a child? Not quite. My fixed rate mortgage came to an end.

Not a conventional reason to crack out the bubbly, but it did half my mortgage payments every month, giving me the equivalent of a 20% pay rise. What I hadn't bargained on was the post-crunch era experience of renewing a fixed rate mortgage. A warning to the uninitiated....

This may be the age of thrift and austerity, but having a million quid that you can't get your hands on seems hair-shirted even for the Cameron era.

But that's just what happened to the deliciously named Wally Jinks, a newly-crowned lottery winner who lost his wallet while on holiday and therefore has to wait until he gets his new cards and pin before he can access his cash. He may be thanking his lucky stars (or Lucky Dip) that he didn't have his lottery ticket in his wallet, but I'll bet he has more frustrations ahead with his bank than he thinks.

When npower launched its campaign to search for old boilers, it put me in mind of a game male friends of mine used to play at university. Back then the prize was merely the respect (and possibly nausea) of your peer group. npower, meanwhile, is offering a fully installed energy-efficient boiler.

It is a testament to my encroaching old age that npower's offer seems a whole lot more attractive these days.

There are advantages and disadvantages to being out of the country while a general election is going on. You don't run the risk of being canvassed by the enthusiastic flunkies of the political parties, for example. You avoid the tedious news coverage and speculation: Hung? Not hung? Who will hop into (political) bed with whom?

The key disadvantage, however, is that elections can cause wild fluctuations in currency and over night every bit of spending became more expensive. For holidaymakers, this usually means a few quid here or there and not enough to ruin a holiday, but can those with second homes, business postings abroad or foreign income protect themselves against this volatility?

Markets have had a turbulent time of it in the past few days. First worries over Europe plunged them into misery, then hope of a bail-out rallied their fortunes. But with the hung parliament still hanging over them, there's every chance there could be more volatility to come.

But rather than being a reason for steering well clear, there's an argument there's never been a better time to consider investing.

When approaching a spring-clean, I would like to think that I took the William Morris approach, of having nothing in my wardrobe that I didn't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

But I'm not willing to approach Spring with four things plus underwear, so I have to be a little more forgiving.

Nevertheless, watered down, this is not a bad theory. What is the best way to go about it in practice?

A night out in a bad frock may result in a few embarrassing photos, but following financial fashion can have more serious consequences.

History is littered with optimistic punters who have followed the herd and ended up poorer as a result. In vogue over the last 20 years has been technology, commodities and now, perversely, fashion seems to have come full circle and sticking it under the bed is now the preferred option.

Here's why investors should be wary about backing this season's new look.

First of all, there is an important behavioural element to finance. Any market is simply a product of buyers and sellers. A company can be the best in the world, but if everybody knows about it, the chances are that everyone who would want to buy the shares has bought them. That means, no matter how good the company, anyone who decides to sell will push the price down. Following the herd may be good for a while, but you need to know when to get out

For the novice townie gardener, online garden centres can seem like a god-send. It means not having to spend hundreds at over-priced urban plant shops, receiving plants at the exact time they need to be planted, plus getting all sorts of ideas and bargains by email. It should be a recipe for a year-round abundance of flora.

However, a recent experience of buying plants online suggested otherwise.

So your house burns down, but the insurance company won't pay because you had a cat flap. Or you break your leg on a ski slope, but it won't pay because you once had a haemorrhoid.

The deal with the insurers and the insured used to be clear – you tried to get as much as possible and they would introduce obscure loopholes to avoid paying out.

Now, some (though not all) insurance companies have smartened up their acts, but that's no excuse for a lack of vigilance.