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If you’re going back to work and you’ve got children, you can get financial and practical help with childcare. From tax credits to flexible working arrangements, there’s lots of support available to make your life easier.

Early year’s education

All three and four year olds are entitled to twelve-and-a-half hours of free early year’s education a
week, for 38 weeks a year, with a ‘registered provider’ such as a school, nursery or playgroup,
regardless of income or circumstances.

Some large employers provide registered early years education at the workplace. You can also
use a registered childminder if they’re part of an approved childminding network.

Tax Credits

Child Tax Credit
Child Tax Credit is an income-related allowance for parents and carers of children or young people who are still in full-time education. Nine out of ten families with children qualify for Child
Tax Credit.

Working Tax Credit
If you’re working more than 16 hours a week and you’re on a low income, you may be able to get Working Tax Credit too.

The Working Tax Credit includes a specific element to support the cost of registered or approved childcare for working parents. The childcare element can help with up to 80 per cent of your eligible childcare costs.

There are limits on the weekly costs you can claim. If you pay childcare for:
• one child, the maximum you can claim is £175 a week
• two or more children, the maximum is £300 a week

Time off and flexible working

Time off (‘parental leave’)
If you’re a working parent, you can take up to 13 weeks parental leave for each child until their fifth birthday (you get more than this if you have a disabled child). Your employer doesn’t have to pay you when you take this leave, but they might as part of your employment package.

Flexible working
Flexible working lets you ask your employer for a new working pattern to help you care for your child. You have a right to request a flexible working pattern if you’ve got a child aged under six or a disabled child under 18. Your employer has to consider your request seriously.
To have the right to ask for flexible working, you must:
• have worked for your employer for at least 26 weeks
• be the child’s mother, father, adopter, legal guardian or foster parent – or be the partner of one of these
• have responsibility for the child’s upbringing
• be making the application so that you’ll be able to care for the child
You’ll need to fill in an application form when you apply for flexible working. You can only make one application a year.

Job Grant
Job Grant is a tax free lump sum you may get when you start full-time work (at least 16 hours a week). You’ll get it if you (and your partner if you have one) are aged 25 or over and you’ve been getting one or more of these benefits for at least 26 weeks before you started work:
• Income Support
• Jobseeker’s Allowance (both types)
• Incapacity Benefit
• Severe Disablement Allowance
For lone parents and couples with children the grant is £250. (If you or your partner are under 25 years, different rules may apply.)

Child Maintenance Bonus and Child Maintenance Premium

Anyone receiving Income Support (IS) or income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA(IB)), who is getting maintenance for a child or children, may be eligible for the Child Maintenance Bonus. The bonus builds up at £5 a week up to a maximum of £1,000 and is paid as a one-off lump sum when you find work, or when your working hours increase to a level where you no longer get IS or JSA(IB).
However, the Child Maintenance Bonus is not available under the new child support scheme, introduced for new cases from 3 March 2003.
Instead, anyone who cares for a child and who is getting IS or JSA (IB) will keep up to £10 a week of any maintenance paid for their children. This is known as the Child Maintenance Premium.
If you are covered by the old scheme, you’ll continue to build up the bonus until you are transferred to the new scheme.

Getting help from your employer

Many employers now offer their employees help to pay for childcare, this can include:
• paying you cash to pay for childcare
• paying the childcare fees directly
• paying the child’s school fees
Should your employer offer any of the above, you will be liable for tax and national insurance contributions on whatever aid is given. There are other types of childcare support your employer could provide however, without you having to pay tax or national insurance contributions. These are:
• childcare vouchers
• directly contracted childcare
• workplace nurseries

http://www.direct.gov.uk

First-time buyers face the biggest battle in almost 30 years to make it on to the property ladder as the credit crunch sees nervous lenders demand ever-larger deposits.

The average new buyer needs a 17 per cent deposit – the highest since 1980.
Even then they’ll be lucky to get a loan, with banks imposing a clampdown.

The data, from the Council of Mortgage Lenders, dispels hopes of an end to the housing slump any time soon.

First-time buyers accounted for 40 per cent of the 39,900 loans last month.

Although the figure was up 14 per cent, there is always an upturn at this time of the year. Lending was down more than 50 per cent on last November.

About 70,000 loans for remortgaging were agreed, up 12 per cent on October but almost a third less than last year.

The CML’s director general Michael Coogan condemned “conflicting and incoherent” Government policy, with lenders encouraged to pass on rate cuts while beefing up their balance sheets.

http://www.mirror.co.uk

Helping parents who work outside the normal ‘nine to five’ to balance their work and family lives requires new policies and services, rather than simply persuading existing childcare providers to work longer hours themselves.

Two new research reports for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation argue that stronger action to protect working parents from the growing pressures of the 24-hour, 7-day-a-week society may be at least as important as making childcare services available at evenings and weekends.

Childcare services at atypical times

A study of the barriers preventing expansion of existing childcare services to cover non-typical hours identified just a few, innovative, services that have started to emerge. These included a community nanny scheme, weekend childcare provision at a hospital and a childminding network to help police employees.
But researchers at the Institute of Education’s Thomas Coram Research Unit (London University) who surveyed the 150 Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships in England discovered that while there was near-unanimous agreement on the need to develop childcare services outside normal working hours, fewer than a third had yet taken any action. They also found that:

• While most parents working non-standard hours apparently relied on partners, relatives or friends for childcare, demand for formal childcare services appeared greatest for an hour or so on either side of the working day, rather than late evening, overnight or at weekend.
• Childminders were generally seen as the most appropriate formal care providers at non-standard times because of their home base. However, a survey of 600 childcare providers found that few childminders or nurseries took children before 7am and hardly any worked beyond 7pm or at weekends.
• Although more than a third of childminders were prepared to consider working outside their current hours, this rarely extended to late evenings, overnight or weekends. They and other childcare workers were often concerned about the impact on their own families if they worked longer hours.

June Statham, co-author of the report, said: “Childcare services at non-standard times of day cannot simply be bolted on to existing services. It may be better to develop new types of service, recruiting people without current childcare responsibilities, rather than expecting existing providers to extend their hours.”

Ann Mooney, co-author of the report, said: “The overriding requirement is to consider the needs of children and to help parents balance their family responsibilities with the requirements of paid work. We need policies for atypical hour’s childcare services, but we also need to consider how employment policies and working hours could be made more ‘family friendly’, so that parents have less need for care at these times.”

Combining self-employment and family life

The second study carried out by NatCen, the National Centre for Social Research, used representative survey data on more than 10,000 families with children under 15 to examine the experiences of self-employed parents. This showed that around one in four families have at least one self-employed parent. Among these:

• Almost half the mothers interviewed (47 per cent) had chosen self-employment mainly for childcare reasons, compared with a small minority of fathers (6 per cent).
• While self-employed mothers generally enjoyed more flexible working arrangements than their employee counterparts, this was less true of women who employed other people in their businesses. The latter were more likely to work long, atypical hours and to make use of formal childcare services. They were also more likely to report unmet demand for childcare.
• Although many self-employed mothers had decided to become self-employed for the flexibility it can provide, this was not always a matter of free choice. Some low-earning self-employed mothers chose self-employment because they lacked access to affordable childcare.
• Long working hours were widespread among self-employed fathers. Nearly six out of ten fathers (59 per cent) who employed other people worked more than 48 hours a week compared with 41 per cent of self-employed fathers who had no staff and 28 per cent of fathers who were employed. Almost two-thirds of the self-employed fathers with staff said they usually or sometimes worked on both Saturdays and Sundays.
• Self-employed couples were especially likely to work long, non-standard hours. More than a third (35 per cent) worked a combined total of over 90 hours a week, compared with less than 15 per cent of other dual-earner couples.

Alice Bell, co-author of the report, said: “Self-employment is often associated with flexibility and choice over when, where and how much to work. While the evidence suggests this is generally true, this study reveals important qualifications concerning long hours and atypical working as self-employed parents try to meet their work and childcare responsibilities.”

Ivana La Valle, co-author of the study, added: “It could be argued that self-employed parents should benefit from similar legislative protection against excessive working hours to the law covering employees. However, these research findings also raise the question of how far government should go in promoting a ‘24-7’ society given the negative consequences for family life. For example, less Sunday working would benefit many owners of small businesses who are parents, as well as employees with children.”

http://www.jrf.org.uk

2008 has not got off to the most promising of starts, with talk of utility bills to rise, the housing market is slowing down and where once credit was readily available, we are now finding lenders being more stringent with their lending conditions.

The following are tips/advice on how to help you combat the ‘credit crunch’.

Check your credit report

Find out for yourself what any potential lenders will read about you, your financial situation, payment history etc. It is imperative this reads accurately to put you in with the best opportunity to be approved for whichever financial facility you require. It should list all credit accounts related to you such as loans, mortgages, credit/store cards. It could even list mobile phone contracts and will certainly declare if you have any county judgements against you for prior non-payments.
If there are any inaccuracies on your report, you should contact the relevant companies direct to correct this. Remember, even a small mistake could deter a potential lender from offering you a loan.
Ensure you are registered to vote at your current address. This simple thing can add valuable points to your credit score.

Don’t assume there will be interest rate cuts

While it was good news to hear of the recent 0.25%cut in the base rate, and a couple of others are predicted this year, this is by no means a hard and fast way to rely on solving your financial situations. Even with the latest reduction, not all lenders have passed on the reduction to their customers, and in a number of cases, some have even increased the rate for those who they consider ‘high risk’.

There is no such thing as ‘safe as houses’

The housing market is no longer as buoyant as it was previously and 2007 saw up to 400,000 people refused for mortgages, and a rise of 30% of homes repossessed in the first half of the year.
Anyone who has a special mortgage deal due to finish in 2008, should be prepared to pay a bit more than before, and budget accordingly in advance.
When it comes time to change your mortgage beware of high set-up fees which lenders have introduced to help them counteract some of the losses they have suffered of late. There have been reports on a website of a 46% rise in mortgages with an applicaton charge in excess of £1,000.
It is not all bad news, no, for those of you with some savings behind you, a good job and a good credit report, then this could be your year to buy the property you always wanted.

Face increased prices

It has been widely acknowledged that utility bills are set to hike their prices this year. In the first instance you can cut down a little by turning down your thermostats slightly, refrain from keeping appliances on standby and opt for showers rather than baths. Furthermore, despite prices rising, shop around and make sure you are with the best/most economical supplier. These are easy to research on a comparison website. You key in your information and it matches your needs to the best offers available.

Make your credit status better

Many people use credit to obtain something special they really want- be it a house, holiday, car. The trick is, once credit is obtained, that you handle it wisely.
The best way is to start with a good credit report. If you do tend to miss a payment here and there, then direct debit would combat this. If you have too many payment dates to remember, perhaps consider consolidating all your debts into 1 easy monthly payment (which may in fact save on interest over a period of time too).
Take care not to have too many credit cards on the go. Why not condense them into one and concentrate hard on clearing that. You would look much more appealing to a potential lender by choosing this option.

With all this in mind you should now be better armed to tackle the ‘credit crunch’ face on.

http://www.thriftyscot.co.uk

Millions of Americans are losing, or close to losing, their homes. Foreclosures in the U.S. are hitting record numbers. If you’re having trouble paying your mortgage, learn about the steps you can take to avoid foreclosure or minimize your debt after it happens. Quick action is the key to success — it can save your home or help protect your credit rating.
Don’t give up and let the lender foreclose on your home without considering your options. A foreclosure will hurt your credit rating and make it difficult, if not impossible, to buy another home anytime soon. In addition, if the profits from selling your home don’t cover the unpaid portion of your loan, your lender might sue you for the rest.
Your best options if you’re having trouble making mortgage payments include:
• negotiating with your lender
• getting government help
• filing for bankruptcy
• selling your home yourself, or
• Giving your home deed to the lender.
Beware of scam artists. People facing foreclosure are often preyed upon by others claiming they’ll “help.” Some homeowners have unwittingly signed documents giving these scammers title to their property, turning the owners into renters. Don’t sign anything without getting a professional opinion first.
As soon as you realize you’ll have trouble paying your mortgage — ideally, before you’ve missed any payments – contact your lender. Now, more than ever, lenders are willing to negotiate with home loan borrowers, if only to reduce the number of foreclosures they’re dealing with.
Do it sooner rather than later. If you call soon, you may be able to work out a solution with your lender. But if you’ve already missed three or four payments, it may be too late, and the lender may insist on foreclosure.
Possible solutions- The lender may accept partial payments for a few months, accept a late payment, or agree to redo the terms of your loan.
What to say when you contact your lender. Here’s what you should ask for in lender-language.
Forbearance- You make a reduced payment, or no payment, for an agreed-upon period of time. Usually, the lender requires you to make up the difference at a later time. The lender is most likely to agree to this if you can demonstrate that you will soon receive a bonus, tax refund, or some other extra cash.
Loan reinstatement- You agree to make up your missed (or reduced) payments by a specific date.
Loan modification- Your lender agrees to alter the terms of the loan so that you can better afford the payments. For example, the lender may agree to add your missed payments to your loan balance, to stretch out your loan over a longer term (which will lower your payments but result in more interest over the life of the loan), or to convert an adjustable rate to a fixed rate mortgage.
The U.S. government is currently discussing ways to help homeowners facing foreclosure. In the first plan to be implemented, FHASecure, the Federal Housing Administration may grant FHA refinancing to borrowers who can show:
• a history of on-time mortgage payments before the borrower’s teaser rates expired and the loans reset
• interest rates that have reset between June 2005 and December 2008
• 3% cash or equity in the home
• a sustained history of employment, and
• Enough income to make the mortgage payment.
Of course, many people won’t be helped by FHASecure, particularly if they’ve lost their job or their house’s value has declined. Keep your eyes on the news for other programs or forms of relief.
Filing for bankruptcy may help you keep your home, or at least get you out from under your mortgage. When you file, the foreclosure process is legally stopped (called an “automatic stay”). It can’t be reopened until your bankruptcy case closes or the lender gets court permission to proceed (called “lifting the stay”).
If you simply can’t afford the house you own, the above options won’t help. You will probably lose your home. But don’t wait for your lender to make the first move. If your home has appreciated in value since you bought it, you may be able to sell it yourself. Again, contact your lender, who may let you stop making payments until the house is sold.
Ideally, the proceeds from the sale will cover your mortgage and selling costs. But if they won’t, ask your lender to consider what’s called a “short sale.” That means the lender accepts the sale proceeds even if they’re less than the amount you owe.
If no one is interested in buying your house, your lender may agree to take the deed and cancel your debt. This is called a deed in lieu of foreclosure. The idea is that the bank can then sell your house (as with an actual foreclosure) but won’t report it as a foreclosure to the credit rating agencies — in fact, you can negotiate with the bank about how it can help you preserve your credit rating.
Short sales and deeds in lieu of foreclosure will no longer leave you owing taxes. In the past, the IRS considered forgiven debt to be taxable income. However, this was erased for situations where the loan was for a primary residence, by the “Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007,” or H.R. 3648.

The financial squeeze that’s left millions of Americans falling behind on their mortgage payments doesn’t seem to be letting up. For some, that presents a stark choice: is it better to lose your house to foreclosure or file for bankruptcy protection?

Neither option is going to be easy. Generally, a foreclosure will remain on your credit report for 7 years, while a bankruptcy remains for 10 years. But that doesn’t mean foreclosure is necessarily the better option, according to Ray Hooper, Education and Housing Director for the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Dallas, a non-profit agency that tries to help people facing foreclosure keep their homes.

“A foreclosure is very serious to mortgage lenders,” said Hooper. “They’re going look at a foreclosure more seriously than they will a bankruptcy that doesn’t include the house.”

Before you accept that foreclosure is a foregone conclusion, consider trying to avoid it. If you’re having trouble making payments, or even behind by a month or two, contact your lender before the process goes any further. Even if you’ve gotten an official “notice of default,” saying you’re several months behind, you still have time before the formal foreclosure process begins.

The first question you need to decide is whether you want to keep your house or give it up. If you want to keep it, you need to try to work out a plan to get back on track. This involves either making up for the missed payments – which you can do all at once or try to spread out – or coming up with a new plan. One option is to have the loan modified – at a lower interest rate, for example. Or you can ask for “forbearance,” which basically means the lender suspends payments until you can get back on your feet. If you’re in over your head and bought too much house, though, these options probably aren’t going to help.

So you may have to consider moving. Even if you do lose your house, you don’t want a foreclosure on your record when you go looking for a smaller house or a place to rent. One option is to ask the lender to hold off on foreclosing until you sell. If your mortgage is bigger than your house is worth, you’re looking at what’s called a “short sale” and you’ll owe money to the lender even after the house is sold. In some cases, lenders will let you off the hook for that amount rather than go through the expense of foreclosing. (But you may not be completely off the hook: you may owe taxes on that amount.)

You can also try something called a “deed in lieu of foreclosure” – which basically means you turn over your house to the lender and walk away without owing anything. But you’ll need to work this out with the lender: you can’t just leave the keys in the mailbox.
While it’s possible to work out one of these solutions with your lender on your own, you may have better luck with the help of someone who specializes in the process. A good attorney who knows real estate law can help, but you may not be able to afford that. A credit counselor is another option. Lenders are more likely to go along if a competent third party is there to help smooth the process.

If all else fails, you may have to consider allowing foreclosure to proceed – or filing for bankruptcy. But like most aspect of personal finance, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” guidelines for which is the least bad alternative. There are different ways to file for bankruptcy, and not all of your debts have to be included, so even if faced with bankruptcy, you’ll need advice from someone – either a good credit counselor or a bankruptcy attorney – who can walk you through the choices you’ll face.

While it’s not an easy option, bankruptcy is becoming more common. Some 391,000 individuals turned to the bankruptcy courts for help getting out from under debt during the first half of this year, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. That’s up nearly 50 percent from the first half of 2006. While that’s down from levels seen before changes in the law in 2005 made it harder to file, the ABI said the number of filings is expected to continue to increase.

“Continued pressure on housing markets, combined with high consumer debt burdens, will lead more households to consider bankruptcy as an option to their financial problems,” the group said in a recent press release.

While the bankruptcy process in the U.S. is governed by federal laws and handled by a system of federal bankruptcy courts, state laws regarding consumer debts and the disposition of property also come into play. There are also different types of bankruptcy filings. No matter which course you take, the filing stays on your credit record for 10 years. That makes it very difficult to get any type of loan during that period; the loan will be more expensive if you can get one.

The two most common forms of personal bankruptcy are called Chapter 7 and Chapter 11. (About 60 percent of those who file for bankruptcy use Chapter 7, most of the rest use Chapter 13.) Under a Chapter 7 filling, you get to keep certain property (this is where state laws vary), but the rest is turned over to a court-appointed trustee who sells your stuff or gives it to lenders to satisfy your debts. Under a Chapter 13 filing, you pay back your debts under a plan worked out by the court. The trustee collects payments, pays off your debts and makes sure you stick to the plan.

If you own a business, you may want to consider a Chapter 11 filing. This let’s you stay in business, as long as the court and the people you owe money to approve of the plan to pay off your debts. If the court decides a trustee needs to be appointed, the trustee takes control of your business and its assets.

Not all debts can be wiped clean – even if you ask for a “discharge.” The list includes alimony and child support, taxes, court fines and most student loans. New debts, taken on after the discharge, aren’t included. And if the judge finds out you’ve lied or committed fraud, your discharge can be denied.

You can also choose which debts you want to have discharged while you keep paying off others. You might want to work out a payment plan so you can keep your car, for example. To do this, you have to sign a “reaffirmation agreement,” which says that you promise to pay off that debt. If you don’t pay it back, the creditor can send it to a collection agency like any other debt.

If you’ve filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy and gotten a discharge, you’ve got to wait 8 years before you can do it again. There are different limits on filing for Chapter 13, depending on whether you’re trying to get debts discharged.

Whatever you decide to do, you’ll probably want some help. Start with a good credit counselor or bankruptcy attorney. Get references, ask lots of questions, and don’t sign anything until you’re sure you understand fully what it says.

Chances are, when you’re burrowed under the covers with a box of tissues by your bedside, you turn even greener with envy thinking of those people who seem to never get sick. Want to be one of them?

While colds won’t kill you, they can weaken your immune system to the point that other, more serious, germs can take hold in your body. Just think how many times your cold turned into bronchitis or a sinus infection. And given that the average adult suffers two to three colds a year, that’s a lot of opportunities for serious illness — and just as many to prevent one!

1. Wash your hands and wash them often. The Naval Health Research Center conducted a study of 40,000 recruits who were ordered to wash their hands five times a day. The recruits cut their incidence of respiratory illnesses by 45 percent.

2. Use this hand-drying strategy in public restrooms. Studies find a shockingly large percentage of people fail to wash their hands after using a public restroom. And every single one of them touches the door handle on the way out. So after washing your hands, use a paper towel to turn off the faucet. Use another paper towel to dry your hands, then open the door with that paper towel as a barrier between you and the handle. It sounds nuts, but it’s an actual recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control to protect you from infectious diseases like cold and flu.

3. Carry hand sanitizer with you. Colds are typically passed not from coughing or kissing (although those are two modes of transmission) but from hand-to-hand or hand-to-object contact, since most cold viruses can live for hours on objects. You then put your hand in or near your mouth or nose, and voilà! You’re sick. Carry hand sanitizer gel or sanitizing towelettes with you and you can clean your hands anytime, even if the closest water supply is 100 miles away. It works. One study of absenteeism due to infection in elementary schools found schools using the gel sanitizer had absentee rates from infection nearly 20 percent lower than those using other hand-cleaning methods.

4. Use your knuckle to rub your eyes. It’s less likely to be contaminated with viruses than your fingertip. This is particularly important given that the eye provides a perfect entry point for germs, and the average person rubs his eyes or nose or scratches his face 20-50 times a day, notes Jordan Rubin, Ph.D., author of the book The Maker’s Diet.

5. Stop blaming yourself when things go wrong at work. Believe it or not, blaming yourself makes you more likely to catch a cold! At least, that’s what researchers found when they studied more than 200 workers over three months. Even those who had control over their work were more likely to begin sneezing if they lacked confidence or tended to blame themselves when things went wrong. Researchers expect such attitudes make people more stressed on the job, and stress, as you know, can challenge your immune system.

6. Put a box of tissues wherever people sit.Come October, buy a 6- or 12-pack of tissue boxes and strategically place them around the house, your workplace, your car. Don’t let aesthetics thwart you. You need tissues widely available so that anyone who has to cough or sneeze or blow his nose will do so in the way least likely to spread germs.

7. Take a garlic supplement every day. When 146 volunteers received either one garlic supplement a day or a placebo for 12 weeks between November and February, those taking the garlic were not only less likely to get a cold, but if they did catch one, their symptoms were less intense and they recovered faster.

8. Eat a container of yogurt every day. A study from the University of California-Davis found that people who ate one cup of yogurt — whether live culture or pasteurized — had 25 percent fewer colds than non-yogurt eaters. Start your yogurt eating in the summer to build up your immunity before cold and flu season starts.

9. Once a day, sit in a quiet, dim room, close your eyes, and focus on one word. You’re meditating, a proven way to reduce stress. And stress, studies find, increases your susceptibility to colds. In fact, stressed people have up to twice the number of colds as non-stressed people.

10. Scrub under your fingernails every night. They’re a great hiding place for germs.

11. Change or wash your hand towels every three or four days during cold and flu season. When you wash them, use hot water in order to kill the germs.

12. At the very first hint of a cold, launch the following preventive blitz. Here’s how:

* Suck on a zinc lozenge until it melts away. Then suck another every two waking hours. Or use a zinc-based nasal spray such as Zicam.

* Take one 250-milligram capsule of the herb astragalus twice a day until you are better.

* Cook up a pot of chicken soup.

* Roast garlic in the oven (drizzle whole clove with olive oil, wrap in tinfoil, roast for an hour at 400°F), then spread the soft garlic on toast and eat.

Studies find that all either reduce the length of time you suffer with a cold or help prevent a full-blown cold from occurring.

13. Wipe your nose — don’t blow. Your cold won’t hang around as long, according to a University of Virginia study. Turns out that the force of blowing not only sends the gunk out of your nose into a tissue, but propels some back into your sinuses. And, in case you’re curious, they discovered this using dye and X rays. If you need to blow, blow gently, and blow one nostril at a time.

14. Sneeze and cough into your arm or a tissue. Whoever taught us to cover our mouths when we cough or sneeze got it wrong. That just puts the germs right on our hands, where you can spread them to objects — and other people. Instead, hold the crook of your elbow over your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough if a tissue isn’t handy. It’s pretty rare that you shake someone’s elbow or scratch your eye with an elbow, after all.

15. Don’t pressure your doctor for antibiotics. Colds and flu (along with most common infections) are caused by viruses, so antibiotics — designed to kill bacteria — won’t do a thing. They can hurt, however, by killing off the friendly bacteria that are part of our immune defences. If you’ve used antibiotics a lot lately, consider a course of probiotics — replacement troops for friendly bacteria.