Twelve things you don't need to pay for

Good at cooking or baking and want to learn a language for free? Try a skill swap. Photograph: Image Source/Alamy

One of the best ways to save money is to never pay for anything you can get for free. Here are 12 things that you could end up paying for but don't need to.
1. Reclaiming PPI

There are a multitude of companies offering to help you claim your money back if you have been a victim of payment protection insurance mis-selling. Most of these firms will take a percentage of whatever compensation you may be eligible for – usually 25% – and on top of that there can be other charges. If you do the legwork yourself it won't cost you anything, except perhaps the price of a postage stamp. Our guide on how to reclaim PPI can help you determine whether to make the claim yourself.

Liz Hurley and Gérard Depardieu's Chechnya adventure: the story so far

To a news report concerning Gerard Depardieu's views on the alleged Boston bombers, and a statement so appallingly controversial that Lost in Showbiz can still scarcely believe it. "Speaking in the southern Russian province of Chechnya, where he is shooting a movie with British actress Elizabeth Hurley, Depardieu said: 'I agree with [Chechen president] Ramzan Kadyrov who said that the Tsarnaev brothers have a Chechen last name, but their upbringing is American.'"

I'm sorry, but WHAT? Tell me I didn't just read that. And yet, there it is in black and white: "where he is shooting a movie with British actress Elizabeth Hurley".

END OF THE WORLD POSTPONED

  

YUCATAN – Mayan scholars have updated their doomsday prophecy. The world will end in 2015, not 2012.Oops…. They made a mistake. There’s good news for those who were fearing the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. They counted wrong. The world is not going to end in December 2012. Instead, it’s going to end on September 3, 2015. Update your daily planners!

A new critique, published as a chapter in the new textbook “Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World” argues that the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar are off. This coupled with a new book, “We Are All Going To Die In 2015″ by Fritz Barnkopf are rewriting the Mayan doomsday playbook that has been popularized in our culture over the last ten years.