Luck plays a major role in our lives according to many people. While some believe it is because of fortune that some families are more privileged, others think that luck can decide anybody’s fate. Now imagine someone being lucky just because they are born in a certain country. Well, there are some nations that are luckier than others, based on certain factors like freedom, life satisfaction, financial situation, career opportunities, health, and safety. The world’s luckiest people are born in these nations.

Do you want to know who they are? Well, we are here to share the list of the 44 luckiest nations globally. What’s more, we will discuss why the three highest-ranking countries topped the poll. So without delaying any further, let’s get started!

Top 3 Luckiest Nations of the World 

1. Switzerland: Apart from the scenic beauty that it offers to its people, Switzerland is a nation where those born there are the luckiest in the world. It tops the list with regard to the number of millionaires based on the adult population, the income of households per capita, and even the median adult wealth. These factors all show that Switzerland has the best financial situation out of all the countries included in this study. Furthermore, it also offers its people life satisfaction, income equality, safety, quality air, a good education, and employment.

2. Iceland: Based on all the factors, including health and safety, career opportunities, finances, and life satisfaction and liberty, Iceland has an overall score of 91.49 points out of 100. This puts the country in second place. This means that the people born here are lucky because they get great career opportunities, are well paid, have fewer health problems, a greater life expectancy, and are free to travel. 

3. Norway: With regard to influences like education, career opportunities, income equality, and productivity, Norway has a perfect score of 100. In fact, the same score is also reached for life satisfaction, freedom of travelling, gender parity, and human rights. Apart from this, the country has also provided its people with quality air and other safety measures. The average life expectancy of Norweigians is 82.80 years. Meanwhile, four percent of the adult population are millionaires and the median wealth of adults is $70,630 USD. This is why Norway is the third luckiest country in the entire world. 

Following Fortunate Nations

Following the above three nations are the other 41 most fortunate nations listed below:

  1. Luxembourg
  2. Denmark
  3. Finland
  4. Australia
  5. Sweden
  6. Austria
  7. The Netherlands
  8. New Zealand
  9. Ireland
  10. Belgium
  11. Canada
  12. France
  13. United Kingdom
  14. Germany
  15. United States
  16. Japan
  17. Slovenia
  18. Spain
  19. Italy
  20. Czech Republic
  21. Estonia
  22. Portugal
  23. South Korea
  24. Israel
  25. Poland
  26. Slovakia
  27. Lithuania
  28. Latvia
  29. Hungary
  30. Greece
  31. Chile
  32. Turkey
  33. Mexico
  34. Singapore
  35. Costa Rica
  36. India
  37. Russia
  38. South Africa
  39. Argentina
  40. Brazil
  41. Bulgaria

A garage is a big space to use, and doesn’t filling it with bikes you’ll pull out twice a year and tools you’ll never use seem like a waste? There are lots of things you could be doing with that space, with a few enhancements and a severe clear-out you could have an extra room to what you wish with.

So, pull out those empty tins of paint, add some home amenities and take a look at our picks for the best ideas to use your garage for.

1. Cinema

The cinema is so expensive. And uncomfortable. And if you have to tell that stranger one more time to stop talking…!

More of us are opting to stream our movie going experience into our homes, where there is no judgement for wearing your jammies and you won’t miss anything if you need to go to the toilet.

With televisions getting as big as cinema screens nowadays, it’s an easy first step to creating your picture house experience, but some are even upgrading to projectors, which can hook up to your laptop and show whatever you can find online. The best part is garages are usually windowless, making a truly dark room to keep you engrossed.

Add a comfy sofa, some surround sound speakers and a popcorn machine and you’ve got the ultimate movie-loving experience.

2. Casino

Those of you missing the neon lights of Las Vegas or the nightlife of Blackpool can create your own Caesars Palace in your garage.

A couple of tables can have you playing NetBet blackjack, poker, or if you fork out for a wheel, roulette. You can either buy tables online or convert an old dining table with a roll of green felt, and a white marker. 

Have a device nearby if you fancy playing slots online and invite the guys round for some poker. But if you really want the Vegas experience you should invest in some Renaissance art and neon signs.

3. Gaming

You can incorporate a console into your cinema experience to create a great gaming experience. Play Mario Karts on a screen so big that it feels like you’re in the car. See the beauty of games like The Witness and The Witcher III on a screen that really deserves it.

Hook up your consoles to your television or projector and enjoy the space to rage quit if you need to, without waking anyone in the house. Or invite some friends to your abode for a few rounds of Street Fighter or That’s You.

4. Dancefloor or music studio

If someone in the house loves a Zumba class, you can take that one step further and turn your garage into a dance floor. Soften the floor with inexpensive vinyl floor tiles and invest in some soundproofing foam, and you’ll have the basics of a mini club.

Is your Mrs into salsa? Take a few lessons and spin the night away. Or has someone in the house embraced the cardio benefits of pole? It’s easy to install one in a room with a lot of space. Or does someone in the family play a musical instrument? Now Timmy’s drumkit can have its own room where he can practise without keeping you up all night.

A Shrewsbury based messy play group, Ready Steady Let’s Get Messy which has been unable to operate since March has pivoted to creating activity boxes for toddlers and babies.

For the group owner, Laura White, it was a big change from the sessions she was used to delivering. She made an initial 20 Halloween themed boxes to test the water, they sold within 24 hours. 

She set a more ambitious target of 70 boxes between then and Christmas. They sold out by early December, she spent much of the month hand making play dough, assembling boxes and going back and forth to the post office.

Laura learnt a lot about which activities and products worked well and with some great feedback from customers she were able to refine what she did and how she did it. 

Laura had plenty of ideas for other themed boxes, the initial run of Dinosaur boxes sold within a few days. Her latest creation is the Woodland box, she wanted to get natural elements into a box so that children could experience wood and leaves as well as her home made play dough, cloud dough and coloured rice. 

The boxes are priced £19 with free delivery in the Shrewsbury area. They are available to purchase through her website www.letsgetmessy.co.uk and through her Facebook page.

You’ve worked hard your whole life. You’ve saved up, you’re ready to settle down and retire, but you don’t exactly know what’s in store with your state pension. Before you get to retirement age, you should know exactly what’s happening with your pension funds!

When it comes to UK pensions, the triple lock guarantee is what’s currently in the news. The triple lock was created to make sure you could buy what you needed with your pension once your reach retirement age. But what exactly is the triple lock program, and what is going on with it right now?

Pension Basics

Pensions are set aside so that you can pay into state funds during your working years, and take from them when it’s time to retire. It’s not exactly playing the stock market, which can actually take longer than you think to hit it big, it’s more like a government run foundation for your retirement funds.

The current pension plan, known as the triple lock pension plan, will make sure that pensioners get a certain amount of money for their retirement based on inflation rates. The amount paid to retirees will then grow with the rate of inflation over time.

The Triple Lock Pension

Created by the Coalition government in 2010 and 2011, this pension plan was a guarantee to increase the pension payments at a steady rate. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat government from nearly a decade ago decided that the idea was to keep pensioners from suffering from the random increases in pensions that happened in the early 2000’s. 

  • The triple lock keeps your pension growing at the same rate as inflation. 
  • This makes is so you can get the same amount of food, goods, services for your money as the year before.
  • This leaves the 75p a week rise in state pensions at the door! 
  • This pension plan makes it so your income isn’t deteriorated by the increasing cost of living in the UK.

The triple lock pension is great on paper, but the reason it’s in the news lately is because the overall price it costs to make this guarantee a reality.

The State of Your State Pension

Because the Triple Lock will cost tax payers an estimated £45 billion in a little over a decade, there is a huge debate over whether it should stick around! Knowing whether you can rely on the triple lock for your retirement income should be priority if you’re at the age of retirement right now.

The current pension was to increase to 6.6% of GDP (gross domestic product) two years ago in 2016 and expected to rise to 8.5% of GDP by the year 2060. However, after 2060, it is predicted that the Triple Lock plan will go down to 8.1% if a cheaper pension is put in place.

However, if retirement isn’t in the cards in the next few years, there are other alternatives that are on the table for state pension plans. 

Alternatives

There are plenty of private alternatives for saving for your retirement, but when it comes to the state pension plan, there are tons of options up for discussion. Discussions for reducing it to a double lock, or moving it from a 2.5% minimum growth per year to a smaller growth per year, is being heavily considered 

However, trying to predict the rates of inflation can be extremely tricky! Although there are lots of benefits of online gaming, and you can hit it big on the jackpots, you shouldn’t rush out the door to gamble your pension away! 

Keep an Eye Out

With a growing society, and many people living for longer, the UK’s elected officials have a lot to consider. From the overall cost, to all of the technicalities of predicting inflation, you should look out for your future by keeping an eye out on what is happening with your pension!

You can check on your pension now, or you can watch the news to see what your future income will be like when you retire. Either way, a lot of changes may be on the horizon for your gold year financials!

Whilst there have been gradual changes to the availability single-use plastics, up until now, it’s all felt like a drop in the ocean. Yet, in October 2018, the European Parliament congregated to impose a complete ban on a wide-variety of single-use plastics. The ultimate aim is to prevent the excessive pollution of the ocean. We’ve all seen the footage of animals with stomachs full of plastic or encased in plastic, and it’s easy to wonder how the ocean ended up in such a terrible state of affairs. It is by the public’s persistence that dramatic change needs to happen now after David Attenborough’s BBC Blue Planet series aired. David Attenborough’s work has never just been about showcasing the beauty of the natural world. There has always been a strong focus on how our lifestyles are hindering and driving other species to extinction. With such minimal changes to our daily lives, we can all work together to make the environment more hospitable for both land-dwelling and sea-dwelling creatures. You can watch a clip of David Attenborough’s Blue Planet here

As a consumerist society, we’ve grown to love and come to think that we need single-use plastics, however, this isn’t the case when there are so many alternatives now on the market. They may be a little more expensive for the time being, yet the ultimate price is being paid by our wildlife. We’ve already seen a drastic reduction of the amount of fish in the ocean. Yet, it was predicted that if drastic measures aren’t taken there will be more plastic in the ocean that there are fish by 2050. And that’s without mentioning the potential hazards of the toxicity of the plastic. 

Which Single-Use Plastics Are Now Banned Under European Parliament? 

Whilst only some of the single-use plastics which are currently used commonly in Europe was included in the blanket ban there are plenty more items that the proposal calls for a reduction. This included items such as plastic cups and food containers such as you would receive from the supermarket or a fast food restaurant. 

However, the list of banned single-use plastic items now includes: 

●Cotton buds 

●Straws 

●Drink stirrers 

●Balloon sticks 

●Plastic cutlery and plates

What are the Alternatives? 

A lot of single-use items which were previously made from plastic can easily be placed by different materials. Pubs, bars, and restaurants have all been quick to replace their straws with paper straws. Whilst paper straws may not be as pleasant to drink from as plastic straws, their biodegradable properties ensure that we aren’t contributing to the oceanic plastic problem for the convenience of using a straw for a few minutes at a time. If you’re not a fan of the paper straws, you can also invest in your own reusable metal straws, which can easily be recycled if need be. 

How Far Can Legislation Take Us? 

With a little research, you’ll soon see that for every single-use plastic, there is a more environmentally friendly alternative. If you’d like more information on how you can make a real difference to your consumption and discarding of plastic, why not check out these 26 top tips on how to reduce the amount of plastic in your home? As you’ll soon see, the alternatives may be slightly more expensive than what you’d expect from single-use plastic items, yet, is there any better investment than the environment? Whilst governments around the world are all doing their bit in ensuring that there are less plastics available to purchase, we must also take a proactive role in the limitation of plastic in our environment. Whilst toothbrushes, lighters, and other common household items are not yet featured on the banned list, it’s easy to find alternatives to the common plastic variations we see every day.  

If you take a look around wherever you are right now, unless you’re sitting in a remote woodland far away from civilisation, you’re going to see plastic around you. Start to think of ways in which this could be reduced. That’s not to say ridding your home of the plastic which is already in use is of any benefit to the planet. Yet, when it comes to disposing of the plastic already in your possession it is imperative that you recycle even the smallest parts of plastic whenever possible. As it is these small pieces of plastic which may ultimately cause the greatest devastation to wildlife. 

Of course, the key to solving the crisis which we have seen with plastic in recent years will never be to fully eradicate plastic from the planet. It would be infeasible and impossible. Instead, we must focus on regulatory measures and recognised bodies whose primary job is to oversee (or should that be oversea?) how plastic is recycled and come up with new ways to prevent the plastic from ending up in our oceans. With effective regulation measures in place, we can still enjoy our modern-day commodities. Regulation has always served as a way to ensure responsibility. If you take for example gambling. Just like plastic, gambling doesn’t have the best reputation. Yet, under measures, such as those imposed on online slot machine websites such as Egypt Slots those who enjoy gambling can do so knowing that they are protected by the regulations put in place to ensure that they access a safe and fair website. Egypt Slots have gone above and beyond to ensure that all of the information required for a player to make an informed decision about their gaming is fully visible. Players will get a clear and accurate view of the price of the stakes alongside information such as the Return to Player rate. 

Social change is an inevitable part of a progressive society. It’s easy to feel scorned by the fact that items of such convenience have been taken away by the new European laws. Yet, when you look at the bigger picture, to move forward and limit the environmental impact of our modern ways of living, it’s more than worth embracing the change. 

Why is gaming on PC better?

By Pete | @kingpetey | 25 Jun 2018

There is a long-running dispute between console and PC gamers over which is better. While both sides have their merits, here is why PC gaming is ultimately the winner.

Customisation

Once you have bought your PS4, Xbox One or Nintendo Switch, you cannot change or upgrade them beyond buying a larger hard drive. However, with a PC, you can change absolutely everything. You can buy a mouse with 12 buttons on it, a more comfortable keyboard and better speakers – and none of these upgrades are even scratching the surface. If you want to really overhaul your gaming rig, then you can buy more RAM, get a better graphics card and even insert a liquid cooling system. When it comes to customisation, nothing beats PC. Building a PC can seem daunting, but it is also a really fun and very satisfying project to take on.

More games

Every games console that has ever been released, even the ones that can play some older games, have a tiny library of games in comparison to PC. On PC, as well as buying from an ever-expanding library of new games being released on platforms like Steam, GOG and itch.io, you also have access to pretty much every PC game ever released. Sure, some of the older games require a bit of fiddling to make them work on Windows 10, but by and large, you have so much choice. On Steam, over 7,600 games were released in 2017. On top of that, you can also play thousands of different browser games online. There are loads of different genres to choose from – MMORPGs, racing games, puzzle games and online casino games. Casino games in particular have surged in popularity, with the classics such as poker, roulette and blackjack undergoing a digital makeover. Stakers.com offer a variety of the latest offerings, and with a variety of online browser games to choose from, it is easy to see why consumers flock to the PC. 

More powerful and cheaper in the long run

Yes, the Xbox One and the PS4 make boasts about their processing power, but you can put together a PC that is far more powerful than those assembly-line jobs. You can look up various parts and compare them in price and power to a console to see just how easy it is to make a PC that is more powerful than the newest generation of consoles. While building a powerful PC is probably going to cost a couple hundred pounds more than buying a console, buying a new console every five years is going to cost more than gradually replacing the parts of your PC. Just look at the figures. The PS4 came out in November 2013, and then the more powerful PS4 Pro launched a mere three years later. If you bought a PS4 new in 2013, it would have cost you £349.99, and if you then bought a PS4 Pro on release, then you have spent another £349.99.

Mods

In addition to the wider selection of games available on PC, there are also people developing new content for PC games that have already been released. These modifications, or ‘mods’, can be anything from new levels and weapons to entirely new story experiences. There is a mod for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that turns all of the dragons into WWE legend Macho Man Randy Savage, complete with voice clips of him shouting. With that in mind, just try and tell me that console gaming is better than PC gaming.

Making money while playing games - how many of you have thought of this as children, or even young adults? I guess many of you have dreamed of it, even if your moms used to tell you that "nobody is going to pay you for playing non-stop". Thanks to modern technology, we now have several ways to be paid for playing games. Some of them involve a career in the game development industry - but these are usually not as much fun as they sound. But there's another way to get paid to play, with no need for expertise - but only luck. It's call an online casino.

Entertainment for money

The online casino industry is the only branch of the iGaming business that relies on simple, entertaining games to make a living. And most players at the wildjackcasino.com are there not to make a buck, but to have fun in their own way. Most casino games at the Wild Jack Casino are designed to entertain first, and you need a lot of luck for them to be profitable in the long run. They are built this way - although they are completely fair, most games at the Wild Jack Casino are far too unreliable to be considered as a steady source of income. But slot machines are not the only games at the Wild Jack Casino that are fun to play. There are several others that, when played the right way, can help you round up your budget. Or even make you rich - if you are very lucky.

Games for the pros

Most casino games are completely random, but there are some that have a lower variance. Blackjack is one of them - it is considered by many the game with the most profit-making potential in the long run. Simply playing blackjack is usually not enough for success, though - it is random enough for it to be almost completely unpredictable. What makes it special, though, is that it leaves a lot of room for player decision. And taking the right decision at the blackjack table often means the difference between winning and losing.

The most widespread method of turning blackjack into a profitable game is the so-called "basic strategy". This consists of a list of recommendations about what you should do (and not do) depending on the value of your hand, and the card revealed by the dealer. It's quite easy to learn, and equally easy to use. Applying the basic strategy can improve the percentage of your winning hands significantly. Other games with a series of relatively "safe" bets are War, video poker, and Roulette. All of these can be played in a way for them to be in the player's advantage. And all of them are fun games to play, so you can play games, be entertained, and make a buck at the same time.

Civilization Revolution

By Pete | @kingpetey | 31 Aug 2008

It's been a while since I've reviewed a game or even bought a new one but yesterday I purchased Civilization Revolution for Xbox 360. The game follows in the footsteps of past Civilization games, you control a nation and are responsible for expansion, technological advances, defense, politics and an array of other demographics for managing your civilization.

I've been a big fan of the Civilization (Civ) franchise since Civ 2 and was keen to discover how the game had made its transition from PC to console. Over the past year I've favored console games over PC games because of the ease of putting in a disk and playing a game over installing it on your PC.

Civilization Revolution is similar to Civ 4 for the PC however much of the micro management from Civ 4 has been removed, the pace of the game has been significantly increased mainly because technological discoveries happen a lot faster.

Frets On Fire

By Pete | @kingpetey | 12 Aug 2007

Frets On Fire is a free Windows/Linux/OS X game that is very similar to Guitar Heroes for the Xbox 360. The main difference being is that instead of using a guitar you hold your keyboard like you would hold a guitar.

This makes you look very stupid but is great fun to play. Below is me playing:

Pete FOF

I couldn't get the current version to work on OS X Tiger which is why I'm playing on my PC. You can remap the controls so you don't have to hold the keyboard like that but where is the fun of pretending to be a rock star then?

Frets

The game has three modes of play, easy (as featured above), medium and Amazing (as featured below). I've yet to master easy though some songs are easier than others.

FoF2

The game comes with three songs however there are hundreds more available to download online giving you hours of fun. At the end of each game it gives you a rating and tells you how accurate you have been.

Also included is a song editor that lets you edit current songs or import new songs. The requirements are basic with the game only needing 128mb of memory and an Open GL compatible graphics card. Frets on Fire can be downloaded for free off their website.

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