As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

jackieglasgow

smileyt I have seen a lot of people selling curtains on gumtree lately, might be worth a wee look there?

scottishminnie

starsandmoon wrote: »

Well I went to Tesco today with mum. Bargains were fleece throws for £1.25 and they are nice quality. Plain in teal, purple, brown and cream. Got a hanging basket for £5 (ummed and errred over this extravagance). I also got a till spit for £6 off a £40 spend but I wont use it in time so passed it to Mum who spent £93!!!:eek: and that is for 2 of them and not including the dog who is on a special diet. I got her 5p off fuel voucher so both happy (she doesnt drive).

Price wise though I found a lot of things have gone up. Value self raise flour is now 80p (got mine in Lidl for 52p), milk roll bread (for DD) goes up and down by the day, no value jelly, value noodles up 2p. Had to really watch what I bought.

By shopping in Lidl, Tesco and Poundland I have saved about £5 off my shopping.

Lovely BF went to his local Co Op and got 2 tubs of whoopsie cherries for 60p each from £3!! Im so happy lol, he knows I love cherries. I was so sad today when I realised I couldnt afford any and had to get to get grapes instead and they werent cheap either. The perfect man, Whoopsie King :A

Well done on the fleece throws - that's a great bargain. I'll go looking tomorrow as they would be perfect for my mums 2 dogs.

On the value jelly front I asked the last time I was in Tesco as I hadn't seen them for a while and was told it wasn't coming back as the store manager had decided he was reducing the amount of value products and he was allowed to do this as they set their own product lines. I told the assistant that was entirely fine by me - I set my own shopping choices and I would be reducing the amount of Tesco visits to zero in future.
I did feel bad afterwards (and there is no point in cutting off my nose to spite my face - I will go to Tesco but only for certain things when they are on offer) as she was only the messenger but I was mad at the time.

jackieglasgow

I saw those fleeces the other day, they are a great buy.

ginnyknit

Hi smileyt, how did you get sweetcorn to grow??? mine have failed completely this year after great success last year

I made 50 of twinks hobknobs - they shouldn't have worked cos I got the amounts completely wrong but they did - cue spooky music - have forced myself to freeze some so as to hide them from myself :rotfl:

I have my 'mojo' back - yay - all thanks to a friend who has encouraged me. I think my usual dose of confidence had deserted me but have now tackled 40 wedding favour boxes, all cut out, stamped up and glued together. Also got to grips with the table decorations. Am nearly ready to breathe a sigh of relief and get on with stuff I want to do.

We have been using 2 loaves all week that I got for 9p each in Mr M on Sunday. The last bit went stale today but only because I left it out all night - so we had beans on toast! I am dreading going shopping tomorrow, may opt out and just get bread and veg off the market - if MrT and co want to play at silly B's with their value ranges I may well vote with my feet!

smileyt_2

jackieglasgow wrote: »

smileyt I have seen a lot of people selling curtains on gumtree lately, might be worth a wee look there?

Never thought of gumtree! I will have a nosey now before I head for bed - thank you!

ceridwen

scottishminnie wrote: »

On the value jelly front I asked the last time I was in Tesco as I hadn't seen them for a while and was told it wasn't coming back as the store manager had decided he was reducing the amount of value products and he was allowed to do this as they set their own product lines. I told the assistant that was entirely fine by me - I set my own shopping choices and I would be reducing the amount of Tesco visits to zero in future.
I did feel bad afterwards (and there is no point in cutting off my nose to spite my face - I will go to Tesco but only for certain things when they are on offer) as she was only the messenger but I was mad at the time.

My guess is that store managers have set targets they have to reach of sales made and that they find it harder to reach those targets if peeps are buying "Value/Basics" products - rather than standard range ones. So the probable reason for decline in number of these ranges sold is down to managers personally protecting their own paypackets.:cool:. Hmmm...then in that case my guess is that in about 1-2 years time those managers will start getting a stream of nicely-typed letters by peeps stating that they are aware of this and requesting that they put those products back onto their shelves....

If I'm correct on this - then the next logical thing for those managers to do (to ensure their own salaries are okay - and blow everyone else) would be for them to gradually phase out the "standard" ranges and try their hardest to get away with only stocking Premium ranges...It may well be the case that the cheapest ranges are vanishing because of individual people (ie those managers) being selfish and protecting their own personal interests (ie those paypackets).

Now that supermarkets have killed a lot of the competition they are getting to be freer all the time to do exactly what they please...

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On a different tack - wonders if its now too late to get further tomato plants. I have 7 so far and they are now pretty tall and with the flowers starting to appear. Any further ones I bought would be tiddlers in comparison to them and I wonder if they would have time to "catch up" and produce a full crop of ripened tomatoes this year?? I had quite a lot last year and - from a post by another poster - my guess is that 15 tomato plants per person are the quantity needed to have ones for eating as is AND plenty to put into "storage" of one type or another (eg freezing) to cover for canned tomato purposes until next tomato season comes round.

grandma247

ceridwen it is ok to get more tomato plants yet and they will catch up. Are you growing inside or outside? If outside it would be a good idea to get the biggest, strongest looking ones.

CRANKY40

starsandmoon wrote: »

Hi

I presume I would get £15 off for my visit there. Its me, BF and DD so a family ticket no good and you dont get change so didnt want to waste any vouchers. Im sure they take the £15 off the total. Blue Planet is so expensive without vouchers and take your own food as the food there is nasty and mega expensive. God help you with the shop as you go through it to the play park and I always get conned by DD :rotfl:

Not far from the Blue Planet is a Hungry Horse pub called The Rake. Don't know the postcode so you'd have to look it up, but the food is more reasonable than the blue planet plus it has an indoor soft play area and a large field outside with children's play equipment. It also has a duck pond, but it is fenced off.

ceridwen

grandma247 wrote: »

ceridwen it is ok to get more tomato plants yet and they will catch up. Are you growing inside or outside? If outside it would be a good idea to get the biggest, strongest looking ones.

Outside - I dont have a greenhouse or anything.

ceridwen

Further - on the crystal ball gazing front - after anticipating a LOT of pressure on supermarket managers in a year or two time (ie from peeps who've leapfrogged down from Waitrose to standard Tesco/Sainsburys so far and are planning next on buying "Basics/Value" ranges.....)

So - what do other peeps think will happen over the next year or two to things for the low to medium paid peeps in this Society? We know food/fuel/petrol are going up? What about other things we need to pay for? What about health care? What about housing costs (whether to buy or rent)? My own thoughts are that healthcare will become more and more expensive (ie as peeps have to get more and more of their healthcare privately - rather than from the NHS) and that medium to high price housing will HAVE to come down in price (rather than sticking and sticking and sticking at the same price - and staying on the market for months as a consequence).

Any thoughts?