The Great 'What to buy/not to buy in pound shops' Hunt

craftydevil

I buy the bags for planting potatoes and tomato bags - all for 99p each and sometimes two in a pack - have paid £6.00 for almost the same quality elsewhere. Also when you see a bargain grab it as you may never see it again, even if you don't need it for a while. Bought 6 postage bags for 99p (not jiffy bags)- very strong and easy to write on but they no longer have them, which is a shame as they were great for sending auction site sales as they were very lightweight.

John_Pierpoint

I notice that the pound shops do 2 litres of milk for £1.
2 litres are not the same as 4 pints even if they look the same.
In my local shopping centre it is all of 50 yards from the pound shops to Iceland and 150 yards to ASDA.
1 litre = 1.75975 so half a litre is 0.879875 of a pint; in other words some one has taken 12% out of the carton before selling it to you.

Razzamatazz

Dental set from Poundland comes with a mirror to check the back of your teeth and one of those granite(?) tools that scrape off tartar. Throw away the toothbrush, though - it's like rubbing wires into your mouth.

Maat

Always check pack sizes as the big manufacturers often do a smaller version for the pound shops. Check the price on the basis of penny per weight or volume. This particularly seems to apply to food items (a bag of only 5 packets of crisps instead of the usual 6, for instance) but I'd bet they do it with toiletries and household cleaning stuff too.

Cotton wool - rather scratchy and it's cheaper at Morrisons (or was)
A4 lined pads with ring binding - bargain
A6 lined pads with ring binding - cheaper at Home Bargains
A4 refill pads - cheaper at Asda
Basic labels - cheaper at Asda

Harry Styles masks - bleugh!

It's always worth comparing with Home Bargains/Quality Save as they often have pound shop items at less than a pound.

Cornucopia

This is going to sound painfully obvious, but...

- For anything whose selling price is normally more than £1, check the quality, and if it appears okay, buy away.

- For anything whose selling price can be less than a pound (food, medicines, cleaning products, etc.), check the quality and the quantity to ensure that it is still worth buying.

WaspishQueenB

jenniewb wrote: »

Bad buys;
Sports/compression wraps or sleeves. These not only stank of some sort of nasty chemical which didn't wash out or fade with wear but they were also a poor fit and did nothing more then warm up my skin when worn, they did nothing to help or remedy the pain.

The Ibruprofen gel and adhesive back heat pads are great, though.

On the naff side: recordable DVD disks - I've ended up with more silver drink coasters than I care to recall; baby wipes and talc can be found cheaper in supermarkets Baby Sales; Grow-Your-Own-Mushrooms kit did NOWT; the plain, black socks are as sheer as tights (most odd); and highlighter pens cannot stand the pace of Uni revision time because they run out too quickly.

daisydap

Yes to arms in baby bibs, at least £3.50 elsewhere. No to laminating pouches, twice as many in pack in home bargains for same price.

superalan

If you have a sweet tooth, Toblerone bars (170g) are a bargain at Poundland.

madsaintuden

yes to the beechams honey and lemon hot drink that is like lemsip and 4 x the price in tesco on a good day. (poundland)

yes to the baby bibs with sleeves (99p stores)

yes to the big giant toblerones (pound land and home bargains)

yes to the weight watchers ginger nuts.

some time yes to the aqua fruita 4 packs of bottled water that is often £1.09 in tesco - although I get 24 bottles of water from jj food service for £2.49 these days...

Fatfelis

Wild bird food such as black sunflower seeds, peanuts, little fatty pellets, mealworms, half coconuts (in Poundworld) and basic seed, lot of which is National Trust branded. Less good are fat balls, which are of lower quality and crumble. Basic bird feeders. Bird food can be ridiculously expensive at high quality and it's not like I *know* those birds personally, I just want to feed them. And the food always goes, so it can't be that bad.

The occasional branded make up items - Revlon, L'Oreal, Rimmel, Sally Hansen, Nivea, even Stila recently. Eye shadows, mascara, concealer, lip gloss and nail varnish.

Little pet blankets with paw print pattern to cover up armchairs, car seats or fold into pet carriers. If an accident happens or there is too much hair and debris, you can even throw it out as a disposable cover, but I have washed them in a machine successfully.

Branded food but check the dates. Juice, pasta sauces (Seeds of Change) etc.

Vitamins and supplements - not proven to be any worse than the expensive stuff and they are often taken as placebos anyway.