Marks & Sparks Clearance Blowout

I was one a course at Salford Quays on Thursday last week and as The Lowry shopping centre is just across the way and it was late night shopping I could just not resist a quick visit although I needed nothing. I am trying to curb some of my spending but I just cannot resist the lure of bargains and the M&S clearance section at the Lowry is unbeatable.

I had low expectations but ended up with a very full bag indeed. Here are my bargains....

Three 3 wick Christmas candles reduced from £15 each to £1.99 each. One is for me and the other two are for my sister and niece for next Christmas. There were also matching sets of hand wash and handcream in pump action bottles in a cute metal stand. These were £12.50 down to £1.99 each. I bought two of these as I don't need one myself. Last but not least I bought three matching fragrance diffusers reduced from £15 each to £2.49. I will use one myself and the other two will be bundled up with the other matching items as part of the Christmas gifts.

Two swimsuits at just £6 each. I bought the very same black panneled swimsuit off eBay last week for £19.50 so I was frankly horrified to see it for sale at £6. I will resell the one I bought on eBay for the same or slightly higher price to get my money back and keep my £6 one. This matches a floaty beach dress that I bought from this store late last year. I love a little bit of matching swimwear for holidays.

A slightly jazzy black & Ivory jumper which will look great with smart black trousers. This cost £6.

Marshmallow soft PJ bottoms and a PJ top. These were all £5 each and I love the soft dove grey of the long sleeved top. Even better are the sparkly pink PJ bottoms which I will wear with two cream tops that I have already and which are identical to the grey top.

I also bought some black lace trimmed loungewear pants for either wearing as PJ bottoms or just for lounging around the house. I'm at that age where you can't beat a comfy pair of pants for snuggling in when lounging at home. These also cost £5.

A pair of indigo sculpt & lift jeans for the bargain price of just £4. All the trousers and jeans were £4 for some reason even though these had a £6 price ticket on them. These are straight leg which is a change from the skinny ones I usually wear but I felt like I needed a change.

A kimono style jacket for my sister for her birthday. I have already given her a bag of birthday gifts to open before she goes away. I bought her some Guess sunglasses, and two sets of toiletry bag gifts. One was a Soap & Glory bag full of travel size products and the other was a Burts Bees facial set. I bought her some Burts Bees facial cream too and some yummy chocolates. It is her birthday while we are away on holiday and I did not want to be carrying all of this with me so I gave them to her early to open up beforehand and then she can decide whether to take them with her or not.

I have this kimono myself and love the floral design and that the material does not crease. I bought this on line in the sale but it was nowhere near as cheap as the £6 price tag on this one. I'll wrap this up and give it to her on her birthday. I'm taking my own kimono and David said we will look like the terrible twins if we both wear them. I think I agree!!

Table Top Sale Finds

The local girls grammar school had another table top sale on Sunday morning two weeks ago and David and I were there before it opened at the back of a long queue. From experience we know you have to be there early to find anything decent as most good items get sold within the first 30 minutes or so.

Here is what I bought:

A large Yankee Candle jar in Mango & Peach Salsa at £5. This smells pretty good and will be lovely to use during the summer months for a fresh fruity fragrance in the lounge. I change candle scents according to the seasons and love a fruit fragrance during the summer months. 

Two pairs of fancy brand shoes. A pair of navy and metallic Fitflops sandals for £2. These look as though they have never been worn. I don't need any more sandals but could not resist these at the £2 price tag.

From the same lady I also bought these black leather Geox Respira loafers for £3. These are a fabulous pair of useful shoes and a great price. These look as though they have been worn once or twice and are in excellent condition.

A Dawn French hard backed book which will be going on holiday with me in a couple of weeks time. This was £1 which is a bit more than I usually pay for a novel but it is a hardback so I went with this price. It will have to go in hand luggage rather than my suitcase weighing a bit more than a paperback. I know people use kindles these days but I love the feel of paper and turning the pages. We are both nostalgic and never got rid of our record players, albums and singles and now feel a teensy bit smug now that "vinyl" is back in fashion. Now I am just waiting for VHS to make a comeback as we have numerous video players in the loft along with all our tapes.

A brand new toiletry bag tube of Soap & Glory lip glosses for £5. This contains 4 glosses in very wearable shades and will be saved for a gift for my niece as she is a real Soap & Glory fan.

A lovely M&S top for my sister for £2. We often buy each other things which we think will be liked and if they are a good price. I didn't get round to taking a photo of this before she called round and snaffled it up so no pics I'm afraid.

David bought a new Morphy Richards electric blanket for our bed for £2. I am not an electric blanket fan but David loves to switch one on for an hour or so before he goes to bed so that he gets into a warm bed at night. We have one already but as we have a superking sized bed it does not cover the whole bed so we now have two which sit side by side and there are switches on either side of the bed for us to have one each.

He also bought three framed James Bond posters for £13. They are just prints as the originals would have cost £hundreds but he liked them. He is going to paint the frames black and put them up in his man cave (our smaller spare bedroom) which he is currently in the process of decorating.

Well that was pretty much it for the day - it was a fairly small sale and the poor weather meant it was all held indoors so not that many stalls but we still did fairly well.

Freebies

This week I have done exceptionally well for freebies. I usually get at least one freebie in the post each week and these benerally come via the Magic Freebies website. This week I received two perfume samples in the post. The first was an Yves St Laurent sample of Black Opium and the second was a Guerlain sample of Mon Guerlain. I pop these into my weekend toiletry bag for when we have weekend breaks away and then I don't have to carry bottles of perfume.

On this note does anyone else always have a ready packed holiday toiletry bag and a weekend away toiletry bag? I don't know when I got into this habit, but in the cupboard in my bedroom I always have two bags packed ready for just picking up and putting into my suitcase. When I get back from my holiday I take out any products that are nearly empty and put them in the bathroom for finishing off and then make sure I replace them in my toiletry bag. I suppose it is one less thing to think about when packing. 

In addition I also have two other bags that I keep ready for when we are going on a beach holiday. One contains all the things I will need for by the swimming pool - suntan cream, lip balm, facial suntan cream, hair brush, hair bobbles to tie up my hair etc. The other one contains my make-up - bronzer, eyeshadow palette, mini mascara, lipstick etc. These are usually sample sizes too so that they are lighter to carry and take up less space.

My other freebies were from our stay at Portmeirion. They always provide one of my favourite brands of toiletries which is L'Occitane and it is in my favourite fragrance which is Verbena. They provide travel size bottles of shower gel, body lotion and shampoo plus two soaps. the soaps are 25g.  The 75g soaps sell for £5 so mine are worth £1.67 each so £3.34 for the two. The bottles are 30ml each and are £5.75 for 70ml so mine are worth £2.46 each so £7.38 for the three. A total of £10.72 for the set and as we stayed two nights I collected two sets so I have £21.44 worth of free toiletries. I reckon you can tell I'm a little bit mad about costs from those calculations. I'm the same in a supermarket working out the gets deals.

I also took away some of the complementary tea, coffee, hot chocolate and sugars from the room. They also provided packs of home made shortbread, most of which scoffed pretty quickly with cups of coffee but I managed to save three packs. At breakfast I took some of our partially used jars of honey and spreads as they would have probably thrown them away and I just love the cute little jars that they come in.

That is just about it for the freebies so not a bad week this week.

Birthday Break at Portmeirion

It was my dad's 80th birthday on 15th March so myself, David and my sister decided it would be lovely if we took him away to Portmeirion for a short break. I booked a suite in the village rooms (more about the fabulous accommodation in another post) for two nights and booked the hotel restaurants evening table d'hote meal for both nights too.

We had an absolutely wonderful time and we were so lucky with the weather. The sun shone the whole day on my dad's birthday so it was great to be able to walk around the village in the warmth of the Spring sunshine. Portmeirion is such a beautiful little village to meander around with views out over the estuary and the surrounding woodland.

We had set off from home at 9.30am on Tuesday 14th and headed to Criccieth so that we could have lunch at Dylan's restaurant on the front overlooking the sea. It was delicious as usual. I ordered my favourite lunch time drink (just on holidays) of a Bloody Mary and my sister being the driver ordered a hot chocolate. The guys had beers and we all ordered different lunches of calzone pizza, burger and chips and my dad and I shared a platter of cooked Italian meats, salami and cheeses with salad and pickles. not a scrap was left on any of our plates.

We set off to Portmeirion after lunch and arrived just before check in time. Our suite overlooking the village was just perfect and the balcony was a great suntrap with a view over the main square and gardens. We had time to drink the complementary carafe of sherry before showering and changing for dinner in the hotel restaurant. We had drinks in the bar with free nibbles of thyme popcorn and sundried tomato biscotti. The meal was divine with an amuse bouche of buttermilk battered cockles on lava bread mayonnaise.

We chose different starters of oriental salmon with squid and breast of quail with duck leg confit and jasmine broth.

We all chose the same mains of sirloin of beef and the same dessert of Merlyn cream liqueur soufflé with fresh mint choc chip ice cream. The beef main came with ox cheek and a horseradish potato gratin in a cute copper saucepan.

It was back to our suite for coffees and hot chocolates before falling into soft beds with crisp white cotton bedding.

We woke the next day to a mist which slowly cleared into a gorgeous sunny day. My dad opened all his birthday presents, cards and and after a very filling cooked breakfast we walked around the village and sitting down on the numerous benches for a rest and a chat. We watched the film all about William Clough-Ellis who built the village and then headed into Porthmadog for a look around the shops. I did my usual and called into the charity shops finding a pair of barely worn Paul Smith black leather trainers for David at £5.49 (they are £140 brand new), a couple of £1 DVDs and an Emma Bridgewater hessian tote shopping bag for £1.

We headed back to a lazy afternoon of reading the papers, watching the newly bought DVDs and drinking copious amounts of tea. I had paid for a birthday cake to be made for my dad by a colleague who also runs her own confectionary and cake business called Feather Cupcakes. The cake was cut into and devoured as it was so tasty and as light as a feather.

Back down to the restaurant for our evening meal again and more nibbles with drinks, an amuse bouche of ham with marmite lentils in a cute egg shell dish and differing starters of scallops and goat cheese profiteroles. We all ordered lamb for mains and a warm carrot cake with custard cream for dessert.

The next day after breakfast we checked out and headed home at a leisurely pace. We pulled off the main A56 road at Conwy and ambled through Degangwy, Llandudno, Rhos on Sea and on to Colwyn Bay where we stopped at the Bryn Williams restaurant on the front. It was hot chocolate again for my sister and Dad with lemon drizzle cake and I had a latte. David went for his usual beer.  After feeling fortified we got back onto the A56 and headed home.

It was a lovely relaxing three daybreak and now we just have to wait until our next holiday which luckily is in just two weeks time to Tenerife. I can't wait.....

M&S Foodie Bargains

I called into Marks & Spencers on the way home from work for just a loaf of bread but ended up spending £16. I could not resist the reductions and reckoned they would feed us for a week at least. I bought all ready made meals which are easy for David to have at lunch time now that he is retired or handy if I have a long day at work and want something quick and easy to cook when I get home.

I work from home when I can but this is usually just one day a week and the rest of the time I have a fairly short journey of 11 miles to work. The problem is that my office moved from the south of Manchester to North Manchester several years ago so I have to travel across the city centre. It can take me an hour and a half upwards on bad days and on good days it can be 45 minutes. If I finish work at 6pm then I may not get home until 7 to 7.30pm and I don't always want to start cooking at this time.

To be fair David could do the cooking as a retiree but he is hopeless at cooking unless it is toast or baked beans. He could try but I suspect after being looked after by me for 30 years that he is loathe to change his ways and enjoys being spoilt. My brother-in-law once said to him that I do everything for him and rather than feeling ashamed David responded by saying "yes I know, it's great"!!

So what bargains did I find? Here goes...

A couple of creamy chicken pies for David to warm through in the oven for lunch. These were reduced from £2.25 to 60p.

Two Cantonese Sweet & Sour Chicken with rice. I served these yesterday evening with some duck dim sum beforehand. Lazy Chinese Takeaway style meal for a Saturday night. 90p each reduced from £3.50 each.

Two sausage and mash meals for one. We have both already eaten these one lunch time. These were reduced from £2.60 each to 65p each.

Two roast pork meals for one. This is not something I would normally buy but at £1.15 reduced from £4.50 each I thought I would give them a try. These are ideal for David for lunch.

Two Gastropub fish pies for two. These were reduced from £7.50 to £1.90 each. A real bargain.  No photos as they are already in the bottom of my freezer.

Two large cottage pies for two reduced from £4.50 to £1.15. Again no photos because these are also both in the bottom of the freezer. Does anyone else like eating pickled beetroot with cottage pie or shepherds pie? David thinks I am weird for doing this.

Two tubs of ready made mash potato reduced from £2.50 to 65p and £2.25 to 60p. I know it is lazy to buy ready made mashed potato but I don't think I could make it myself for this price. They both have added cabbage or bacon in them too.

Did anyone read the article this week about manufacturers putting use by dates on food instead of best before dates on food? We end up throwing away food because we think it will have spoiled or will make us ill when in fact there is nothing wrong with it. Naughty.

My freebie in the post this week was a tube of Clarins day cream. Not bad for free and great for my weekends away toiletry bag.