Miss Thrifty

One of the most popular posts on Miss Thrifty is the Make Do and Mend post, which features some of the choicest nuggest from the Ministry of Information’s wartime compendium of household tips. Those nice people at John Lewis have just published their updated take on this book. Sadly they haven’t sorted out their online PR and I can’t find a link to the book anywhere, but the Daily Mail ran a selection of its tips today.

Two of the ideas that caught my eye featured that most useful of fruits: the lemon. Lemons are what, 22 pence each? If you are like me, you will cut one into wedges for fish, or into slices for boozy drinks – but there will often be some left over. Leave it in the salad drawer or on the fridge shelf and it withers away. So here are some of my favourite ideas for leftover lemons: (more…)

I like Vax. Their products aren’t wildly expensive – a snip, compared to the spendy Dyson range – but their vacuum cleaners and hoovers upright models are very sturdy. Our vac is a Vax, kindly donated by Frugal Grandma’s next door neighbour, Dorothy. I suspect that it is decades old: it is one of those round orange beasts with the 1980s vibe. It weighs a ton and heaving it up and down the stairs is a pain, but it runs and runs and runs. I suspect that these old Vax cleaners are like cockroaches: the Apocalypse will come and go and they will still be hanging around, roaring away and doing their thing.

For this reason, the latest Argos offer caught my eye. (These days the Argos press bods send me a weekly e-mail with details of that week’s discounts, which is quite handy.) It goes by the title of Vax Power 2 Anniversary Edition Bagless Upright Cleaner.

It is also going for a bargain price: £49.99, reduced from £159.99.

Vax Bagless Upright Cleaner from Argos

Back in March I wrote about the joys of Cath Kidston wallpaper - and how places such as Focus DIY sell rolls of paper that are “very similar” to the original versions, but a lot cheaper (taps nose conspiratorially).  

It is one of the most popular posts on this blog – second only to the Make Do And Mend post, in fact – so having read an e-mail from Miss Thrifty reader Claire, I feel duty-bound to share her news in full:

Thank you so much for this top tip. I was after the same Cath Kidston wallpaper and just couldn’t justify the cost. I went into Focus DIY - who are now discontinuing the Millie wallpaper and selling it off for £5 a roll. What a bargain!!!

Thanks Claire!

By the way dear reader, if you are a visitor from the future and you are stamping your foot because you are too late for this bargain, take heart. You can still buy these wallpapers online, for £13.99 a roll, from wallpaperdirect.

I was in The Works earlier today. You know The Works: the discount bookstore chain, which also sells stationery, world maps and various super-cheap nicknacks.  The one I went into today, in Harrogate, was selling plastic mini-skateboards. It also held an extensive stock of misery memoirs; proof, perhaps, that this ghastly genre is finally on the way out?

Anyway, I was quite pleased with what I found there. Nestled amongst the tat, I found a pile of these:

Recognise it? (more…)