Miss Thrifty

The January sales have been a Miss Thrifty-free zone this year, partly because (as you may have noticed) I haven’t been around much, and partly because I like to hold off until the last possible moment, when the pickings are heavily discounted.

Some people aren’t keen on sales, because they feel that (a) you can go overboard, splurging on rails of worthless tat; (b) why bother with the dregs that nobody was prepared to buy at full price?  Personally, I am not convinced by these arguments. If it’s rubbish, why buy it at any price? As for the “dregs” defence: this presumes that all the people buying stuff at full price have good taste. Ha! I think not, if the frock horrors falling out of Mayfair nightclubs and WAG boutiques are anything to go by.

Now is the best time to go sales shopping, in my book. Two of my recommendations: (more…)

“Manolo Blahnik” and “cheap” are mutually exclusive terms, right? Even on eBay, it’s difficult to get a Manolo bargain. New, they go for £400 a pair, which is probably more than I’ve spent on footwear over the past decade.

Before I go any further I’d like to emphasise that I’m not a shoe freak. Frankly, I wince when cretinous women slobber and drool over Choos and Louboutins. Such a waste of money, energy and dribble. Read this newspaper piece about celebrities’ “best days ever” and you’ll see what I mean.

However one day seven years ago, something splendid happened.

I was wandering around the high street during my lunch hour. I was in a bad mood: at the time, I was working a wretched job for a pitiful pay cheque. I wandered into the local Oxfam thrift shop… (more…)

…Because I just received this:

Hi!
I wanted to get in touch with you because I work in the PR department of Threadless. We saw your post of a Threadless Tee giveaway and we’re so excited that your readers love our tees. We have some exciting news that we wanted to share with you. On 9-9-09 ALL Threadless tee-shirts will be on sale for $9.

Please let me know if you might be able to post about this and let your readers know about this awesome limited time sale

Thanks!

[name redacted at PR's request, for "privacy" reasons - ah, who am I to quibble?]

Andrex has hooked up with top British lingerie designer Ayten Gasson (no, me neither) to promote Andrex Shea Butter toilet tissue. The result: a limited edition set of knickers, available to buy from the Andrex website. Saucy.

Apparently the knickers are infused with shea butter, to make them extra soft and silky. Butter-infused pants? Erm, okay. More importantly, they are going for £10 a pop, instead of the usual £79. So if you like your designer kecks at knockdown prices, check them out. For every purchase made, £5 will be donated to a women’s cancer charity.

This is not a spreadsheet. This is a Miss Thrifty-endorsed, frugal fashion spreadsheet. If you click on the image above to get a better look… well, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

It comes courtesy of Miss Thrifty reader Maddy, who explains: (more…)

Ah, I remember when I picked up a Ballantyne cashmere top and a fitted, 1970s velvet jacket for mere pennies. I even bought my 1920s wedding dress from eBay, for around £25. The influx of buyers means that those salad days are long gone, but the increased traffic to eBay has had another, wholly delightful result.

There aren’t just more buyers; there are lots more sellers too. It means that if you press the right buttons (quite literally, in this case), you can dig out some super-spesh bargains in seconds. And this is what I do:

When I’m searching for items these days, I rarely search using brand names. Honourable exceptions, as detailed in a previous post about buying fashion on eBay, are a few labels including Tristan Webber, Boudicca, Elspeth Gibson and Ben de Lisi.

The rest of the time, this box is my friend: (more…)

Thanks to the Chiconomise girls for pointing me in the direction of this one: from now until 11 June, you can get 20 per cent off online purchases at Karen Millen by entering the code cosmo9 at checkout. You can also get the discount in the real-life store, by taking in a copy of this month’s Cosmopolitan magazine.

My advice: make a beeline for the silk shifts, the stretch satin numbers or this very Zac Posen-ish taffeta top (left). Steer clear of the one-shoulder tops (which are all over Karen Millen right now and looked dreadful on everyone last time around) and those billowy cotton dresses that resemble crumpled tea towels hanging on kitchen pegs.

Here are the discount details.

Now then. Do you remember when I wrote about Chiconomise at the end of last year? It’s the new online venture from Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry. I promised to update you after I’d checked it out.

As I noted back then:

Right now the website is just a sign-up page and an About page, and references to “scouring the city” for tips makes me think that it’s going to be predictably London-centric. But I think I’m going to put my e-mail addy down anyway, and give it a whirl.

For the uninitiated: you sign up via the Chiconomise homepage, and receive a free email newsletter every Thursday with a roll of offers and discounts.

Well, I’ve given Chiconomise a whirl and those newsletters have been landing in my inbox, regular as clockwork. And do you know what? I rather like them! (more…)

A week or so before Christmas, a medium-sized cardboard box filled with organic fruit and vegetables landed on the Thrifty Towers doorstep. (I know! Some bloggers have all the luck/freebies.) It was a pre-festive gift from the organic delivery service Abel & Cole, and was issued along with a challenge: (more…)

Welcome to The 157th Festival of Frugality: The Queen’s Speech Edition!  And a special welcome to all first-time visitors to the Miss Thrifty blog. If you would like to stick around, please feel free to put your feet up: some of the most popular posts include thrifty household tips, my beloved Thriftymobile and a hotlist of Frugal Twitter Users. For regular updates in your RSS reader, whack the big orange button to your right.

With the Festival on the other side of the pond this week and Christmas looming, I thought I’d go for a quintessentially British theme. As you may know, we take the seasonal festivities very, very seriously over here; Christmas Day is centred upon a vast lunchtime banquet at which we all wear paper crowns, eat until we pop and try to keep the flaming Christmas pudding from setting the curtains ablaze. After that it’s copious quantities of sherry and telly until bedtime. The day after Christmas Day is a public holiday, to give everyone time to recover.   

So there is plenty to choose from when it comes to selecting a theme. I was going to go with The 157th Festival of Frugality: The Alka-Seltzer Edition, but on reflection felt that this would provide an unfortunate impression of the scenes of carnage Dickensian delights for which the British Christmas is renowned.

Instead, I have plumped for another fine British Christmas tradition. (more…)