Miss Thrifty

Short notice, I know, but on Thursday Marks & Spencer is holding a one-off, one-day sale with 20 per cent off.

The Times reports:

Tomorrow’s sale at M&S, which starts online at one minute past midnight, is its biggest pre-Christmas promotion for four years and will include all clothing and home lines in addition to wine and Christmas food gifts.

As many as 24 M&S stores will trade until midnight on Thursday, so shoppers can make the most of the discounts. A spokeswoman for Marks & Spencer said: “We are trading competitively in what is a very volatile market. We want to make sure that we get our share of every £1 spent.”

Now, if I hadn’t mainlined all my spondulicks into a Target store in Mesa, Arizona last week - a prolonged afternoon of consumerist ecstasies that cost relatively few British pounds sterling, and necessitated an additional suitcase on the way back home - I would be at M&S on the dot, lungeing for the cashmere rails.

I love M&S cashmere. I don’t bother anymore with the cheap-as-chips cashmere from Tesco, Asda et al: in my experience it’s fine for the first couple of wears, but soon takes on an all-round shabby appearance. Nothing says “cheap cashmere” like moulting sleeves and bobbled armpits! Read the rest of this entry →

I’m back! I’m jetlagged and should be in bed in right now, but instead I’m trolling the net and I just came across this:

 
I love Angels: it’s an amazing theatrical costumier in London. The owner wants to clear some space and has filled a Wembley warehouse with boxes and bags full of vintage clothes from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, to be sold off at rock-bottom prices at a one-day sale next month.

Style blogger Mademoiselle Robot says:

It will feature items from the 1930s till now and they will not be priced individually but by bag. You will be able to get a medium bag for £10 (able to hold a suit and shirt, or three dresses) or a supersize one for £20 & then fill it with pieces from BIBA, Quorum, YSL, Bus Stop, Jaques Azagury, & Jean Muir or high street labels of the past thirty years like Chelsea Girl, Jaeger, Joseph, French Connection, Stirling Cooper, Artwork Blue & Stefanel.

Period military uniforms and costumes featured on BBC shows will also be for sale. Angels has published full details about its vintage clothing sale here, and here’s the skinny:

Date: 6 December 2008.

Time: 9 am to 5 pm (frankly, I’d get there early).

Venue: 3 Boundary Road, Wembley, HA9 7ND.

Map: voila!

I wouldn’t miss this for the world, but 6 December is also my husband’s birthday so I’m not sure how I’m going to work it…

UPDATE: See this later post about the Angels sale, for details of a prize draw plus their list of rules for would-be buyers.

I asked my Frugal Grandma if she would provide holiday cover while I am away on my Thrifty Roadtrip this week. Frugal Grandma can do anything…

When you make fruit pies put the bottom layer of pastry in the tin, paint with egg and leave to dry. This stops the bottom of the pie from becoming soggy with juice. Use the rest of the egg to paint over the top of the pie before you sprinkle with sugar, and this will make it nice and shiny. Try not to put too much juicy liquid into the pie as it will make its own when it cooks.

When you make a bread and butter pudding, put a smear of marmalade in the bottom of the dish. This greatly improves it.

At Christmas, mince pies are often a bit rich when you have been stuffing yourself. So in our family we always make a lot of little apple pies, which seem to go much faster. Don’t forget to make the tops of the mince and apple a bit different so you know which is which.

- Frugal Grandma

I asked my Frugal Grandma if she would provide holiday cover while I am away on my Thrifty Roadtrip this week. Frugal Grandma can do anything…

When someone gives you a bunch of carnations or chrysanthemums, take off the little 2″-3″ shoots and grow your own.

Wet the shoots’ bottoms, dip in root powder and plant in a small pot (several to a pot as they won’t all take).

Do not try to root any with a flower bud on them as plants do not like to make flower and root at the same time.

- Frugal Grandma

I asked my Frugal Grandma if she would provide holiday cover while I am away on my Thrifty Roadtrip this week. Frugal Grandma can do anything..

Biscuits gone a bit soft? Use them as a crumble topping over fruit, sprinkle with sugar and cook.

Don’t throw away the chicken carcass: boil it with the skin, then strain it off and pick out any pieces of chicken meat (horrible job). Bung them in the stock with salt and pepper, tarragon, dill, garlic and anything else that’s handy. Read the rest of this entry →

I asked my Frugal Grandma if she would provide holiday cover while I am away on my Thrifty Roadtrip this week. Frugal Grandma can do anything..

Frugal Dinner

This recipe is called Beef Collop; it was first made by my mother when she ran a small London cafe in the late 1940s. Meat was rationed at that time and my ma never liked to waste anything, so she invented this dish. It became so popular that she ended up having to buy meat especially for it.

If you have very little meat left from a roast, say 2 slices of beef (or lamb, pork or chicken), then do the following: Read the rest of this entry →

I love reading Sharon Rose’s Vintage, Fashion, Me blog. Sharon Rose has an admirable talent for excavating gorgeous clothes from charity and thrift shops: a Marc Jacobs dress for £5, anyone? So I took the opportunity to ask, how does she do it?

The lovely Miss Thrifty has given me the honour of doing a guest post while she is away.

For anyone who is not familiar with my blog, I have a love of modern and vintage designer items, ranging from jackets, dresses, jeans and blouses to handbags, shoes and accessories. I especially enjoy sourcing these from charity shops and boot sales around where I live. I’m very lucky that there is an abundance of charity shops and regular boot sales, so I generally have great chances of picking up good quality items.
Here are my tips for picking out fabulous pieces: Read the rest of this entry →

I’m just a little crazy right now. I’ve been skitting around like a demented ladybug all week, trying to tie up all the loose ends and get everything done before I jet off on my holiday. My journey to the airport commences in a few hours’ time and I haven’t even started packing yet. Glurk. I’ll probably end up panic-packing - then wind up at San Francisco International Airport with four denim skirts, a pair of slippers and a muu-muu.

I have some great guest posts lined up as my holiday cover, and I hope that you will enjoy reading them. In the meantime, this plopped into my inbox today:

Chiconomise       
Chiconomise is a new lifestyle newsletter featuring offers, sales & discounts for people who want to live stylishly for less. Founded by BBC One’s The Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry, the newsletter aims to lead its readers to the best deals to be had in fashion, beauty, eating, drinking and going out. To find out more about the newsletter and to sign up to receive it, go to www.chiconomise.com.

Interesting, no? Read the rest of this entry →

The Guardian is running a competition to win a week’s skiing holiday in the South Tyrol (the Italian Alps) in February 2009. The prize includes return flights from a UK airport, accommodation in a 4-star “wellness resort” and two six-day lift passes.

UK residents are eligible; the competition page has further details. All you have to do is fill out your name and contact details online. The competition closes on 11 December.

Ben & Jerry’s is half-price at Morrisons right now. It’s £1.80 for one of the larger, 500ml tubs.

Sadly, my local Morrisons didn’t have any ‘Cherry Garcia’ in (sniff), but I went for this sorbet one instead.

The best part? My husband’s away, so I get to eat it all myself. I give thanks to the higher powers that have arranged for this happy conjunction of events.