Friday 9 September 2011

The Supermarket Surf

One way of keeping it low price these days is to do the supermarket surf.

What this involves is going round your local supermarkets and cashing in on some of the special offers they have on a weekly basis - quite often there are real bargains to be had. If for instance they are doing a half price deal on pasta sauce in a jar (or something else that keeps well) you can pick up a few months' supply, and save a quite a bit of cash.

Of course, this method's only practicable if you live in the vicinity of a few supermarkets, or can reach them easily in your car.

The supermarket surf could almost be a new sport - saving you money and also keeping you fit as you push your trolley up and down the aisles in search of the special offers.

Tuesday 10 May 2011

Why Lorraine Kelly's Fashion Awards Get Our Vote

Not many morning television hosts are as convincingly normal as Lorraine Kelly – and her show’s style awards prove this even further by focusing on nothing but high street fashion.

The Lorraine Show’s High Street Fashion Awards firmly refuses to mention expensive designers, instead concentrating on what can be bought for less on the high street. As you might expect at Cheapness Please, the affordable fashion category is the part that gets our vote and why not with companies like Peacocks, Primark and ASDA nominated.
During the economic downturn retailers like Peacocks have really upped their game when it comes to style and quality – and the frenzy for value for money clothing has introduced a new genre of bargain hunter, who demands value for money fast fashion trends without sacrificing on quality. Just look at Pearl Lowe for Peacocks collection to get an idea of how fashionable and high quality value for money clothing can be.

The Lorraine Show has always done well when it comes to demonstrating the latest designer looks for normal ladies – whether their catwalk conscious teens or older women unsure of what to wear to look stylish. And true to form, the Affordable Fashion category in the High Street Fashion Awards gives everyone who watches the show a chance to get involved, not just the small majority who can afford to shop in a few upmarket boutiques.

Yes, The High Street Fashion Awards are just what we like to see at Cheapness please – so keep it up Lorraine, and we’ll keep spreading the word on great value for money fashion stores.


Wednesday 16 February 2011

Energy - smart monitors, and cheapness quests...

Nobody likes that moment when the quarterly utilities bill hits the mat. I think one reason for this is that we pay for our energy in arrears, and because much of the energy use is in the past, we can't quite remember what it is we're paying for. It's like a big shapeless lump of money hewn from the bank account every three months.

But that's all about to change with smart monitors - I tried one of these for the first time at the weekend, and I can safely say it will be a major contribution to money saving. Basically it lets's you know how much you're spending at any time. It gives a real insight into which appliances are easy on the juice, and which ones are costing you the money. Remember when your ma gave you a row that time you tried to dry a single pair of pants in the dryer? Well, she was justifiably angry - you'd just cost her at least 50p, you scoundrel.

With gas electricity suppliers providing these monitors on a pretty large scale these days, watch out for a new breed of energy savvy consumers emerging, and more and more tips being shared over the internet on how to save cash (e.g. off peak energy costs and so on).

Thursday 13 January 2011

Working Chic - new concept in women's clothes from Peacocks

Some interesting high street fashion news zips across the wires this week, as high street value fashion retailer Peacocks launches an interesting clothing collection called Working Chic.


It's a very clever name for the range, as it encapsulates what the collection is all about - namely: style for work.


The collection, incredibly, offers an entire working week's clothing - and here's the cool bit - at a cost of less than £20 per day. 


Working Chic includes a black pencil skirt with fitted cardigan, black dress with white trim, and with a truly contemporary touch, skinny jeans for dress down Friday.


There's more information on this collection over at fashion website StyleClone, who describe it as a range where "Each piece oozes sophistication"



Wednesday 12 January 2011

Cheap eating

Cheap eating doesn't mean having a boiled egg for tea, especially now in the age of the internet coupon - where once there might have been a voucher to clip out of the newspaper every now and then, there's a whole host of generous offers for restaurants and cafes.

Then of course there's the supermarket value ranges. A lot of good stuff to be had there, and a lot of it comparable with the dearer stuff - factor in all the two for one deals etc in the supermarkets and there's a bit of cash to be saved on the shopping.

And if you're going to try and save some cash on the groceries, may as well try eating healthy and cooking simple pasta and stir fry dishes which often work out pretty cheap.

One of the main ways to save money on food is to think laterally, and buy foods that don't spend ages in the oven. This is in fact one of the reasons that stir-fry became so popular in Chinese households - legend has it that the fuel to cook the food was very expensive, so people favoured a cooking method that took as little time as possible - makes perfect sense. Why spend over the odds on cooking fuel when you can reserve your cash for some lovely noodles and vegetables, and maybe some soy sauce.

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Vat Attack!

So, despite pre-election pledges, that's the VAT gone up, meaning that a fairly hefty 20% of certain types of purchase goes to the government. Whether this will haul the country from recession remains to be seen.

Yes, as Alan Sugar says at the start of every episode of the Apprentice, these are tough times economically. But the VAT rise doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to be too poor to afford anything. What I reckon it will mean is that manufacturers and retailers might have to absorb some of the VAT rise - I mean, how come designer clothing can go into a sale at half price?

Other not so great news is that rail fares have gone up, despite some of the UK's rail services being unarguably poor. Anyone who has travelled for more than an hour on most UK routes will have their story to tell.

So will 2011 be the enemy of cheapness? In some respects it looks like it, but if the retailers respond intelligently, it might not be so bad.