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!!

End of the Sales Bargains

Since David retired he gets stir crazy every so often and has to get out of the house. On the other hand I love nothing more than spending the weekend at home. We made a compromise and popped out to the Lowry Shopping Centre and Booths supermarket at Media City for just a couple of hours this morning.

I found a great t-shirt style top for £4 from Marks & Spencer and also some suede slippers for just £2.49. The slippers should be £19.50 a pair and there were four pairs at the £2.49 price all in my size. Now I go through slippers fairly quickly. I don't know whether I am heavy footed on them or if working from home for a couple of days a week means they get more wear than usual. I decided to buy two pairs and then showed them to David while still in the store. He immediately went back to the shelf and picked up the other two pairs and said I may as well buy them all at £2.49 as this was a bargain. So I now have four new pairs of slippers. Even better was that I bought them all using a Christmas gift card from my sister.

David wanted a coffee and as everyone knows I won't pay an extortionate price for one in Costa Coffee in the shopping centre, we called over at Booths supermarket in the nearby Media City. As we both have a Booths card we can get a free coffee every day from them (we can get the same deal at Waitrose) so I had a quick look around the store to spot any Christmas deals while we were there. I found a stack of £10 Christmas crackers reduced to £2.50 a box so bought four boxes of them which should last for the next two years. We both got a lovely free latte each too (normally £2.05 each)

I also found some cute chocolate and peppermint candy cane lollies for 49p each at half price. I bought these for my nephew and niece who still get a kiddies goody bag whenever they visit. They are twenty and 18 years old now but have asked me to never stop the tradition of the goody bags as they love them. 

I had already bought reduced tins of hot chocolate from M&S for them. These were £1.50 reduced from £8 each and some bags of Santa marshmallows for them to have in the hot chocolate. These were reduced to 25p a bag in Tescos. The lollies will go in the same goody bags for them.

I think most stores have cleared their Christmas stock now so I was lucky to find the last few reduced items. I suppose I will have wait for the carbooting season to start for more bargains hunting.

How has everyone else done with their final sale reductions?

Oh Dear! More Sales Hauls

Happy New Year and Welcome 2017!

I decided that I had bought enough in the sales and didn't need anything else...... and then we went shopping again. This time I bought a fabulous cardigan coat in a two tone red and burgundy colour. Now this is something I would not have thought of buying at all if I had seen it on-line but in the shop I loved the heavy feel of the material. I think having some colour makes for a more youthful look too. I think this will look great with skinny jeans during the months when it is not warm enough to go without a jacket but not cold enough to wear a coat. This cost £19.

I also bought three black tops which are just those wardrobe basics that can be worn at any time of the year and on any occasion. A round neck t shirt style, one with a zip at the neck and a camisole style one. The two t shirt style tops were £5 each and the camisole top was £3. There were three of these tops on the rail; one priced at £6, one priced at £5 and the one I bought priced at £3 - clearly random pricing was going on by the staff.

I found a linen skirt for the summer at just £4. I have this design of skirt already in a couple of different patterns and colours and love how versatile it is for on holiday. I liked the stone colour and thought it would look great with tanned legs. No photo as I have already stored it away in my summer clothes bag.

I also bought two beautifully embroidered pillow cases which are white with a grey stitched embroidery design on them. Now these are square pillow cases for my large square pillows which just sit on top of my bed and are really just decorative rather than for using as a pillow. They should look lovely when I am using my white bed linen in the summer. These were £7 for the pair.

Although I swore I would not buy any Christmas cards or wrapping paper, I could not resist the offer of 5 rolls for £2.50. There were various designs and lengths of roll so I went for the longest rolls at 3 metres and picked out different designs.

I had also called into Waitrose for a few essentials and ended up buying four rolls of ribbons for 25p each and four lots of lovely grey and white twine for 20p.

David wanted to go shopping into Manchester on bank holiday Monday but I told him I didn't need anything else and would rather stay at home getting the house straight after our final guest (my mum)  left early in the morning. He agreed and so we spent the day pottering around at home and enjoying every minute of it.

It was back at work last Tuesday (although I had worked in between Christmas & New Year) and nearly back to routine normality.

Sales Mini Haul

I decided that I was not going to buy much in the sales because I do not need many things. I have however bought a little more than I intended, so I don't know why I have called this post a mini haul when it should be a maxi haul. I also went shopping with my mum, sister and niece and I guess they egged me on so I reckon the splurge is not down to me (well that's my excuse!)

I got an email from M&S just before Christmas offering me half price offers due to having more than 20,000 points on my Sparks card. I bought a new winter coat at half price in a fabulous check. I love plain colours but sometimes a pattern is needed. At the same time I bought a lightweight top in black with white top-stitching. I adore this top and had bought it earlier this year at full price at £15, but when it arrived it had faulty stitching on the neck so it went back. I was pleased to get it at £7.50. I also bought a black jumper which has a chiffon hem and three silver metal buttons on one shoulder. Smart and practical for weekend wear. Well I thought that was it until I went shopping with my female relatives.

We went to the Lowry shopping centre. My mum lives over from France and struggles to find "decent" clothes over where she lives so she went a little crazy with her purchases. To be fair I have seen the clothes shops near where she lives and their offerings are quite simply vile (polyester tabards and crimplene dresses) so I don't blame her. I bought a grey loose cardigan which was in a silk mix fabric for £9. It fits beautifully.

Two maxi dresses at £12 each - both for wearing on summer evenings and for taking away on sunny holidays. I thought the pink floral one may be a bit "too much" but it looks lovely when I tried it on and fits me better than the muted floral one (no photo) although this is a size smaller and probably a little tighter than I would like. I'm in between sizes.

A black top with a lovely neckline. Great worn with black trousers for work but also fairly decent weekend wear. The material is light and soft but creases a little. This was £6.

I bought a boxed set of 12 dinner candles for just £1 and I also bought two bottles of liquid soap for in the kitchen at £1 each and a coconut room spray at £1.

My final Lowry purchase was 4 boxes of Yankee Candle tealights from Clintons. These were half price at £3.49 a box. I bought two boxes of Christmas Cookie and two boxes of Festive Cocktail which I have not seen before. It has a real cranberry scent.

I also bought a mint green coat which was new with its tags in eBay for just £19.99. This is en route and not arrived as yet. To be honest I didn't really need this but I couldn't resist the price nor the colour and it is not a colour I would normally choose.

Finally (after a couple of glasses of wine?!!) one evening I went on line and I bought three pairs of Fitflops for during the summer. I couldn't resist as the cheapest pair was £19 reduced from £90. I also hunted for some reduction codes before paying and found a 15% discount code to use on line. The other two pairs were reduced to £34 from £90 and £27 from £70. With the discount code, the total cost was £68. I had to pay postage of £3.95 as the order was less than £75 but given that the price of three pairs worked out at under £23 a pair I was happy with this.

Well that was my splurge and I think this was plenty to add to my wardrobe for winter and summer.

My Week

I had not too bad a week the other week. We went to the Lowry on Thursday evening where they had a Victorian Christmas Market event on. It was outside in the square between the shopping centre and the theatre and it was lovely. There were plenty of artisan stalls selling the most delicious home made cakes, fudges, pies and Christmas tree decorations etc. There were hot food stalls and those selling mulled wine and Prosecco. We wandered around enjoying the ambience and glad we had worn our thick winter coats as it was decidedly chilly.

We walked over to Media City for a meal at CAU. What a great place, with a bustling atmosphere, attentive staff and delicious food at a very reasonable price. The drinks were pretty good too, and as David was driving I had two delicious G&Ts complete with pink grapefruit and juniper berries.

It was then time to go over to the Lowry theatre to see the Peony Pavillion performance by the National Ballet of China. How how beautiful and graceful the dancers were. I loved their elegance and with a cast of 70 it was a spectacular sight. Of course David nodded off (he attended under some sufferance - not his thing really). The story is 16th century and along the lines of Romeo & Juliet. It was beautiful with gorgeous costumes and abstract scenery.

Saturday saw the arrival of my sister and family plus my Dad for an early birthday meal for me as I will be away for my birthday in New York. My sister bought me some lovely gifts. A bottle of Tattinger champagne which is my favourite. A gift card for Marks & Spencers (where else!!) some scented candles and cookery books. I am a lucky girl.

Best of all was a bag full of 12 pairs of knickers from M&S. She had bought them at the very end of the sale and they had all been reduced from £6 a pair to 39p!! Apart from one fancy pair reduced from £8 to 79p. If they had been bought at full price then they would have cost £74 although they all had 3 for 2 stickers on them, so they would have cost £50. Karen had paid just £5.08 - she is an admirable adversary to me on the bargain hunting front. You can certainly tell we are cut from the same cloth. She said she found the reduced section in the lingerie department and selected a couple of pairs for herself, some for her daughter and for me and then had a re-think and bought all of the knickers in our sizes. Why would you not at 39p a pair.