Ideal Home Show & Eat & Drink Festival

I subscribe to the email newsletter from Martin Money Saving Expert and recently the newsletter said you could get free tickets for the Ideal Home Show which was also combined with the Eat & Drink Festival. It is not far away from us at Event City and we visited the Christmas Ideal Home Show last year which was great, so we decided to visit again.

I applied for free tickets on-line (should cost £12.50 per person) and they were emailed instantly to me. Today was the day for visiting and we were there as the doors opened. I love looking around these shows but only for a couple of hours tops. Any more than that and I'm bored so we were home for lunch time complete with bags of freebies. We managed to not spend a penny and were full from eating our way around all the foodie samples. Our favourite was the Bonne Maman stand that was giving away free pots of their desserts and loads of £1.50 money offer vouchers. We visited the stall twice and ate salted caramel, chocolate and creme caramel desserts. They were scrummy.

We both got free goody bags from the two shows and even the cat got 4 packs of cat treats which were inside them. Cereal, crisps, Baileys chocolate, chocolate cake, Orangina drink and body lotion samples were in the bags. Great snacking for us, a treat for the cat and the body lotion samples will be sold on eBay along with a load of other ones when I manage to get about 50 together.

We got a couple of cloth bags given to us from different stalls and one had a fabulous craft book inside complete with pull out patterns worth £14.99. I think this will be given to my mum as it is more her sort of thing than mine. There were also lots of other freebies such as Magazines, pens, a decent sized tape measure for David, packets of mints etc.

We enjoyed looking around the stalls and I really coveted one of these cabanas as they looked so exotic. While they looked lovely in the show I imagine that they would not look quite so good in a soggy back garden in South Manchester and would need a fair amount of upkeep in our weather so the day dream was over.

The food and drinks on offer were plentiful with fabulous stalls, just look at the Captain Morgan pirate ship selling Mojitos.

There were a few "ladies who lunch" in the champagne bar sipping chilled flutes of bubbles with dinky bags tied with ribbons containing jewellry and toiletries bought from some of the many stalls. I love people watching so it was good to amble around and see others enjoying the show.

It was back home by late lunchtime to start packing for our next holiday. Posts to follow over the next couple of weeks on the forthcoming break.

Magazine Freebies

Tesco had sent some vouchers to me in the post while I was away on holiday. The first one had expired by the time I got home so I still had two left to use which were £9 off a £90 shop. When I usually get vouchers for this volume of spend I tend to buy lots of dry and tinned goods to stock up on.

I bought 6 packs of cat food because they were on offer by Tesco but the brand had also added an extra portion and a money off voucher included in the boxes. I also bought laundry detergent which was on offer, half price boxes of tea bags, half price packet sauce mixes for casseroles and packs of butter that were on offer.

I was soon not far off the required amount but just not quite there. I strolled over to the magazines and found two that were on offer and which had freebies attached to them too - result. I will only buy magazines if the freebie is something that I will use and which is worth a decent amount of money.

This time I bought Marie Claire which is usually £3.99 but was on offer in Tescos at £2.50. This had a fee handcream from Neal's Yard with it. This is a decent sized 50ml tube of handcream rather than one of those small sample sizes or travel sizes. I chose the Bee Lovely scent as the others were Rose (okay but not my favourite) and Geranium & Orange Blossom (had this before and it's quite a strong scent). This is worth £10 so a good price for a freebie.

My second purchase was a double pack of Elle & Cosmopolitan which cost £4.50. Elle is normally £4.30 to buy and Cosmopolitan was on offer at £1. To be honest I find Cosmo a little young for me these days but after realising it was going to cost me just 20p I thought I'd chance it. This bundle came with a free full sized bottle of nails inc polish. I had to go for the bright red Tate colour as this is one of my favourites. I know the other muted colours are probably more fashionable but I just love a red nail with a tan. This polish would normally cost £11.

Not bad to get £21 worth of toiletries for the £7 price of three magazines. I also managed to get the £9 off my shopping too.

Little Highlights of my Week

It does not take much to make me feel happy and content. This week has been a week of little highlights that have made me feel so happy. So what are these highlights?

On Tuesday I visited the Trafford Centre to get my nails manicured with a gel manicure at nails inc. in Selfridges. I love visiting this store as I always get a great manicure and Holly who has done my nails the last few times is such a lovely girl who is great to chat to. I plumped for a dark plum colour similar to my favourite Victoria shade. Holly added a little bit of bling with a silver glitter top coat to my ring finger on both hands. As this has been added on top of the gel and is just a varnish I can always take this off with some varnish remover and have just plain glossy nails if I want. The manicure lasts a good three weeks.

I really like nails inc nail varnishes and have far too many but earlier this year I had a clearout and have been selling some on eBay. Mainly the colours that I have not used and have come as part of a gift set. Two of my favourite colours are a dark red called Tate and the dark burgundy colour called Victoria. They cost £11 each so a highlight of the week was seeing these two colours as freebies attached to Glamour magazine which costs just £2. I bought two copies to get my favourites. The magazine is not overly my choice but is worth a flick through.

I woke early on Thursday to find an email from Film First (you must must join this website) offering free tickets to see The Wind in the Willows at the Lowry Theatre. I quickly bagged two tickets for myself and David for that evening. We had great seats in the stalls and I later found the tickets to be worth £83! (£41.50 each) Woohoo!!

What a fabulous and excellent show it was. West End standards with the most brilliant of sets (Olivier Award winning) and the most wonderful costumes. The cast gave a heart warming performance with great song and dance numbers. We could not stop talking about it on the way home.

It was the next evening that I finally picked up the weekends magazine that came free with our Sunday newspaper to find an article all about it inside. The article was glowing. If you get chance to see it as it tours the UK I would really recommend it.

Before we visited the theatre, we called into the nearby Pizza Express and using a voucher that I had been sent from their website we managed to get 20% off our meal (excluding drinks) so that was a bonus too. With drinks, car parking etc our night out cost us £50 instead of £139. I think £50 is a great price for a two course meal with wine and a night at the theatre. £139 would have been a bit steep though.

I had a great week with these little highlights making me very happy. What makes your week?

Good Housekeeping Magazine

For my regular readers, they will know how much I like magazines. They will also know that I usually buy these second hand (and often these are unread) from charity shops and carboot sales. They are usually a fraction of the price and generally cost between 20p - 50p each. I do sometimes buy new magazines if I have a money off coupon for them, there is a worthwhile free gift with them or they have some offers with them which I really want. 

The November edition of Good Housekeeping fell into this category and I am so pleased that I bought it last week. There was a voucher for two free L'Occitane products, their Immortelle Divine eye cream and a bottle of their Immortelle oil make-up remover. These two travel sized products are worth £14.50 so not bad for free.

I popped into their shop at the Trafford Centre to collect these freebies. I love L'Occitane products and my favourites are their Verbena range and the Lemon Verbena range. I decided to treat myself to a massive bottle of Verbena Foam Bath for the costly price of £20. I know, a little extortionate but I work full time and deserve a treat every now and then.

Because I had spent more than £15, I was given a further gift of a pack of two small hand creams. These are in two different fragrances, Shea Butter and Almond Milk. They are such a cute handbag/makeup bag size at 10ml each. The receipt said these should have cost £6.40 so I got £20.90 worth of freebies in total.

The second offer was with Molton Brown and was a free 100ml bath and shower gel worth £10 when you spent £15. I opted to buy on line and use their free click & collect option from their store in the Trafford Centre. I bought the Chrsitmas cracker gift that was shown on the advert and chose the Pink Peppered fragrance. I then plumped for the matching Pink Peppered body wash as my freebie.

Together these will make a great Christmas gift. I even had the option of a free gift box which arrived with a little gift card & envelope ready for my Christmas greeting to be written on it. Sadly the box was a little crumpled in the packaging so this is currently laid flat between a stack of books to "un-crumple"it

I even received a freebie travel sized (30ml) bottle of bath & shower gel in Bursting Caju & Lime fragrance. This is a treat for me after all that hard work ordering on line. My fingers were exhausted!!

When I went to collect my offers/order from both shops the staff were all just charming to deal with and joy of joys, I didn't have to pay 5p for a carry bag at either shop. I love the Molton Brown bags complete with ribbon for giving gifts in.

We have booked an 11 day/10 night stay in New York for December this year after enjoying such a great holiday there two years ago for my birthday. Same hotel too which took some doing on my part as I struggled to find a UK company using it. I was therefore delighted to find a two page spread on a long weekend in NY with a list of restaurants & cafes to visit along with places to go with the best times to visit. I'm just about to tear the article out of the magazine and put it in my suitcase so it is not left behind.

Thank you Good Housekerping for bringing some joy to my life this month. Please note this post has not been sponsored at all and is just my own genuine opinion. I have never written a sponsored post. 

More Charity Shop Finds

We set off on Saturday morning towards Abersoch but en route we decided to have a whistle stop visit to Pwllheli to visit a couple of charity shops.  Over the whole 3 day break we also visited more charity shops in Porthmadog and on the way home in Llandudno. 

In Pwllheli, we visited five in total which are all on the same street and a couple of doors away from each other. Two were a dead loss with either expensive or just tatty items. High street chain charity shops now charge silly prices and I think they must be deluded. Fancy wooden coat hangers holding second hand Primark or George at Asda clothes at more than their original prices when new. Why do they do this? 

Luckily there were a couple of independent charity shops which had good items and with sensible prices. I bought this toiletry gift set for £2. It is just for myself and has 4 full sized items in it so they were 50p each. It has come from Tescos so probably not an expensive item when knew but at £2 I am happy. In Porthmadog, I also found this lovely Bayliss & Harding gift set which had 5 full size items in it for £2.99. Again this is for me to use myself rather than a gift for anyone.

I bought 3 books for £1. One of these is by one of my favourite authors M.C. Beaton and who could resist a hardback Delia Smith book for 33p?. Not me.

I found another batch of gardening magazines at 20p each and love to have a flick through these for ideas. I then pass these on to my dad who loves his garden and loves picking out unusual plants from the magazines to buy for his garden. In the same box of magazines were some Guitarist magazines which David snapped up sharpish as they came complete with their CDs.

I also bought a beautiful Chesca 100% silk top which is complete with its tags for just £3.60. I couldn't be bothered to try it on so when I got home I found it is a little (well a lot!) too tight for me so I will pass it on to my sister.

Finally I found 3 DVDs for £1 each. One of these is a series of 6 programmes and one is new and still in its wrapper. 

I found a beautiful 100% linen shirt for David from the Autograph range from M&S. This was £3.50 and will be great for wearing on our next holiday.

In Llandudno I found a lovely M&S linen shirt for my dad for £3.50 and another selection of magazines at 5 for £1. I bought 10 at this price and found an InStyle magazine that is this month's and had to pay extra for this at 50p.

I also bought another toiletry gift set for £2. It is a County Living one and has a selection of Rose scented items including a cute candle and lavender bag although this is rose scented rather than lavender. Again this is just for me as the basket it came in was far too shabby for a gift.

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