Charity Shop Bargains...

Ceiling light/fan brand new unused £5
Vent for greenhouse 50p
Backyard Composting, John Roulac, book 60p

101 Things to Do In A Shed, book £1
(as long as the wokshop monster hasn't been busy!!!)

Readers Digest Field Guide to the Trees & Shrubs of Britain £1
(Brand new condition, been wating for this one for a little while)

A Field Guide In Colour To Animal Tracks, 30p
(Brand new condition)
(not only tracks but identification using nests, holes, droppings, bone & meal remains...)

Really pleased with that one!!! :bigsmile:

Picked up a fine collection of CDs this morning at the carboot sale. There were a few that I was particularly interested in, but when I asked the price the seller said "£50 for the lot". I gave this some thought, and offered £40 if he included the vinyl that was in the box below. He said no, but his wife quickly corrected him and took my money! 206 CD albums, 71 CD singles & 103 vinyl albums! Quite chuffed with that!

What kind of music was it? (Am I allowed to ask???)

The CDs were mainly mid '90's stuff, quite a bit of Euro dance type (2 unlimited, Snap etc). The vinyl was all '70's & '80's chart stuff, so a fair mix.

sparhawk wrote: Readers Digest Field Guide to the Trees & Shrubs of Britain £1
(Brand new condition, been wating for this one for a little while)

And another one of the set comes along, this time:

The Readers Digest Field Guide to The Animals of Britain 95p
(Only 2 more to get at £1 each hopefully in time...)

Todays best buy though was:

The Official West Wing Companion

Very large hardback companion to one of the best TV series ever made original price £18.99 bought for £3.99 in new condition, & I've not seen it around before...

Some good buys Sparhawk. I have to say, that the quality of the contents of charity shops varies GREATLY dependent on where they are. The most expensive books I've ever seen (ordinary ones that is) were in the charity shops of Glastonbury. The most excellent clothes in Cathedral Cities, though an Oxfam in Sheffield last week had some GORGEOUS and very trendy kit which was sadly far too young and too small for me! Our local charity shops normally score low on both decent clothes AND interesting books. Carmarthen seems to have cornered the market in books by Dean Koontz (who he???), Barbara Taylor Bradford and Danielle Steele. W H Smith has a lot to answer for . . .

I fancy re-reading all the Minack books of Derek Tangye at present and got A Cat Affair last week when in Ashbourne, Derbys. Cost me £1 though ("All Books £1") which I thought was a bit steep as it's just a little slip of a paperback. Then in a Sheffield Oxfam (that of the gorgeous clothes), I found Uriel's Machine (can't put it down) and the Victorian part of a 6 part literature primer, which I am also greatly enjoying. They cost £2.99 and £1.99 respectively . . .

Dean Koontz - a not bad thriller writer, someone who has a begining a middle & an end to his stories.

Funnily enough I was thinking about Derek Tangye the other day. I've just wandered off and Googled him to see whether Minack is preserved still - it is!

I dropped into our local Cancer Research shop yesterday to see a friend and while I was talking to her, a lady came and paid for "The Allotment book" I went to see if they had any other bargains, but they hadn't.

Car boot this morning, used to be a big one (for the Island) but was quite pathetic really. Did get a Tom Clancy book though, so that made up for it.
Rest of the stuff was either very modern type jewellry, old tools, which I wish I had the time to buy & clean up & flog on, or the usual clothes & tat.

Perhaps tomorrow will be better.

Not a charity shop, but in the cut-price bookshop in Malvern Mr D and I got some bargains. He bought 'A radical history of Britain' (which has a long chapter on the Chartists) and I bought 'How to feed your family a healthy balanced diet with very little money...and hardly any time, even if you have a tiny kitchen with only three saucepans (one with an ill-fitting lid) and no fancy gadgets - unless you count the garlic crusher' for £2.99 each. This was a considerable saving.
The Oxfam shop in Malvern has a good book section, but the books look very new, so no chance of picking up any very old gems. Will have to try further afield...

2 Car boots yesterday, neither of them very good, but I did get another Clive Cussler book, so it was well worth the effort.

Books this week:

The Super Jam cookbook: "Jams & all sorts of other preserves made with fruit juice instead of suger so a lot healthier..."
£1.50

The Hamlyn Guide to Edible & Medicinal Plants of Britain & Northern Europe: 50p

Wild Flowers of Britain By Roger Phillips: Over 1000 species identification: £1

& I've only just realised the one I got today from a different shop is the other in the set by the same author

Wild Food By Roger Phillips: Finding cooking & eating wild plants, mushrooms, & seaweed... (Identification & recipes...)

£2

Pleased with that little haul...

I had this e-mail form Oxfam the other day...

"Since April, Oxfam has raised £15.75 from the sale of your goods. And thanks to Tag Your Bag we can claim an additional £4.44 as Gift Aid – a grand total of £20.19.

That's enough to buy 200 bars of soap to help prevent the spread of disease during a humanitarian crisis. "

So it is worth giving stuff and it is worth "tagging your bag"

We had a similar letter in the week to say that the books we had taken to the Oxfam Book shop had raised enough to train a health worker. (That must have been after one of my purges of the bookcases.....)

Sorry JG - that sounded like 'I see your bars of soap and I raise you....' I just think it's such a great idea to gift aid stuff, and a big encouragement to dig out further things.

Not at all Dandelion - it's really cheering to think that our unwanted stuff has produced such good results.

Whoop, Whoop, Whoop, Whoop, Whoop, Whoop somemore...



The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency, John Seymour, hard back... 50p

&

The Self Sufficient-ish Bible, Andy & Dave Hamilton, hardback... £4.99
& Lady S said she would give me the money back for it as an early Xmas pressie...

Whoop, Whoop, Whoop... :biglick:

Well done Spar!

That's a coincidence - MrD picked up 'The Self-sufficient Gardener' by John Seymour for 50p last weekend from the local hospice shop. That must be the current going price!!

Spar - I am so jealous! Why is there never stuff like that in the charity shops near me?

Mrs C

I got a brand new party dress with matching hat for my grandaughter for £2

I actually managed to get 2 things today in 2 different charity shops.

A hand whisk, which I have been looking for for several months, cost £1

A Catherine Kirkpatrick cook book for Egg & Cheese Dishes 60p. looks interesting.

Last weekend, found a whole tub full of 100% wool yarns for $.50 each (30p?). Wound up with 23 balls. All out of current colors, brand, etc. Lots of fun!!

Spar - I can see I should have emigrated to the Isle of Wight instead of Wales! We never get such bargains (or even those sort of books) turning up in our charity shops, but we have had some really good buys at Car Boot Sales, so I mustn't complain. I've not even seen a copy of the Self Sufficientish book to see if it's worth having. Is it?

Hey Abs, I did it all on my own this time

Spar always gets something good, but it is quite rare for me.

Aberlemno wrote:Spar - I can see I should have emigrated to the Isle of Wight instead of Wales! We never get such bargains (or even those sort of books) turning up in our charity shops, but we have had some really good buys at Car Boot Sales, so I mustn't complain. I've not even seen a copy of the Self Sufficientish book to see if it's worth having. Is it?

Yes it is worth having Abs, although I have only had a chance to skim through it...

This is the only one I've seen in a charity shop so far, I would suspect they will start arriving a bit more from about March, but as it was the only one I've seen I was prepared to go to the hideous price of £4.99 ...

£5 for a book, I can't remember the last time I paid that much...