Link to Hope
The focus on the Link to Hope calendar for August is Stationery, “A gift for everyone, young and old. Pencils, Crayons, Rulers, Pads, Calculators, notelets.”
My first tip is if you can, shop around, try different supermarkets and discount stores. Each seems to have their own particular bargains at the moment.
If you have a Tesco Clubcard – they are the cheapest I’ve found for Felt pens, long pencil crayons, and biros. Their own brand pack of 12 felt pens are reduced to 50p a pack, and 12 long pencil crayons reduced to 55p a pack with a Clubcard, but the 24 pack of pencil crayons isn’t reduced and the other brands of pencil crayons and felt tip pens seem expensive to me. I’ve been in 3 different large Tesco stores, and these items seem to be with the craft items rather than the back-to-school range.
A pack of 10 biros is reduced to 50p and applies to packs of black, blue or assorted colour biros (non-retractable), and seem to be in both the back-to-school area, and the usual stationery area. Their pencils aren’t particularly cheap at the moment – the pack of 50 for £4.00 seems to be their best price for pencils, but there are cheaper options in other stores.
The main bargain in Asda is a pack of 3 spiral bound reporters pads reduced to 85p. I tend to add a reporters pad to the elderly boxes along with some biros. Their biros are 10 for 75p and 12 pencils for 90p, and small clear pencil cases for 45p. They have a box of 24 felt pens for £1.25.
Sainsbury’s have items reduced but most are still more expensive than the other stores, however their HB pencils seem to be the cheapest at the moment, at £2.25 for 50 so 4.5p per pencil. Similar in Morrisons, most items still seem more expensive, they have reduced their 12 pack of HB pencils to 75p so although cheaper than some places it’s still more expensive than others.
Home Bargains have some reasonable prices on their stationery (and other items which I’ll cover at the end in this month’s bargains.) 12 HB pencils are 69p and 12 biros for 79p, A4 Doodle pad 99p, 24 felt pens 99p, 6 plastic A4 wallets 69p, 4 rolls of Sellotape 69p. Proper Job also have A4 sketch pads for £1.00 and solar calculators for £1.00!
What! stores also have A4 Sketch pads for £1.00, 8 felt pens for 39p, 16 felt pens for 69p, and 2 different packs of 24 felt pens for £1.00, packs of 4 glue sticks for £1.00 and packs of 6 thin exercise books for £1.00.
The prices for rulers, erasers, sharpeners, pencil cases etc all vary across stores, so shop around. If you are doing lots of boxes it may be worth looking on Temu, eBay, Amazon etc for bulk buys.
I sometimes see people giving away mixed sets of felt pens and stationery on Freegle and Freecycle, so it’s worth keeping an eye on your local sites. I got 100 exercise books a few years ago off Freecycle which were misprints, and about 90 plastic sharpeners as well as a bag of mixed stationery.
If you have a sewing machine, it’s worth making some simple pencil cases. It’s helpful to have a zipper foot for your sewing machine, but it is possible without one. Amazon and eBay sell multi packs of short zips, or you can sometimes pick packs with 3 zips in the craft sections of discount stores, or you could re-purpose a zip from something you no longer wear and use the fabric. Most of the fabric used in the pencil cases below came from Freegle and the zips were from a multi pack I bought several years ago.
If you don’t fancy sewing in a zip you could make a pencil case which is similar to a glass cases, with a flap at the top and add Velcro or several press studs to close the flap.
(The above items would also be good for Door of Hope’s ‘Bags of Education’. Door of Hope work alongside Link to Hope on some projects.)
The Farm Animal Sanctuary
The Freedom Fields Festival went ahead in July and was a successful event. The weather was good which always helps with outside events. There were different music acts as well as spoken poetry, and a variety of traders including the always popular Golden Glaze Doughnuts, and a few workshops and talks. It was great to see the farm animals living their full lives.
As with other animal sanctuaries, they always need funds. With the dry weather there is very little grass in the fields for the sheep, goats, cows, horses to graze on, which means additional feed costs, and increased water costs keeping the pigs wallows topped up for them to cool down in. If you would like to donate or sponsor an animal go to their website for details on how to support them.
https://thefarmanimalsanctuary.co.uk/
Bargain Buys
In addition to the stationery items mentioned above there were a few other bargains around this month. My local Asda still has 5 pairs of children’s gloves for £2.00, and skipping ropes and frisbees reduced to 50p. Poundland have packs of 10 Bic razors for £1.00, and 2 packs of playing cards and 4 dice for £1.00. Proper Job have several good deals; 3 nail clippers, 2 packs of playing cards and 5 dice, or 100 hair bands all £1.00.
Home Bargains still have individual face clothes in a range of colours for 29p, or 4 face clothes in white of grey for 99p, and various deals on sweets; 4 pack of giant love hearts for 75p, 3 packs fruit, berry, cola or mint mentos for 99p, bags of individually wrapped lemon sherbets, and chocolate limes for 69p, and Foxes Glacier mints, and Glacier Fruits for 89p a pack. The other good deal was a solar/hand crank torch for £1.99 – which is the cheapest I’ve seen a physical shop and was in the camping section, and a set of wooden dominoes for 79p.
B&M have packs of 20 razors for £1.99 and 40 small bubble wands reduced to £1.00.
If you live in south Wales or are visiting there on holiday, there are several What! stores, which have a few good deals – a 3 pack of playing cards for 99p, a 4 pack of children’s cards for £1.19, 3 plastic nail brushes £1.00, 5 screwdrivers £1.49, 4 pairs of cotton work gloves 90p, 2 pairs of gripper gloves 79p, and 6 head bands £1.00.
Aldi also have some stationery items – the best deal seems to be a stationery set that includes a small clear pencil case, biro, 2 pencils, eraser, metal sharpener and small ruler all for 99p.
Till next month.