January 2025 – Happy New Year. It’s time to start gathering contents for your Link to Hope shoeboxes, and a few sale bargains.
Link to Hope
Current bargains
Some of these sale items are likely to disappear quickly and will vary around the country. You may find some items still in stock in store that appear to be out of stock on websites and vice versa.
The Works have a few items reduced. I’ve bought several Colour in Christmas bags for 50p each. The bags are small but do come with 4 felt pens to colour in the bag. I also purchased a couple of drinking bottles with cute dog pictures on for £1.00 each which will probably go in Bags of Education.
Dunelm still have lots of scented candle jars reduced to 50p. They have a 29 hour burn time and are great to add to your shoeboxes. I’ve bought a mixture of the scents 😊. Dunelm also have a Reindeer wash mit for 50p and still have 3 pairs of scissors reduced to £1.25, though fewer designs than over Christmas.
I’ve also bought a pack of 6 Lego style erasers for 45p from Sainsbury’s,
and some Christmas shopping bags for 50p from The Range. (The Range had quite a few designs, but the winter houses seemed more versatile and wintery instead of obviously Christmassy.)
Tesco have a few furry Christmas musical heads which had been reduced to £1.50 and are now down to 90p. My local store only have snowmen heads left for 90p but I bought 2 reindeer heads a week earlier for £1.50 each. Tesco have a limited range of Christmas wrapping paper for 45p for 3.5 metres.
January Focus
The focus on Link to Hopes shoebox calendar is warm items – to keep people warm when temperatures can drop as low as -25C. Hats, scarves and gloves all fit in with the theme and also fulfil one of the essential items when you come to fill your shoebox. Another suggestion is to knit or crochet some knee blankets to go with your shoebox – they should be about 90cm x 90cm. (They don’t want large blankets as they take up too much room.)
I haven’t seen any hats, scarves or gloves reduced yet, but Poundland have 2 pairs of Children’s or ladies’ gloves for £1.25 or £1.50 for 2 pairs of men’s gloves. Home Bargains have a pair children’s fluffy gloves for 60p, and B&M have 3 pairs of glow in the dark children’s gloves for £2.50.
Primark have 2 pairs of men’s knitted gloves for £1.00 but only in black. The ladies gloves are 2 pairs for £1.50 but they are touch screen.
There is a link to a video to knit a simple pair of adult mittens on the Link to Hope website, but I couldn’t see a link to the written pattern. I have knitted a pair of children’s mittens from a free pattern I found online, and Mags has sent me a pattern for mittens which I haven’t tried yet. Both patterns are knitted on 2 straight needles. If you’re looking online for free patterns check if they use 2 standard straight needles or if the pattern is knitted in the round on 4 double ended needles, or a magic loop needle.
There are also easy patterns online to knit beanie hats, which can be fairly cheap to knit if you shop around for yarn. (One Beyond, Home Bargains, Poundstretcher, Proper Job, B&M and Poundland often have acrylic wool for £1.00 for 50g). As of 23 January Aldi have 100g of yarn for £1.29 in various colours.
Other good value items
The following items aren’t reduced or part of this month’s focus, but seem to be good value, so may be worth buying them before they increase in price.
Poundland have 18 felt pens for 75p or 24 long coloured pencils for 80p, an A4 drawing pad for 75p, and still have a pack of 12 combs for £1.00. (Poundland do have other coloured pencils and I also pick up toiletries from Tesco – mainly soap bars for 30p, toothpaste 50p and 2 toothbrushes for 25p.
Home Bargains have 12 felt pens for 59p and also still have 4 flannels for £1.00 in either grey or white.
Update 28 January
Dunelm have reduced their small hot water bottles with fluffy covers to £2.50, and the set of 3 pairs of scissors to 62p. The scissors were showing as out of stock but they had 2 sets on the shelves and the Sherpa hot water bottles are showing as out of stock but they had several in store.
I’ve also got some great bargains in a B&M store today, pink hats with a letter of the alphabet, one pair of gloves with a letter of the alphabet, and cosy slipper socks all 10p!!!!! They also had some sets of socks for 10p but they only had baby sizes. One note of caution is that I went into a second B&M store which didn’t have any of the hats and gloves but did have the slipper socks but they were £1.00. I bought a set of 5 pairs of men’s Christmas socks for £1.00 – but they only had one pack left.
31 January
Primark have some hot water bottles and covers reduced. They have several character hot water bottle covers reduced. I bought a Shrek hot water bottle and cover and a pink unicorn both £2.00. The Shrek hot water bottle is 1750ml, but the unicorn is 750ml though due to it’s padded head it will take up more room in a shoebox! They also had other hot water bottles with fur fabric covers for £3.00 which are 1750ml.
Poundland had a few children’s beanie hats reduced to 50p.
Till next month