Bargain hunting (retail therapy on a budget)

There is sometimes an element of snobbery when it comes to pound shops with a certain stigma attached to them yet what can I say? I'm a commoner, a mere peasant if you like and quite frankly you can't beat the feeling of coming out of a shop with a bag full of goodies having spent less than a tenner. I know, I know I have somewhat exaggerated using bloggers license as I'm sure other things could rather beat that feeling (why hello Mr Northman.....) yet the fact remains, to many of us shopping is a good temporary boost for the blue and surely we all love a bargain.

There are variations in pound shops such as those that lure you in under the assumption everything is a pound when actually they're not then there are the ones where actually, everything is a pound.  The latter can be further split into two groups, do keep up I absolutely understand the sheer marvel you are experiencing whilst learning about the technicalities of pound shops. There are those that are cramped squalid places where it's every bugger for themselves as you navigate around aisle hoggers and general numpties with a death grip on your spawn so as not to lose them in the sea of fuckmuppets all scrabbling at cramped shelves knocking the unsuspecting workfare victims flying as they literally devour the shop from the inside out. These places are usually dimly lit in some unsavoury piss colour lighting adding to the general sense of claustrophobia.  By the time you exit you feel like a suffocated Ninja.  Now don't get me wrong all these places sell their fair share of utter tat and to be frightfully honest absolute junk yet often if you persevere you'll find some gems.  Yet the other group of pound shops realise that just because their stock is cheap, the shop doesn't have to look like the exploded contents of a whores handbag.  These places are brighter lit, slightly airier, easier to navigate and for some unfathomable reason, not as busy.  Bloody marvellous!

I visited one such place last week and as you can see from the picture came out with a 45 piece jigsaw, glider planes, lacing animal cards and a rather retro noisy stick thing for The Toddler, two packs of grow your own cat grass for The Felines, a make your own fairy home and fairies for Thing Two and a (not pictured) giant glider plane for Thing One for the tremendously grand total of eight pounds.  Even better is that the jigsaw is actually rather good, we should know as we do after-all own about eight of these ones and they sell on eBay for nearly a fiver.  Ditto with the lacing cards, lovely, vibrant and quite decent quality.  In fact we also procured our bargain bird houses to paint from here too previously (not to mention oodles of paper, colouring books, a toy telescope, pens, felt tips, cat toys, hair clips and slides etc)

In an unaffordable world, it's sometimes terribly refreshing to get some actual value for our money.