An email from a work contact:

Hi Diana

I’ve been looking at buying a Dulait toaster for several years but despite the weak Pound the retail price in NZ never changes.

I’ve looked on-line and virtually all the outlets charge the same price:

Milly’s Kitchens        $499
Pantry Magic            $499
Choice Catering $403
Award Appliances        No price, but I think they are the importer so its propbably close to $499.

Then I look on-line at O’Gormans in the UK and its GBP 102 or NZ$214, and for UK customers they do a next day delivery serive for GBP4:60.

It’s another example of NZ consumers getting a raw deal.

So what does “Bargain Betty” have to say??

Jeff

Bargain Betty says: yet another example of the classic Kiwi rip-off. You really do need to shop around – worldwide for things.

I had a Bargain Betty moment at my daughter’s birthday party this weekend. In fact three of us had it at the very same moment.  Maia had been expressing an interest in an ice cream cake earlier this year. I thought she’d forgotten about it and her aunty made a very nice heart-shaped cake.

On the morning of the party Maia had a hissy fit about not getting her ice-cream cake.  We were in the supermarket at the time and I looked at the ice cream cakes, thinking she could have two cakes.  At $19.80 it was beyond what I wanted to spend (having a trolley of party food and supplies already).  So I convinced Maia to let me buy a $3.99 pack of ice cream and a $2.76 pack of lollies.

When we got home we put the lollies in the bottom of a cake tin, pressed the ice cream in and froze it. When it was frozen it was simply turned upside down and pressed out. The kids loved it.

It was only afterwards that I realised what a bargain cake it was.  $6.75 in total and only a few minutes to make.

My brother Michael is arriving this Sunday to stay for a fortnight. Michael is a fully fledged member of the  Men in Lycra brigade. He teaches 6am spin classes, cycles to and from work, which can be anywhere in Sydney, and then spends his evenings at the local Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club.

Needless to say, he consumes as many calories a day as a small army of teenagers.  It dawned on me this week that I was going to need to re-stock the pantry big-time, after my pantry project.

But just what do you feed this calorie monster is my question? So I thought I’d throw the question open and ask my readers for recipes and suggestions for the “Feeding Michael” project.

Your say: please share your recipes and tips on feeding Michael and/or teenagers

I thought I would share this piece I wrote for RaboDirect:

Childrens’ birthday and Christmas money proves a real dilemma in our household.

Granny gives the kids a $100 cheque each birthday and Christmas; in our family that’s not all for blowing on expensive toys. I’ve schooled the children into believing it’s to be saved for purposes such as university fees, their first car, or the deposit for an apartment.

Read more:  http://www.rabodirect.co.nz/blog/2010/17-November-2010-happy-birthday-now-save-that-money-childrens-savings.aspx?type=tcm36-93041

I’m the biggest hypocrite when it comes to buying coffee.  I don’t believe in buying the daily Latte. But I do it.  I try lamely to justify it by saying it is my sanity time. Or when I’m really being fanciful I suggest it’s a big part of our culture here in New Zealand to drink coffee in cafes. That is true, compared to places like the US and UK. But it’s still not an excuse.

Since the GST rise the price of a coffee has risen way more than the 2.5% rise. I’ve seen lots of cafes put it up from $4 to $4.50 in the past few weeks. For the first time I’m starting to rate cafes not just on the quality of their coffee, but the price.

I have to say that I’ve become way more attached to the Devonport Deli in the past month.  That cafe (where the coffee is decent, but not amazing) sells pre-paid cards for 11 cups of coffee.  That brings the price of the daily latte down to $3.60 per cup (less if you’re a flat white drinker). Admittedly that’s still $3.60 too much. But it’s an awful lot better than $4.50 or even $4.80 that I’ve seen.

Finally, caffeine is an evil drug. It really is. I once read that it’s more addictive and more toxic than LSD.

I’ve always been a bit cynical about the one-day-sale websites that have started popping up here there and everywhere. My first impression was that they were selling a lot of cheaply priced Tat that people didn’t need to buy. There’s certainly an element of people getting too excited over these sites. Grabone.co.nz has more than 50,000 people who “like” it on Facebook.

I have, however, seen the other side of them. I’ve noticed that some of the sites like DailyDo.co.nzoffer services (eg dental work and beauty therapy) and tourism days out at really cheap prices. I went on a Kayak Fishing expedition, which I have written about for the NZ Herald. The other customers had bought their tours from DailyDo.co.nz at half the face price.  If you want to do something like this it’s a great bargain.

As the parent of children I just can’t escape going to McDonalds from time to time.  I’ve found a couple of good bargains recently:

1.  The first is the two for one Cheeseburger and Coffee vouchers printed on the AA Travel Great Kiwi Road Trips maps. These maps are on all the counters at McDonalds restaurants until the end of this month. Just open the map up and cut the vouchers out.

2.  Sausage McMuffins.  My daughter asked if she could have a Sausage McMuffin without the egg recently. I discovered that the sausage McMuffin is $2 cheaper without the egg, and the meal deal is also $2 cheaper. This made it $4.90 for Sausage McMuffin,  hash brown and a kids’ drink. I saved $2 and my daughter was happier.

I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to factory outlets. Often it’s cheaper to wait for sales at the high street stores from the same brand. A great example of this is buying red-dot bras from Farmers, which is often cheaper than the Bendon outlet (although there are exceptions to this rule). I went to DressSmart last weekend for my annual t-shirt buying exercise.  Plenty of the shops had enormous sales on.  For example, JK had 30% off its already reduced prices, and I got boys’ pyjamas for less than $10 a pair. What a bargain.   Puma (where I didn’t buy anything) was overrun with people – as it had 50% off existing prices. You do have to be careful. One of the surf shops had a big sign up that said 60% off, and then in little letters RRP, whereas the other shops had huge discounts off the discounted prices.

My article from the Herald on Sunday:

Bargain Betty: Breadmaker adds to culinary mix

I love good bread. In fact, a great baguette or fresh Turkish pide pretty much top my list of favourite foods.

The trouble is that I get indigestion at the thought of spending $5 or more on a loaf, which in reality contains little more than flour, water, yeast and oil/fat.

If I acceded to my children’s demands I’d be buying MacKenzie bread at $5.11 a loaf – just for half of it to be left uneaten in their lunchboxes.

Read more:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10681061