draliman on life

Yesterday was the scheduled date for Bacon and Fozzie’s “Shopping Around the World” feature! I’m a day late as yesterday I did my Friday Fictioneers (yes, Friday Fictioneers starts on a Wednesday).

Here are the prices for the goods they have chosen for the south west of England.

Water.  Let’s shoot for a price on a 24 pack of water.  This is something that we use every day and can’t live without.  Some people drink it straight from the faucet while others of us buy bottles.  What is the price of a 24 pack of water in your area and what brand?
I occasionally drink water, but I only buy 6 packs of 500ml bottles, so I’ll have to go online for this price! Off to tesco.com…

First off, it has to be sparkling water. If I want still water, I’ll get it from the tap (which apparently is what “faucet” means). I looked and looked and I can’t find any 24 packs, the most was 12. I’ll show the ones I buy – 6 x 500ml.

This costs £1.50, which is US$2.49. In terms of quantity, as Bacon posted his in “ounces”, 500ml = 16.9 US fluid ounces.

As a bonus, the website proudly proclaims that this water is vegetarian-safe! Who knew?

Bath Soap.  Something ‘most’ of us use when we shower – or I hope so anyway snorts. What brand do you get, how many boxes together and how much.  I say how many boxes because I know sometimes they are sold in packages of 1 or 2 – sometimes more.
To be honest, I haven’t bought a bar of soap for many many years. Maybe decades. So I’ll have to give you the price for shower gel. I buy Lynx shower gel, which is £2.40 (US$3.98) for one 250ml bottle. Currently it’s on offer for £1.20!

Because, obviously, shower gel doesn’t go off, I tend to wait until it’s on offer and then buy loads.

Deodorant.  This is something that has blown mom’s mind lately – the price of deodorant – WOW!  Again, this is something that most of us use every day or should.  Tell us what brand you get and how much.
Again, I buy Lynx deodorant. According to the TV adverts, all you need to do is squirt it a bit and then thousands of women come running. It hasn’t worked for me yet, but I live in hope that one day it will live up to its advertising. I’m not greedy, one woman will do.

This is currently around £3.50 for a 200ml bottle (it varies a lot). Again, I wait for an offer and buy loads at once.

Laundry Detergent.  Another product that is important in our lives while washing our clothes.  What kind do you buy, the price and size.
There are lots of different types of this – colour fast, bio, non-bio… As a bloke I don’t care, as I chuck everything in together anyway. I buy Ariel “whatever”. This is the one I currently have in my cupboard (cupboard not shown).

This comes to around £6.00 (US$9.94) for 20 washes. One of these boxes will last me around 4 months. I expect someone’s going to work out my “washes per week” now. Be kind.

Random Item.  This is something that we are going to start incorporating every month.  This is your choice.  List a random item from your area, what it is and the price.  ALL YOUR CHOICE
For my random item I’ve chosen half a dozen medium-sized free range “happy eggs” from the Happy Egg Co. Because nobody likes an unhappy egg. These cost £1.95 (US$3.23) and I used two last night to make this scrummy omelette, with bacon and cheese.

This is the first omelette I have ever made! My boss at work gave me instructions (thanks, boss!) and although it turns out I have neither omelette pan nor mixing bowl, I made do.

Now that I’m clearly a master chef, I’ll need to try a soufflé or baked Alaska next, because how hard could they really be? 🙂

I thought I’d join in with Bacon and Fozzie’s Shopping around the World feature this time around. The idea is post the costs of various items so that we can see how much things cost around the world!

Here’s the list. My prices come to you from Cornwall, South-West England.

Toilet Paper
I always buy Andrex Puppies on a Roll. It’s a bit more expensive but I don’t care. It absolutely has to be Puppies on a Roll. Because it’s cute. Even when I was saving up to buy a house I splurged on Puppies on a Roll. Why? Because it’s cute.

One time I couldn’t get Puppies on a Roll and I was most dismayed.

That’s a picture of a 4 pack but I always buy a 9 pack (sometimes you even get 3 rolls free!).

A 9 pack costs me £4.49 (€5.67, US$7.60).

Regular package of ground beef
Small problem here – what’s a “regular package”? Come to that, what exactly is “ground beef”? Minced beef I guess? I’m going to post the price of the stuff I buy – store-brand lean minced steak beef, 500g. That costs £4.00 (€5.06, US$6.77).

Store bought pizza
I always buy thin-crust pepperoni pizza (store brand). This costs £2.25 (€2.84, US$3.81) for one, but I always buy 2 for £4.00 (€5.06, US$6.77). They’re not the highest quality pizza, but I add cheese and plenty of Tabasco sauce on the top. Yum 🙂

Before

Is that extra cheese? Why yes, yes it is.

Package of hot dogs
I haven’t bought these for years, but I located several examples for all sorts of prices. They don’t come in packages in this country, generally. Proper sausages (i.e. the Great British Banger!) come in packages, but hot dog sausages come in tins, usually in brine.

This is probably the sort of thing I would buy, were I to buy them, and this tin of 8 hot dog sausages would set you back a very reasonable £1.29 (€1.63 , US$2.18).

Tell you what’s really nice – hot dog sausage, slice along the sausage but not all the way through, fill with Marmite so it melts and stuff it in bread. Mmm! Bit messy, mind.

Package of bacon
Mmm, bacon. I buy store-brand back bacon, 8 rashers, unsmoked (300g) costing £2.55 (€3.22, US$4.31).

Mmm, bacon.