How to Shop on Black Friday

I'm not sure whose image this it - please let me know if this is your image and I'll attribute it!

We all love a craze, a band wagon to jump on - snap bands and Swatch watches in the 80's, grunge and Nirvana in the 90's and Trinny & Susanna telling us What Not To Wear in the noughties. Over the past few years us Brits have opened up our arms and embraced Halloween with a fervour that frankly didn't exist when I was a kid (I distinctly remember a couple of teenage lads trying their luck at "trick or treating" with just their hoods pulled up for a costume and my Dad telling them where to go in no uncertain terms.) And I think Black Friday is just that - a trend, a craze, an awkward phase in our shopping history. Black Friday has been a 'thing' in the UK for about 5 years but this year some retailers have gallantly bowed out of the Black Friday retail race including Asda, John Lewis, Oasis and Mothercare.

I was in the Trafford Centre doing a Personal Shop on Monday and there was already plenty of 'Black Friday' merchandising tickets on clothes. Many retailers manufacture items especially for Black Friday - think of these items as the less well designed, less well made, cheaper cousins of what's already on the shop floor. All I'm saying is:

don't be swayed by what deal you THINK you are getting ...

If you are shopping this Black Friday plan ahead and do your research: better deals may be available online verses what's instore. And ask yourself this:

1. Do you really need it? Or do you just want it? 
2. If it wasn't on offer would you still desire it as much? Are you panic buying?
3. Can you afford it? 
4. Is it essential?

Take care out there this Black Friday - shopping can bring out the worst in people!

Til next time...x

The Wardrobe Angel

Pork Pie Lovin'...

I love a pork pie. When I moved back from Dubai (pretty much a pork free zone - you had to walk through a special door in the supermarket to retrieve any pork products; it felt very naughty) just over 4 years ago I ate a Sainsbury's Melton Mowbray pork pie each day for lunch for 6 months.

No kidding.

And I did the leg work that summer - Asda, M&S, Tesco - I tried them all. Tesco pork pies were far too salty, M&S were insipid, Asda although now much improved, were just rank. So Sainsbury's it was and is still the best. Until I tried Best Pork Pie from Bradley's Bakery. I had met Gillian, the co-owner with husband mark, at a networking event when I first started The Wardrobe Angel but never tried one of her delish pies. Roll on two years I spent a morning at the mothership: Bradley's Bakery (click here for their website).

Bradley's Bakery is a family run business which has been going since 1960 which is a staggering 53 years. Mark's Mum was the original maiden of the pies and Mark took over the business in 1990, "It's all I have ever done since I was 12. I turned down an apprenticeship at British Aerospace to work in the shop and have never wanted to do anything else. I love my job." The pies are all handmade, hand filled and baked on the premises.

The shop employs 9 members of staff: 5 shop staff, 3 bakers and a shop assistant plus Mark and Gill. To keep the business fresh they have branched out into Good Luck pies, birthday pies and even Pork Pie wedding cakes. YUM.

On an average Saturday they sell 300 pies ...300 pies!!!! 

This works out at 1,500 pies in a week! 

 

Pork Pie AND Pork with Bury Black Pudding. Awesome. 

We wanted to have an outdoor picnic but the alas the Great British Weather was raining...so an indoor picnic it was!