A frugal life is an easy life!

* Unsponsored product review

After battling with the Shark NV681UKT Powered Lift-Away True Pet Vacuum Cleaner, for almost 2 months, their tech help people decided we had, "the wrong type of carpet" and issued a code for me to return it to Argos and exchange it for another model.
The good people at Argos (tip of the hat for great customer service @ArgosHelpers) made the whole process very easy.
A quick ring to check the code out, at the store and we were good to go, to choose another vacuum.

We opted to pay our last remaining £100 (emergency budget) on the Dyson ball animal 2 vacuum.

So for your perusal, here's our review of it.

Positives:
Outstanding cleaning!
Picks up animal hair with ease (on medium power), leaves no lines where it's dragged back, the suction is A1, the best we have had for a vacuum. One to two passes over the hair and it was gone.
Some behind the radiator dust I brushed out over a week ago, right up against the skirting board, was gone in seconds (the shark machine couldn't get near it). At last, a true "pet" vacuum cleaner.
Very quiet, remarkably so, one of the quietest machines we've ever had.
Very long cable - ideal for an open plan house layout.
Usual selection of attachments, including a sideways roller adaption for the furniture and an extension head for getting under stuff with a suction powered attachment.
Cleaning our front room carpet, the shark took around 1 hour 10 minutes (still leaving bits that had to be scraped up with a rubber soled foot) - the Dyson ball animal 2 took around 8 minutes, without any bits left on the carpet!

Negatives:
The price.
We paid £299 in total, but considering all the messing about with our previous shark and it's performance, it still represents good value.

Overall:
Pet cleaning - outstanding!
Does exactly what it claims to do. 10/10
Suction - superb, even on the medium setting.
Suction remains strong on uneven surfaces 10/10
Gadgets - all the usual plus a pet hair settee adaption and an adapter to reach under furniture (suction powered) 10/10
Cord - almost 11 metres, very good for our open plan house. 10/10
Edge suction - very good, especially when head on. 10/10
Price - the only thing that lets it down a bit, but it is a new machine and one of the top of the range. 8/10

It's fair to say we are very pleased with the dyson, so much so, the better half and I have been hoovering up twice a day. This, in our house, is very rare!

Unlike the 3000 or so other websites/blogs out there in internet land, product reviews on FrugalWays, are slightly different.

For a start, they are rare, products reviewed here are genuinely purchased and then used in our house. Not donated or sent here for a trial period, etc. (although it would be nice to be offered a trial now and again)
So if a vacuum (for example) claims to be "pet friendly" and it doesn't pick up dog or cat hair, instead moving it around the carpet, I'll tell you.
I get many emails asking if a company, "can work with frugal ways," almost always, the company want to send me some text/images of a product for me to copy and post.
It'll be OK, just put on that it's a sponsored post by [insert company name here] and everything will be fine.

Actually, no it wont.

I'm not sat here writing posts from a £200,000+ house in the country, while my better half is out earning as the main bread winner, earning a promotional income from my website, that I can write on, while the maid cleans the on-suite bathroom to bedroom number 3, while professing that I am just trying to get by on a basic income (sounds tempting though).

There are a few rules if you wish for your product to be promoted here;

• provide me with a sample (obvious? You'd be surprised how many companies forget this basic point)
• I'm happy to return said sample if needed
• your product will be genuinely used here
• any product review will be an honest one (rather than the promotional bumph you send me)

In return, your company will see the review before it's posted to the website, if we do not agree with the review, it will not be posted and that will be that.
It will cost your company nothing, a sample to try is all that's needed.

If we agree on the review and your happy to go ahead, then it will be posted, social media included, word of mouth, etc. 
Your sample may be given to others to try out for themselves.

Does that sound fair enough?
(We are currently in the market for a new tumble dryer, as our old Hoover one is about to pack up after 7 years).

* Unsponsored post:

Dyson old "pet special" vacuum has finally died, after a full change of motor and the engineer only able to explain why it wouldn't pick up a cross breed persian's fur, from a short pile carpet, as "it's the wrong type of hair!"

So this time, we went for the Shark NV681UKT Powered Lift-Away True Pet Vacuum Cleaner.

PRICE:
At £199.99 from Argos, it's not cheap, but reviews said it was really powerful, so we expected to pay a bit more. (Our last Dyson was £225)

POSITIVES:
Good power, which is adjustable. Plenty of gadgets included on it, as well as the "pet attachment" Lighter than the Dyson (rollerball style) Good light, although it highlights pet hair it hasn't picked up (see below).

NEGATIVES:
I don't know how vacuum companies get away with promoting their products as "pet friendly" or some variation of? 4, 5 and sometimes 6 passes over hairs (on a short pile) carpet are needed to lift hair (less than 24 hours down). I've tried it on reduced power and full power, same results.
Clip that secures the hose to the upright bar unclicks itself from the holder (after just one week) when using in upright mode.
The "edge suction" makes very little difference.
Suction power reduces if there is a slight uneven surface. A part of our carpet has a carpet tile under it - suction greatly reduced when we try to hoover it.
Edge of the Shark goes up over the side of a rug, reduces suction to almost zero.
Dirt storage is very low. Frequent emptying with this one (as is well documented)

OVERALL:
For the price, not decent value, I feel around £160 would be a fairer price 7/10
Suction very good when in handheld mode 9/10
Suction in upright mode drops off if any uneven surface is attempted 5/10
Pet effect, poor, not as good as is claimed 4/10
Gadgets, plenty of options 9/10
Edge suction, not really noticeable 3/10
Overall
6.5/10

* If you would like an honest report on a product or service you offer, then get in touch. (I doubt you will heh)

Does your car insurance take eleven payments to pay for a ten month payment plan on your policy?

Carboot sales used to be fun places to spend an hour or two, pick up a bargain when people are having a clear out, not anymore.

A variety of stalls now, selling fruit and veg (that they cannot shift from their shop), stalls that are the same week in- week out (travelling around various sales buying and selling), charity shop staff from a nearby town (using their position to obtain things that "might sell" on the cheap in the charity shop they work in, selling them on at carboot sales) and the "everything wrapped" obviously bought from a cash and carry to try and sell on, stalls.
Very few stalls are now just someone having a clear out of their attic or bedroom, etc.

I spotted one item I almost bought a week earlier (at the same sale) the stall holder wanted £4 for it, I thought about it, then declined.
This week, the very same item (an old collectable) was for sale on another stall for £8. No thanks.

No dig gardening planting out is finally complete, I feel a bit of a fraud now, nothing else to do on it except wait for things to grow (if they do).

It looks a bit silly, with various mesh protection all over it, but that's just to stop the birds from eating the seedlings as they come through and to stop the neighbourhood cats from leaving messages all over it. It's generated a lot of interest on the street, lots of jokes, etc.
For an unused so called driveway, full of rubbish and stone/plaster/concrete/ash, it wasn't being used. Work wise it hasn't taken much, a bit of raking the compost and being patient while the old carpet did it's job of killing off all the grass/weeds is all.
You can see some pictures on the gardening blog (select from the top if you are so inclined) and if the veg comes through, it will have paid for itself a couple of times over by the end of the summer. 

Money doesn't go far these days, wage comes in, then almost all goes back out the other side.

I hit the markets again this week for fruit and veg, where there was a "food event" taking place. Various stalls all over offering everything from gingerbread to indian cuisine. People stood in the street drinking at dinnertime, while people walked around aimlessly.
These pop up stalls were charging a fortune for their wears, I don't really understand how they manage to do it?

A simple bit of research reveals the sheer bull of their marketing. One of the stalls was hardly taking anything, no one around it, selling about 6 product lines, nothing much doing.
Yet when I took 5 minutes to look into their background, I was staggered to find the supposed value of their company.
In the space of two years, the value of their company has gone from around £16,000 to over half a Million pounds!

How could this be?

The company have listed their "goodwill" for the business at £1.4 Million alone!
Assets have been aquired by bank loans and their tax bill outstanding for the last financial year is worth more than our home.
It's no surprise that their own "goodwill" valuation matches the value of their luxury farmhouse I suppose.

I wonder if I should set up in business...