It's beginning to look a lot like........

How's your Christmas shopping going? 

Me?

I've been saving my shoe leather and getting on-line to do a lot of my Christmas purchases.

Not everyone likes the on-line shopping experience but I have to admit I love it!

I have ventured out to check what's available...but I've done most of my gift buying on eBay and Etsy and so far so good. Don't get me wrong, G and I still wander and browse and get all touchy feely with some of the items in store...but when I'm not 100% sure what I'm looking for, sometimes it's just nice to surf to give you some ideas. There is a drawback with that method though...you can find you've lost a couple of hours just sitting in front of the computer...anyway...

I've bought children's clothes, personalised Christmas decorations and a few toys on-line. Strangely, I've purchased books in-store this year.

One of the Chrissy decos I bought is from the same person I purchased some personalised ID tags a couple of years ago.

Tessa from HattieRex on Etsy has some lovely items that I'm sure everyone would love to receive.

These are like the tags I bought for "G" 2 years ago...

This year I've bought a couple of large discs that will have the names of each family member on them

Here's hoping everyone likes them

You can check out Tessa's Etsy shop here

Happy shopping everyone. Just remember, don't get too stressed about it all. It's just not worth it.

I knew it!

Do you have one of those supermarket loyalty cards that you swipe to get a fuel discount?

Yes?

Well, there's a story in the Sunday Age that has just confirmed what I've suspected (known) for some time. Those organisations use those cards to keep tabs on our buying habits.

Every time you swipe your loyalty card a little bit of you is gobbled up by the Supermarket. It not only tells them what you're buying, it also allows them to compile a profile on you so thay can then specifically market their goods to you.

That's why I never use one of those cards. The less info they have about me and my buying habits, the better.

OMINTETGÖRANDE

Jag kan inte stå med min tid slösas bort. No, I can not stand having my time wasted!!


 

It seems I'm not the only one who has a strained relationship with IKEA.

Kate over here and April here have also had their issues with the large Swedish store.

Me? I love visiting IKEA from time to time to browse and see what they have in-store and see what ideas they can give me, but there are times when I find the place extremely frustrating!

IKEA encourages us to check their website for stock availability, to make sure we don't wander in for a specific item and get disappointed when it's not there. Well that would be marvelous if their website was accurate and if, knowing that it wasn't operating correctly, they actually fixed it!

I'm not the only one who has studiously checked stock availability and turned up to find the item well and truly sold out.  I was in there a couple of weeks ago and heard two other women stating the same thing to one of the stores' workers.

The stock prognosis function of the website wasn't accurate for weeks...and, as was said to me in store, they've known about it for ages....also, the website doesn't list all products available in store either.

So, the advice I give to you....don't rely on their website or that cartoon Anna thingy live help desk. Frankly, it's useless.

If you're after something specific, always ring the store and stay on the phone until you speak to someone...otherwise you could be given the runaround too.

Very frustrerande

Translation thanks to Google...(apologies if you're Swedish and the translation has made you laugh out loud and snort coffee through your nose)