Five little treats: August 2022

The cost of living crisis is getting worse in the UK, so I’m back with a few small and affordable treats to cheer us up. As we have less in our pockets I’m including a very decent freebie as well as the usual items under £20, and keeping most of it well under a tenner.

Here are my top five latest picks:

FREE! Up to 5 months of Apple services subscriptions with Barclaycard

More information here.

New and existing Barclaycard customers can get up to five months of free Apple services to share with their family, including Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple News+ (including a large number of magazines) and Apple Arcade games. The sign-up is open between 20th August and 24th September 2022. Subscriptions will be charged after the five-month period ends, so be sure to cancel in plenty of time if you don’t want to continue any of them.

Ideal for keeping everyone amused if you’re going out less, ditching media subscriptions etc due to the financial crisis most of us now find ourselves in.

Lovecasa 450ml tea mug with filter & lid

Approx £14.40 at Amazon UK.

I’m drinking more loose leaf tea recently, and find it more energy-efficient to make a mug rather than an oversized pot, so this Lovecasa design really hit the spot. It has a generous 450ml capacity, a sturdy filter that you can remove without burning your fingers, and a lid to keep the contents warm. The lids are also designed to let any condensation neatly run back into the cup, and when they’re removed and turned upside down they make a perfect saucer for the filter basket. Comes in a range of colours, and the whole lot is dishwasher safe.

As is often the case with Amazon, the prices for different colours seem to go up and down every few days, plus there are different voucher codes to apply on each page to save more money. The one I bought last month ended up costing me £10, including free delivery.

Bird & Blend loose leaf tea

Assorted cold brew blends available from £3.50.

A branch of this tea shop chain opened up near us last year, and the sheer variety of their offerings means there’s something to suit almost everyone’s tastes. In the last few weeks I’ve been trying out a few of their teas that can be cold brewed to beat the heat, give the kettle a rest, and make staying hydrated much more interesting. Current favourites include their Strawberry Lemonade, Deckchair Dreaming and Pina Colada blends, but as we head into autumn I’ll be sipping on hot Cherry Cola Bottles tea too. It’s cheaper than a crack habit anyway, right?

Essie Expressie quick dry nail colour

RRP £7.99, buy at at Superdrug, Boots, Amazon UK, Lookfantastic

Essie have pitched this as a convenient fast-dry nail colour where you paint a single coat onto bare nails, let it dry for about 90 seconds, and head out the door. It’s aimed at customers who like to change up their looks every day or two with fashion colours, but in my opinion it looks far, far better if you do two coats and bung on any quick drying clear top coat after that.

The shade range is really fun and interesting, and my favourite for late summer and autumn is No. 180 ‘bolt and be bold’, a rich 1970s-inspired spicy pumpkin orange/red. The bottles regularly turn up in bundle offers, and are currently ‘buy one get one half price’ at Superdrug or 13% off at Amazon. There’s a bit of a learning curve with the angled brush, but once you get the hang of it a quick mani is easy.

Boots Ingredients glycolic body ‘cream’

£6.00 for 200ml, buy at Boots.

This is a light, watery lotion at best so I have no idea why they called it a cream, but bear with me here and ignore the daft name. Light treatment lotions and body serums are all the rage in fancy skincare at the moment, although many of them are insanely overpriced, so this £6.00 offering is quite reasonable if it works for you. This glycolic acid lotion doesn’t mention the amount of active ingredient anywhere (again, tsk, Boots, tsk) but I’ve been using it for three weeks and it does seem to be working in a nice gentle way.

It claims to give you ‘younger and more radiant skin’. More precisely, the gentle chemical exfoliating action loosens dull surface skin cells, making skin look brighter and more even, and it may help to clear ingrown hairs and superficial blocked pores too. It also has no added perfume, which I really like. Oh, and don’t forget to use sunscreen afterwards.

How are you going to treat yourself this week?