Hello Everyone! As most of our travel plans have been curtailed this year we have found ourselves with a bit more extra money to make purchases. Here are our top purchases of the year and why! We also want to advise that this post contains affiliate links so any purchases you make we will receive a small commission.
Camera
We finally took the plunge and decided to start our blog in May, we both have decent smart phones but we really wanted something that could capture the details – especially with our great Irish Landscapes.
We saved up some money for this purchase and read reviews online, in the end we decided to go for a Nikon D3300 that we got second hand at MPB.com
So far this has been a great purchase, it joins us on all our travels and has got us some great captures for our blog and instagram.
Instant Pot
We both work pretty long hours due to our professions and are always looking for ways to make things easier around the house. After recommendations from friends and watching some YouTube reviews we took the plunge and bought an Instant Pot. This has to be one of the best purchases we have made, we use it pretty much daily to make curries, stews and soups. It has also got us exploring vegetarian/vegan meals with lentils and beans.
The big plus for us with the Instant Pot is we literally come in from work throw our ingredients in, set the time and go get washed or laundry etc and your dinner is ready in around an hour- We regulalry use cheaper cuts of meat that take longer to cook and they come out super tender!
Coffee Machine
Another purchase we made for our house is a filter coffee machine with timer, we both enjoy our coffee and would regularly get a delivery from Hasbean. We always got up in the morning and used our Aeropress but the convenience of setting a time on our machine at night and waking up to freshly brewed coffee is brilliant.
Robot Hoover
Most recently we took the plunge and bought a Robot Hoover, we opted for the Amazon Basics model as it was only £99 and we thought we can upgrade in future if needed. Our Hoover – now named Trevor, arrived two weeks ago – we have it based in our hallway and it comes with a remote control for its different cleaning settings.
Every morning we come down, have our coffee and send him off on auto mode, being a basic model it does struggle navigating sometimes but it has done a great job so far and manages to keep our floors really clean! This model also has sensors to detect drops as we discovered when we first let it loose at the top of the stairs and stood ready to catch it! We are completely sold on Robot Hoovers now!
Craft Gin Club
We have now received a couple of boxes from the Craft Gin Club and have really enjoyed what we received, they always come with a range of goodies and ideas –
Referral link for £16 off first box.
Flavourly
We also keep an Eye on Flavourly for offers on their Craft beers, we have got a couple of boxes this year for around £30 for 24 beers. We enjoy trying the variety of beers from Brewers that we would never see in Ireland. However, we don’t think their monthly subscription is really value for money compared to just getting beers locally.
Naked Wines
On the recommendation of a colleague we signed up to Naked Wines, our initial order was 6 bottles for £30. We received a mixture of red and white wines and they were really nice. Naked Wines allow you to deposit each month into their “piggy bank” which you can then spend on their wines, if you do this you also receive a discount. We are currently making deposits and are going to spend it before Christmas to stock up instead of getting our normal supermarket wines.
Click here to find out more (Referral link)
Ireland & Elsewhere 