Copy Paper, Hard Disk, Oranges, Coconut Milk,

Do you, like me, use a lot of A4 paper for printing at home.

I suggest you buy your copy, laser and inkjet printing paper ar the Flea Market (Kirpputori), Paljetie 12 (the building next to one marked Paljatie 10) as it is just Euro 2.95 for a packet. You can buy single packets (500 sheets) at this price. They have 3 different brands to choose from.



(I will be doing a special about the best Flea Markets in Oulu in a few days - so stay tuned.)

Looking for a 160 MB external hard disk? The Serv-It Computer Store at 53 Kansankatu, has a few LaCie P3 Hard Drives, USB 2.0 Design by F. A. Porsche for just Euro 99. The speed is rated at 480 Mbit/second.

Location of Serv-It, Kansankatu 53, Oulu

I bought 6 kg of Oranges yesterday at the K-Supermarket at Joutensilta (Swan Bridge), Paljetie 4, as it was just Euro 0.79 per kg (if you have a PLUSSSA card).


Oranges

I also bought Rainbow Coconut Milk at Euro 0.79 for a 400 ml tin at PRISMA. It is also available at this price as a special offer in Euromarkets today and tomorrow.

The three main retail chains in Finland have their own cards which offer regular consuusers some discounts on marked products.



I have the PLUSSA card which can be used in all the K-Group Shops, in some hotels, Neste Petrol pumps, and a few other places. The PLUSSA card is represented by a number of yellow balls. For instance, the real bargain of a 7.2 megapixel camera for jut Euro 199 that Vamsi bought was on a special offer on my PLUSSA Card - and I just saw that it is again on offer at the same price against the PLUSSA card. Similarly, the camera that Paneer bought was also on offer on the PLUSSA card.

The Arina Group has its Savings Card which is green in colour and is usable in PRISMA and all the S-Group shops.

The Euromarket Group has its Bonus card which is a golden yellow in colour.

I have the first two. When I got them they were free to any customer. I understand that now-a-days you may have to pay something to get the card. I have not found many offers in Euromarket to justify getting myself the Euromarket card, but I have certainly saved a lot of money using the PLUSSA and the S-Savings card.

Spanish and Peruvian products Best Buys of today

Do not be fooled by the "Finnish" (Suomalainen) label, which exploits the sentiments of Finns to pay higher prices for these products. They are just the same in quality as products from any part of Europe.

Vegetable and fruit prices will be on the way down now that spring is approaching. So watch the prices carefully as from now through summer we can afford the vegetables.

There are 2 Citymarkets presently serving the City of Oulu. The older one is at Raksila. The newer one is at Kakkuri.

There are 3 Best Buy recommendations today, and you will find them in the Citymarkets.

Spanish cucumber is available at Euro 0.99 per kg.

Spanish cucumber at Euro 0.99 per kg

Arctic lettuce is available today at Euro 0.99 per kg.


Spanish Arctic lettuce Euro 0.99 per kg

And while you are Citymarket, you may want to buy a couple of Peruvian mangoes which are at Euro 1.49 per kg.


Peruvian mangoes are Euro 1.49 per kg

Have a great shopping day.

Best Buys of Electronic Components and Parts

Kerstin Schewe emailed me that she got a really good buy at Kodin Antilla when she bought herself a set of HAMA headphones for just Euro 5.95.

Thanks Kerstin. That was a good buy.



We buy all our small electronic goods and parts from a small family-owned shop in Tuira called SP-Elektroniikka Oy, Merikoskenkatu 12, 90500 Oulu. Telephone number is (08) 556 5858. You can get a free catalogue (in Finnish) from them and also refer to it on the internet, so you do not have to go on a wild goose chase. It is meant for hobbyists and those who do their own computer and electronics repairs. Hence, it is very price sensitive.

SP-Elektroniikka Oy, Tuira, Oulu

This shop has saved me many hundreds of euros as I tend to repair my small electronic gadgets myself.

There are more expensive such shops in Oulu, especially near the University. But many BEST BUYS are certain in SP-Elektroniikka.

Another great shopping day

Bananas	Euro 0.99/kg	Euro 0.99/kg
Arctic Lettuce	Euro 1.29/kg	Euro 1.29/kg
Harvest Basket French Fries	Euro 1.49/2 kg	Euro 0.75/kg
Chicken Breast Filet	Euro 2.99/500 gm	Euro 5.98/kg
Perfect Filter Coffee	Euro 0.95/500 gm	Euro 1.90/kg
Whole Almonds	Euro 1.99/0.2 kg	Euro 9.95/kg
Alaska Polock Filet Fish in crispy breadcrumbs	Euro 2.99/0.8 kg	Euro 3.73/kg
Ceylon Assam Tea Bags	Euro 1.49/100 bags
Indonesian Soya Sauce	Euro 0.99
Japanese Soyas Sauce	Euro 0.99

Bananas - Euro 0.99 per kg

Arctic lettuce Euro 1.29 per kg
Today was a great shopping day as I picked up some real bargains. Most of the stuff on my shopping list were obtained from Lidl at the prices shown above. All winners!

As I did not find all the stuff I wanted at LIDL, I went to the Säästökouppa at Jukolankuja. (See an earlier entry for the map to reach this place.)There I had several great finds:

Eggs Euro 0.75 for as packet of 10
Tabasco Green Mild Sauce - Euro 0.20 per bottle - I bought all the remaining bottles.
Knorr Teriyake Ready Food - Euro 0.20 per packet - I bought all the available packets.
Chinese Soya Sauce - Euro 0.30 per bottle - I bought all the available bottles.
Druvan Carribean Sweet Chilli Sauce - Euro 0.20 per bottle - I bought all the available ones.

I got a few more offers which were one off ones. (I made the above ones also "one off" by buying what was on offer. :-)

On the whole, a great shopping morning for us. Remember to let us know YOUR BEST BUYS.

Best Buy - Books

If you are into buying books, especially tryng to get your books from abroad, today I received information that the Nispero Kirjakahvila that I featured recently on the CHAFF Blog as well as my Personal Jacob's Blog has something very special to offer you.

It is the cheapest place to order foreign books in Oulu.

They charge just Euro 4.50 per order. It is does not change whether it is just 1 book or 10 books.

That is really great, considering how expensive it is to get foreign books generally, even through Amazon.com.

Hanna and Jarmo Stoor of Nispero Kirjakahvila

Known as Nispero Kirjakahvila (The Nispero Book Coffee Shop), it is located in quite a strategic place.




Nispero Kirjakahvila location in Oulu

Good reading.

And just by the way, if Jarmo jests with you to try your hand at arm wrestling - my advice - DON'T. He is the Arm Wrestling Champion of these parts.

Vamsi puts his Best Buy camera to test

(Cross-posted in the CHAFF and Jacob's Blogs.)

Many of you will remember how Vamsi got a real bargain of a 7.2 megapixel camera for jut Euro 199.

This one beat the one we got for Paneer, but as Paneer was time-bound, he got the Best Buy of that day!

Vamsi has been kind enough to share some of the absolutely great photographs he got when he went to Iso-Syöte, the downhill ski centre an hour and a half from Oulu, with his colleagues from the Technical Faculty at Oulu University.

I share below some of the great photography of a master photographer in the making.

I was looking fortward to the action photo taken while Vamsi was skiing down the slope with the camera strapped to his chest! :-)

Majestic view from the top of the hill
with the top of a pair of ski's in the foreground.
Great composition.


This snow formation is truly a masterpiece.


This just that you techies know the problems faced
in Finland for transmission of signals!

Anyone like to hazard a guess how they clean up the masts and the dishes?

Keep those photos coming, Vamsi, AND Paneer.

Best Buy for Saturday

Today's Best Buy can be found in two sister shops at two ends of Oulu.

Säästökuoppa at Jukolan Jätti,
(just off the road to the Airport) Jukolankuja.


Säästökuoppa Kaijon Jätti,
(near the University) at Sammonkatu.



Spomlek Light Edam Cheese (17%) 500 gm packing is available at Euro 1.59 which works out at Euro 3.18 per kg (Euro 3.99).

The Dairy Cooperative, SPOMLEK, in Radzyń Podlaski, is located 75 km north of Lublin and 130 km east of Warsaw in Poland. It is one of the biggest and also one of the most modern Polish dairy producers.

I help clean out Kotiherkku

I paid another visit to Kotiherkku in Välivaino.

They had dropped the prices of all products, except alcohol and cigarrettes (which they cannot do for legal reasons) by 50%.

I helped to clean out the shop.

I bought almost the entire remaining candles to be used outside for a Restaurant friend. They use ita as a welcome sign in Finland.

I bought a huge number of small and large delicious flavoured yoghurt as we all eat a lot of yoghurt - less that Euro 0.15 cents for a plastic container.

I would have bought more but my wallet ran out of money! :-)

Biscuit fans...

Here is great news for Biscuit fans, like me. The Biscuits Rings are available for a couple of days at a price of just Euro 0.59 (Euro 0.79) at Lidl.

Buscuit Rings - just Euro 0.59

Best Buy for today!

Best Buys of yesterday...

Wow! this page has taken off like a bomb. Sandra Grotsch, said

"The new blog is fantastic! I will recommend it to everybody I know."

Ilari Sohlo wanted to know whether I had left any Basmati Rice in the KotiHerkku shop in Välivainio?

Answer was - No! I do not leave anything for stragglers.

Ilari gave me a great Best Buy lead.

Curd is known as Viili in Finnish.


Curd, known as Viili in Finnish

It is very popular and also expensive. The price ranges from Euro 0.27 to Euro 0.45 for a small 200 gm plastic container.

The BEST BUY price at Lidl submitted by Ilari is just Euro 0.22.

Ilari advised buying one at a time to get the benefit of the Euro 0.02 cent downward round-off - Euro 0.20 per 200 gm.

Thanks Ilari for this info.

I went to buy my 3 kg of oranges at the K Supermarket in Oulunsalo, near the Oulu Airport. I was able to buy over 4 kg with no problem. As we drink a lot of fresh squeezed orange juice, that was a great buy.


Jaffa Oranges

Then I discovered that very large Brazilian mangoes were just Euro 1.59 (Euro 2.99) and I bought some semi-ripe ones. Another great buy.


Brazilian mangoes

I also picked up 1.5 kg pre-packed bags of Golden Delicious Apples for just Euro 1.69 (Euro 2.09 per kkg). This was pre-packed and the quality was exceptionally good.


Golden Delicious apples

This made the 13 km trip from Oulu financially worthwhile. Otherwise, my petrol cost would have made the price for buying just oranges uneconomic.

I stopped at the Säästökuoppa in Jukolankuja on the way back.


Säästökuoppa at Jukolan Jätti,
(just off the road to the Airport) Jukolankuja.

As individual small plastic packs of flavoured yoghurt was on my shopping list, I found that the price in this shop was the same as the price I pay in Halppa-Halli in Toppila, 4 packs for Euro 1.0. In Halpa-Halli it is necessary to buy 8 packs to get this lower price. Here it was just 4 packs to get the price offer.

Another great buy today was tins of 185 gm Tuna Flakes, both in oil and brine for just Euro 0.25 (Euro 0.39) from Lidl. The salad leaves as reported yesterday were still at Euro 1.29 per kg, which was cheaper than the Euro 1.49 at the K-Supermarket in Oulunsalo.

I had fun shopping today and beat the market prices. I saved around Euro 10 (even after accounting for the extra petrol I had to spend in driving to Oulunsalo.)

Keep your suggestions coming in as we have a great readership out there wanting to hear from you.

Best Buys for today...

(The normal lowest prices in Oulu are given in brackets.)

The Best Buy for today is at the K-Supermarket in Oulunsalo, en route to the Airport.


You can buy 3 kg of Jaffa Oranges at just Euro 0.59 per kg (Euro 0.99 per kg). If you are a fan of Juhla Mokka Filter Coffee, you can also pick up 2 x 500 gm packets at 1.99 per packet (Euro 2.69 per packet). But this is not the best price for the popular Juhla Mokka Filter Coffee, as most S-market shops, including the newly opened one at the end of Rotuaari, is offering Juhla Mokka Filter Coffee at Euro 1.95 per 500 gm packet.

Yesterday was a bumper saving day for us. I was a bit late reaching the Kotiherkku K shop in Välivainio. Most of the really good bargains, as toilet paper, had been snapped up.

Here are just some of the really good bargains I picked up yesterday at Kotiherkku.

4 x 1 kg of Basmati rice at Euro 1.50 per kg (Euro 1.99 per kg)
3 x 200 gm bottles of Euroshopper Instant Coffee at Euro 2.09 per bottle (Euro 2.49 per bottle),
4 packets of various flavour Twinnings Green teas at Euro 1.81 per packet (Euro 2.29 per packet),
2 packets of 500 gm Euroshopper Filter Coffee at Euro 0.69 per pcket (Euro 0.95 per packet),
4 tins of 400 gm Latz cat Food for Iitu, our cat, at Euro 0.69 per tin (Euro 0.89 per tin), and
4 packets of 400 gm Latz dry cat food at Euro 1.12 per packet (Euro 1.45 per packet).

I had indicated that the lowest price for French Fries was 0.78 per kg. This is for the the crinkle cut variety. Yesterday I found that Harvest Golden Longs at Lidl for 0.75 per kg.

My other best buys yesterday were Rape Seed Oil, where a 1 litre bottle at Cassa in Rajakylä is just Euro 0.89 (Euro 1.09 per litre). I also got salad leaves at just Euro 1.49 per kg at Lidl (Euro 2.49 per kg) and Mango at Euro 1.79 per kg (Euro 2.29 per kg).

This news item may interest you:

23.2.2006
Food prices compared in Oulu
LIDL AGAIN CHEAPER THAN OTHER SHOPS
In the middle of January the Consumer Agency and the State Provincial Office of Oulu compared food basket prices at five shops in Oulu. Lidl had the lowest prices for common products and private label products. Prisma had the next lowest prices.

You can read the full report (also in English which is available at a pdf file).

In this report, Citymarket in Kakkuri is taken as the standard for comparison, Prisma is 4% cheaper and Lidl is 8% cheaper for standard consumer products. For products which carry private labels, Lidl is 11% cheaper and Prisma is 4% cheaper than Citymarket. For premium branded products, Prisma is 2% cheaper than Citymarket.

Our Annikki & Jacob Best Buy System works out at over 20% cheaper than Lidl!

Launch of Our New Blog

When Annikki and I wrote our book, "HANDBOOK FOR SURVIVAL IN FINLAND" in 1994 after almost 10 years of careful research, the guarantee that went with the book was that if the buyer did not get his or her money back, by following our suggestions in the book, within a month of purchase, we would refund the cost of the book.



5000 copies of the book sold. There was not a single "money-back" claimant.

A few weeks ago our local newspaper, Kaleva, started a Best Buy column. In earlier blog entries, KALEVA follows us 12 years on.. both on our personal blog, Jacpb's Blog, and well as our CHAFF Blog, Disgust at Kaleva's "Hintavahti" column we accused Kaleva of trying to capitalise on our Fun game and also of perpetrating a fraud on its readers.

We also gave our best buy suggestion in the latter entry.

We were innundated with requests to run our own Best Buy Blog page for our readers in Oulu.

So that we did not burden our world-wide readers with such local news, we have started this Oulu Best Buy Blog and we will post here any good finds that we make.

Some will be "shock" passing best buys, while others will be best buys that are more permanent in nature.

For instance, today, there is a K-Shop in Välivainio called KOTIHERKKU which is closing down in the next three days as a new K-Market has opened a few tens of metres away. Many of the products are on offer at a reduction of 30% starting at 7:00 am TODAY. The shelves will be empty within the day, but tomorrow and upto Saturday, the discount will increase till they clear the shelves. (The discount does not apply to fresh products, baked products, meat, meat based products, ready foods, milk home products, cheeses, alcohol, cigarettes, newspapers, mother's milk based products and drinks in returnable bottles. Check the list when you enter the shop!)

Location of KOTIHERKKU in Välivainio

It is worth checking out this shop for things you may need. But, be warned, the basic prices in these small shops are usually higher than in the larger Supermarkets. So be sure of the prices before you fall for this 30% discount as 30% on 200% will still make products more expensive.

So to get the best buy information, check back frequently.

If you have any suggestions of Best Buys, please send us an email, and we will investigate and determine the facts behind your suggestion.

Best buys can be on anything - from your daily needs as food, toileteries, to cars, houses, etc.

If you live in another part of Finland and would like to submit details from your area, we will judge your finds against the Oulu standards and publish. So do keep your suggestions coming in. Maybe we can start a national network of Best Buy Blogs for all the major cities.

Welcome to our Best Buy Blog, and as the first suggestion for this blog we give one which is used quite a lot in Indian cooking - Coconut Milk.

The prices of a tin of Coconut Milk are in some shops as high as Euro 2 (Euro 5 per litre). The price is a function of the creaminess of the milk.

However, for standard cooking purposes, the very BEST BUY Coconut Milk is the one available in PRISMA shops in Oulu. The price of te Rainbow Brand is Euro 0.79 for a 400 ml tin (Euro 1.975 per litre). We know that this is cheaper than what is available in even many of the Wholesale Outlets in Oulu.

Our previous best buy was the 2.5 kg Euroshopper French Fries from K-Citymarkets at Euro 1.95 for a 2.5 kg packing which is Euro 0.78 per kg.

Keep those suggestions coming in.