Inks for your Desktop Printers

I have a really good Canon PIMAX MP 550 which prints photo quality pictures. One of the good features is that it has individual colour cartridges, with a small and a large black cartridge as well. So I do not have to buy the composite cartridges.

However, I found the Canon Cartridges to be extremely expensive, almost € 12 per colour, so, even with some give aways, i was paying almost € 80 to reload my printer.

I visited the ink refill centre in Oulu and found that I could but a complete set for € 40, saving 50%.

Then I happened to visit a Lidl outölet and I saw on offer colour cartridges marked as usuable by the MP 550. I bought a set and they wwere about € 3 each and € 3.50 for the larger black cartridge. A total expenditure of € 15.50.

The quality of the print was excellent. So no problem with the ink, although I cannot yet vouch for long term stability.

The problem with Lidl is that they do not keep even good selling products on their shelves for long. A visit to 3 Lidls in Oulu and one in Tampere failed to turn up any more cartridges!

These cartridges are made in the Czech Republic, so i will try to get them directly from there.

Look around before you buy your cartridges or even refill your old ones. It is very likely there is a manufacturer making your type of cartridge far cheaper than what you are paying.

Strawberry season ending

The strawberry season is fast coming to a close because of the intense heat all over Finland.

Annikki was pushing me to buy the strawberries,- I held off till I knew the  bottom had been hit.

On Wednesady I got 5 kg of Strawberries at just €15.90 (Old Finnish Markka 96) per kilo from Halpa Halli. This is as low as I have been buying it all these 26 years.

Annikki was amazed how I had held on as she had read in the newspapers of how the season was rapidly ending.

I ate my fill as I drove home with the box next to me in the car. in the evening, Annikki dished up a huge plate of strawberries and ice cream, reviving mychildhood  memories of the Nilgiris Hole in the wall on Brigade Road, Bangalore.

I am satisfied. I await the strawberry season of next year!

Cheapest Petrol Prices in Oulu and Finland

When I put up the price of petrol at Hartola, the cheapest in Finland, on this my Oulu Best Buy Blog, a friend, now living in India, came back quick with a link to the daily cheapest prices in Oulu  and the twenty cheapest locations all over Finland.

The Hartola ABC, which I recorded in my previous entry of Oulu Best Buy, is the cheapest of all.

But these other web sites are valuable if you are cost conscious!

Many thanks, Yuvarajan.

Petrol: An absolute BEST BUY

While I was driving back from Helsinki a couple of weeks ago, I had just filled my petrol tank at an ABC near Lahti. As I approached Hartola, just after Lahti, I noticed a petrol station with the price of just € 1.34 for a litre of Grade 95, which was almost 11 cents cheaper than what I had paid just a few minutes earlier.

As I passed through Hartola, I noticed that almost all the pumps were selling petrol around this price.

Last week, when I went on my drive to Helsinki, I approached Hartola and saw that all of the pumps were offering a rate around € 1,33 whereas I had paid € 1,46 in Oulu earlier that morning. Having covered around 425 km, I stopped at an ABC, which had just the pump but no other services, and filled my tank at the rate of € 1,329 per litre.

Taking into account that I get a 5% bonus on ABC purchases, or almost 7 cents per litre, I was paying just € 1.25 per litre, 21 cents lower than what I had paid in the morning.

I consider this an absolute BEST BUY if you are driving to Helsinki.

You can fill up again on the return journey.

As my old jallopy gives me about 16 km per litre (6 litres per 100 km), and with a fuel tank of around 55 litres, this is a huge saving.

On my next trip I will have just enough fuel to reach Hartola, so I get the advantage of a full tank or almost € 7.

Let me know of other places where fuel is cheap as I do travel a lot and every cent does count!!

Remember to register your name if you want to cntinue reading this blog, as soon I will have to only allow registered readers to read all my blogs. And you have to register for each blog individually. (More in an earlier blog entry.)

An important request to ALL our readers

Dear Readers of all our blogs,

It is with great sadness that we have to announce that we will now have to make all our major blogs accessible only to those who register with us.

The subjects we have covered over the years include the wrestler Dara Singh (probably the most popular and controversial blog entries, ever), St. Stephen's College, Delhi,  Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai, Bishop Cotton School, Bangalore, the UN, talk Shows in the USA, politics, the Kandathil and Maliyakal families, Kampitie, Vesaisentie, Annikki's creative art, achievements of our children and grandchildren, CHAFF (Chamber for Assistance of Finns and Foreigners), Findians, our numerous friends, relatives, our travels, recipes, and life in general. Above all, t they contained the nostalgia the people love.

Due to circumstances far beyond our control, which affect the lives of many of our loved ones, we have to create the SETTINGS of our blogs so that only those whom we invite can read them. This is very sad as our blogs have reunited many friends across the continents.

With over 120000 readers around the world, some reading more than one of our blogs, for a decrepit old blogger and his wife sitting near the North Pole, this will prove to be a Herculean task, but one which has to be done for the safety, security and well being of many of our loved ones.

Please take the time and effort to send us an email telling us which of our blogs you want to be added to so that you can access them freely.

Our sincere apologies to each and every one of you lovely readers who have kept us going for almost a decade and a half by your readership, your inputs and your outputs!

Yours in great sadness as technology besides being a positive aspect of life can also be a very negative one.

Annikki and Jacob Matthan

Oulu, Finland

Are you a sugar addict?

In Finland there are certain times of the year when prices of some commodities come tumbling down.

Now is berry preserving time. Strawberries prices start to come down as the harvesting continues.

This means that the price of granulated white sugar comes down dramatically.

This week I have seen as low as € 0.65 per kg.

If you use a lot of sugar, like I used to, and I do find several of my friends consuming so much sugar in their coffee that the fluid is so thick that the spoon stands up in it, then this is the time to buy your sugar.

I noticed, as before, that if you buy a whole carton of this sugar, the prices is even lower. Look around for this best buy.

Also remember, that you can go to some strawberry fields and pick strawberries and pay for it directly to the farmer. Much lower price than what you pay in the shops. In my younger days, I used to go with Annikki, and while she plucked the strawbwerries, I crawled around finding the best ones and eating them - FREE. This is allowed!!!

The berries you find in the forest are free for picking, but not from cultivated fields. Cloudberries, Linganberries, Blackberries, Red berries, and many other types!

I am not a berry fan except absolutely fresh strawberries which reminds me of my boyhood days (early 1950s) when we used to go as a family to a small hole-in-the-wall shop at the bottom of Brigade Road in Bangalore and eat strawberries and cream or ice cream.

The name of that hole-in-the-wall shop was NILGIRIS!

Some Indian guys went around last year in Helsinki and plucked strawberries and did not pay for them, causing a great controversy!

Mushrooms are also free for picking but PLEASE GO WITH SOMEONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT MUSHROOMS. MANY ARE DEADLY POSIONOUS.

Have a great summer.