How Much is a Pound Worth? - How Much is a Pound Worth?

The Weird 'Breathing' Gadget

Hello! Today's purchase is...ummm...supposed to be a "ultra breathe respiratory exercise training breathe"...whatever the hell that is, it's designed to apparently increase lung capacity by 50% so when it arrives I will be starting a little side experiment to see if this thing really works..more details to come. All I know is that it cost me 99p and it is today's wonderful Purchase!

On a complete video plugging side note...check out my house-mates latest vlog ...heck watch all of them if you have time, they're really quite funny :-)

Innocent Little Purchase

Hello all! Today is a historic day, today marks the first day whereby I haven't bought my item off eBay! I emailed Innocent Smoothies earlier today and told them all about my stupid experiment, they were intrigued and I sent my press release to the big cheeses at the awesome smoothie company and they agreed to send me something cool if I posted them a pound coin. So today's purchase is an special one of a kind Innocent A5 Notebook with scribblings of all the staff at Innocent in, and all for a simple pound coin.

Preparing for Powerful Phone Calls

Hello! Before I show you today's awesome purchase, I just thought I'd show you my collection of the items so far, the snakes arrived today and I'm pleased to announce that their sell-buy date is in late 2011 so I will be able to sell them...so long as I don't eat them between now and then. You can see the advert (frame in the post), the film cells, the snakes and my personal favourite, the wade Bush Baby :-)

Right, today's is another fabulous double found only seconds ago. The first is a Phillips Fizz Mobile Phone (60p). I was inspired to get a 99p phone by my flatmate Tim earlier today but I fell at the first hurdle when I realised that I had to pay £10 initial top-up for it when I bought it, so I headed to eBay and found this gem of a phone, can't wait to see if it genuinely works. Secondly, and with far less of a back story is this 'Medium Power Rangers Fancy Dress Suit with Helmet Missing', I don't think it'll hit me how awesome this is until it's arrival in a few days. So that's that everyone, a week has been completed, £7 spent...it's been epic. Here's to another week :-)

The Premier League Double

Today is a historic day for the Experiment. For the first time so far, I've been able to fit TWO items into my £1 budget! The items are a program from the 1990 League 2 clash between Port Vale and Newcastle FC AND more than 50 Premier League Pogs from 1995! I'm literally QUITE excited about their arrival!

In other news, I received the first few items today from the start of the Experiment! The Hitachi advert, the Bush Baby and the film cells have all arrived and are all brilliant! This gave me the idea to start doing weekly updates and summaries of the week's purchases with photos of proof and stuff, so yeah...extra long blog tomorrow with photos of the mysterious Bush Baby, the Star Wars Film Cell and the Ultra-Modern Hitachi Cassette Player advert! I can't believe it's almost been a week already.

The £30 T-Shirt

Hello All! Just a few things before I get to today's buy. These purchases will get better and more exciting, I'm just finding my feet really, I'll start to send letters out and venture away from eBay to find more interesting and extravagant items. Secondly, I won't be selling all of these items after the year, any that can actually be sold will, but some might be flights, hotel stays, dinners etc which unfortunately due to the whole issue of time cannot be sold...stupid lack of time machines.

Anyway, on to today's, now I've been using eBay's Buy it Now feature for quick and easy purchases but today I realised the power of the last minute bid. Take for example today's purchase, I saw it with less than 1 minute to go and bid on it. I later found online that is was worth £30! I told you a pound was worth alot! Anyway, here it is...it's a Bowie T-Shirt...pretty cool eh? and only 97p!

The Mysterious Letter - Buy No.5

I was looking for an autograph really, they seem to swarm eBay, countless numbers of Edward Cullen's face with a scribble below it, selling for hundreds of pounds. Autographs seemed boring, especially when most of them are fake anyway...I was on page 8 of results when I saw it...until it arrived I can't really explain what it is. It's from 1963, it says House of Commons on the top...but apart from that, not even the seller knew what it was. Mystery is today's purchase...it's price? 99p.

Sweets for a Stirling

Hissssstory has been made today...well kinda...not really...just wanted to say hissssstory. Today's £1 buy is a wholesale job lot of 30 Yellow Belly Snakes. You know? The Haribo snakes...25p each? Yeah...I found 30. Definitely the tastiest buy so far, then again, you never know how the Bush Baby might taste. Bye Bye!

Film Cell Currency

Hello, seems only a few hours ago I spent my well earned money on...a china bush baby...but the adventure continues with today's purchase for £1. eBay again helped me out as I bought an original film cell from Return of the Jedi, the scene with Luke and his lightsaber in. It looks pretty cool. Bye bye!

Pottery for a Pound

Right, I'm getting quite used to this now. Moved into my new house today in Cornwall and got inspired to buy some new decor for my bedroom...so how fortunate for me that this wonderful...thing...was on eBay for 99p. It is a Wade Ceramic Bush Baby...epic...and tiny.

Vintage for £1

It's done. I don't know how but it's done. I have completed purchase 1 of 365. It didn't take long, it just came to me. It is...this:

Yeah...I know...epic. It's an A4 advert from the 1960s for Hitachi's new cassette car system. Considering today I bought a new stereo for my car I think it's quite appropriate. Anyway, it was 99p with free postage and comes with a frame after some negotiation with the seller.

I'm not going to write much more...I'm just gonna let you bask in the glory that is...One Pound Vintage.

The Idea

Sitting watching BBC News at 10 is never a particularly exciting pastime, especially when all you're waiting for is Match of the Day to come on afterwards. I was drifting in an out of some story about the City of London's position in the world of finance when I heard something which caught my attention. One of the reporters mentioned a 'weak pound', now I'm not economics expert but I am sort of aware at what a 'weak pound' is, then I thought to myself...I'm not particularly keen on our glorious pound being called weak, especially when compared with the financial powerhouses of Japan and the USA.

Anyway, this is dull for me and you...this 'weak pound' thing reminded me of a story I read on a woman who lived for a year by only spending £1 a day. I then heard these news reporters talking about the 'value of a pound'...I didn't really understand this, I mean...a pound is a pound? It's a packet of football stickers, a bottle of coke, 2 Boost Duo's...how exactly can the value of a pound change?...especially without consulting me first.

I remember the great uproar when Chomps and Fudge changed the price by about 4p...there were even Facebook 'if one trillion people join this group'...groups trying to get the price lowered. If this this much uproar happens over a 4p price change over the space of 5 years, how have people seemingly brushed aside the idea of our pound being weak.

Why can't somebody show the world that our pound isn't weak, it's as strong as it ever was...it's epic and awesome and has Latin on it!

For 365 days I will be making our pound strong again, not by writing a stern letter of complaint to the God of Finance but by showing you, the glorious public, how much a pound is really worth!

I'll be writing letter, sending pounds, searching online, through car boots and charity shops to find the best things that we can buy for a pound these days! I'll be keeping a day by day log of these purchases along with images and stories which you can follow on RSS, Twitter, Email subscription or Google Reader.

At the end of this epic year of spending, I'll be re-selling these items to hopefully, depending on this blog's success, make some profit, 100% of which I'll be giving to charity.

Please bookmark, sign up, follow me, tweet me or just delete me from memory (actually..not that last one) and keep track of this experiment...no, this adventure...to make our pound strong once more!