DIY store prices

The prices that always amazes me are the packs of about ten screws or bolts. They are absolutely exhorbitant. I think a pack of 10 bolts and wing nuts was £3.99.

It's true, but where else is one to go to get them?

By the way, it's "exorbitant" (no 'h'), the word is not related to "exhortation". I had first thought it meant "out of this world" (from orb meaning globe), but actually it comes from orbita meaning track or path, so something exorbitant is literally off-track, deviating from the norm, often excessively so.

In the case of nuts and bolts,

Are you a fan of

Brilliant - bookmarked.

Indeed, a shameful rip off of customers.

Aladdin's Cave!

Looks a good site but they don't have stainless wing nuts. B-(

Check out B&Q - there's usually surplus of wingnuts in there.

This is another site, that posts and interesting word each day.

It will come in handy one day Harry :-)

I go to my local fastening supplier. My last purchase was 50 x 75mm x M12 bright zinc coach bolts, complete with nuts and washers for less than the best online price I could find for the bolts alone.

Colin Bignell

Are you factoring in the extra miles to go to the extra shops? At even

Your link has "awad" in it - now THAT looks exhorbitant.

Then there's Mackays in Cambridge which always seemed to have obscure bits and pieces if you needed them.

Mackays is great, but everything is astonishingly expensive.

But people who buy stuff there are only wanting three and only once. So they're happy to spend what seems a reasonable amount to achieve some task.

They don't know they can buy ten times as many for a tenth of the price at Screwfix and, in some cases, don't care as they don't want 97 left over.

So why do you do it?

If some of the shops are local enough to be within walking distance, one might conceivably drive less.

Why "even"? You make it sound as though you would normally cost it at more. I'd put it at nearer half that.

Naturally, for such comparisons, one should use the marginal, not the total, cost of motoring, since the base cost is attributable to the policy decision to have a car at all. Thus the cost attributable to making any particular trip boils down to just the cost of fuel used, plus perhaps a small allowance for tyre wear. Most other costs are annual irrespective of mileage.