If you had £200 worth of gift vouchers for John Lewis ....

[MarvinKMooney]

... What would you buy?

I just can't make my mind up: one big item? Several smaller items? Clothes, sportswear or make up/skincare?

Inspire me!

If you haven't got one already, I'd get a bean to cup coffee machine. Also the cashmere snood - I just bought one for my Mum for Christmas and it is a thing of beauty. They only have wine and toast coloured ones left in the sale (half price, so £25)but they also have orange cashmere scarves for £25 and orange cashmere gloves £17 which I may have been stroking

A lovely new dinner service.

A lovely new dinner service.

A coffee machine hadn't occurred to me, but now you mention it ... . The snood looks very nice.

Gah! When I have little money I want everything and when I have the means I come over all indecisive. No rush, I guess.

Keep the suggestions coming!

One big item.

The rare time I have money/vouchers for me I tend to go for the big thing as there's more times I can afford the cost of the smaller items. So there'll be several opportunities to buy £30 items but rarely a time I'd have £200 in one go.

I won a £300 John Lewis voucher on MN in December which is going on an iPad.

Beware of expiry dates. My dc both got a John Lewis voucher last Christmas which they promptly forgot about (they're not really JL shoppers) so come November I needed something there and bought them off them. They were almost expired but it didn't say so on the card, just on the receipt thing that tells you the balance on the card.

Good point but Nlno worries there - mine run out in 2018. They'll be spent in 10 days

Perfume, nice candle, some nice skincare...stuff you won't buy normally

One big thing. I can usually justify £30-50 on beauty stuff, but £200 on one item/one outfit is a proper treat.

I've just ordered a standard lamp. Called 'Joanna' I think. Cost £250 but I really like it and I know the corner where the Christmas tree currently stands is going to look horribly bare when it gets taken down on twelfth night.

I'd buy Egyptian cotton bedding and a load of make-up but I'd remove the make-up carefully before lying on the bedding

I'd get a handbag or something from the Jigsaw sale (I love Jigsaw stuff for work and JL stock it).

Emma Bridgewater crockery for the kitchen. I have more than enough clothes.

Speaking of cashmere, maybe some cashmere wristwarmers. I absolutely love mine, although they are looking rather shabby now after several years of wear.

I got £150 of vouchers for my birthday this year, and put them towards a Whistles leather biker jacket - my birthday is the end of February, so it happily co-incided with the Grazia 25% off code. I would by something big rather than lots of smaller things.

Put it towards a Dyson cordless vacuum. This will save you so much time and cause you so much pleasure as it is so easy to use that your floors will always be clean that all wrinkles in your face will just disappear!

Definitely get one larger item that will bring you pleasure.

Underwear! Also cushions

I bought the cashmere snood as well as the leather gloves!

Sewing machine

I was just coming on to change my vote to sewing machine but you beat me to it, BananaFritters. I want to learn to sew so that I can alter clothes and eventually make my own.

A coat or boots
Underwear
Makeup

I'm of the mind that I'd spend around £100 on whatever I fancied in the sales, and then keep £100 for when the new stuff comes in and have a treat then.

Mind you, when my lovely boss gave me £200 of John Lewis vouchers for Christmas a few years ago it immediately went on a make up set by Michael Kors (because it came with a rather nice bag that could be used as a evening clutch!) and an iPod Touch, so that blows my spread and spend option straight out the window.

Well I've spent £160 of it this morning. I bought a Garmin GPS activity tracker - totally off brief!

I've also remembered that I have another £25 on a separate JL gift card from a return that I didn't have a receipt for. So I have £80 to spend on fripperies. Hurrah!

Loving these ideas, btw. I momentarily thought 'oooh!' at the idea of a sewing machine, then realised that I was being utterly ridiculous!

Definitely a big ticket item, either a biker jacket or a nice bag probably.