I've been using the crafting crate at the kin house for free ingredient packs. It is usable once every 24 hours (requires VIP). For some reason I thought the 'one use' meant 'one toon' ....... What I didn't realize was that the crate is available to every single alt! So the more alts you have the more free ingredients you can get (because the ingredients are not bound to the character, they are account bound!).
I know this is kinda of a smackhead, 'Doh', 'I should have known that', but hey, the only thing better than humble pie is apple pie, right!
Hopefully this info might be useful to someone else. Happy stocking stuffing.
-Faldo