I try not to pay through the nose for things but equally I don't usually spend hours hunting down the best deals. But this week I've been looking at mobile phones and external hard drives.

My wife has a Blackberry which she hates so I looked around for a straightforward, easy to use, stylish and cheap phone for her. My son wants to move to a monthly contract so we looked for a phone for him as well.  We decided the best deal was from 3. We ordered the phone for Sandra at around 2pm Friday and it arrived by courier at 9am the following morning.

Will wanted a different phone and a different tariff and after some research we settled on a Sony Ericson K800ir. The 'r' stands for refurbished but don't be put, off these are - for all intents and purposes - brand new unused phones.

There are no cashback deals with '3' but if you order through Quidco you'll get £100 back. Get someone to recommend you and you get another £30 each. That means you get a phone (value around £190) 750 minutes and 150 texts a month (there are other combinations)  for around £14.50 a month.  Cheaper than a landline.


The hard drive search was simpler. We use Ebuyer a lot so I checked there first. A Seagate Barracuda 320GB USB 2.0 8MB cache External Hard Drive is £56.99 but if you use Google Checkout when you pay you get £10 off, bringing the price down to £46.99.

That's £45 cheaper than Amazon.