How I replaced my smartphone for ‘free’ by selling old ones and stacking discounts

I’ve only ever had seven mobile phones before now, and this list will show my age but I looked out of curiosity at how much I could sell these for today. Most of them are now considered ‘retro’ and are sold as such on eBay*, so here’s the make, model and the average amount I found I could get for the phones:

And here’s how I saved 59% by stacking discounts…

I found a used phone on eBay for £140 as a ‘Buy it now’, and the listing had photos of the phone working as well as a photo of the original receipt along with £269 purchase price this time last year. As eBay and Paypal have relatively good buyer protection, I wasn’t too worried that I would get scammed, but it pays to read the whole listing as well as check feedback on eBay sellers before you buy. See our 30+ ways to stop scams guide for more information on protecting yourself from scammers.

I also used a 15% off eBay code (these aren’t always available, but can be found online fairly often). The code got me £21 off the original price, and I also converted some Nectar points into a £10 off voucher. This took the price down to £109, but I also went via Topcashback* and earned £3.57 worth of cashback, plus an extra £2.50 bonus from its own offer. That’s a total of £6.07 cashback, bringing overall spend to £102.93 for a phone that costs £160 second-hand from CEX, or £179.99 new from Amazon. I also got two cases and a 128gb memory card in the bundle, which would normally have been about £20 separately for the SD card, and the cases are £7 and £15 on Amazon.

The only problem I encountered was the SD card did not arrive. I opened a case with eBay, and the seller agreed to refund me £20 so I could buy a replacement SD card. My new total therefore is £82.93 spent for £201.99 of tech goods – a massive saving of £119 (or 59%). The saving speaks for itself, but – despite the slight issue – I also got the good feeling about reusing some tech rather than buying new. For a £119 saving, I just hope this phone lasts as long as those old-school Nokias did!