Category: Life

Carphone Warehouse woes

I recently bought a new phone from Carphone Warehose, so as a result traded in my Samsung S9 (very old now I know!) as they offered £140 + £100 bonus. Today I got an email that they offer only £35 as it has screen burn. The phone was in excellent condition as it was well taken care of. I was wondering if anything else had the same issue with them, but somehow managed to convince them to still pay the original trade in value for it.

Can you tell me in the comments?

To be honest, I know most of these trade-in websites aren’t accurate. Places like this website compare recycler quotes but I am not sure how accurate they are in reality.

Some of the prices seem a bit suspect. What I really need to do is go for a SIM only type deal, I could get an iPhone 11 for about £300 from Music Magpie.  Why would anyone pay the £1000+ price for a new one (when they were new, of course…).

I can’t be bothered to even research what the iPhone 13 is about. I don’t want to spend £1400 on a phone, it’s a con. Plus places like Phones4U are no longer with us, sadly, since they went bankrupt.

 

 

Argh! Boiler broken – coldest night of the year SHOCKER!

The story is pretty predictable… Winter weather, snow warnings, -5C outside. And of course what happens? My heating doesn’t work. Not just in one room, but in the entire house. Nightmare…

Yes! I know I’ve heard the radio ads. Constantly trying to guilt me into buying boiler cover or boiler insurance or whatever. A lot of them do gas cover and leak cover and you-name-it cover too, but they cost £600 a month or something.

Turning up the boiler thermostat didn’t work!

Sadly it turned out that I was wrong, they aren’t that expensive. The jury is out as to whether they’re good value or not (like most insurance products…) but if you hunt around for comparing boiler cover on websites like this, you can get a decent saving. Comparing boiler cover and insurance prices is always a good idea if you’re particularly savvy with money.

The better solution would probably be to just put away £40 a month into a savings account for ‘rainy days’ and emergency home funds. But most people don’t; if they see £40 in their bank then they must spend it on Deliveroo instead. If you’re like that, then boiler cover is probably a better idea.

It seems I’m not alone; MummyFever has had a similar escapade! And in any case, bleeding a radiator is pretty straightforward and you don’t really need an engineer. The system could need balancing if it’s just certain radiators in your home.

In the end Mike the plumber came out and fixed my leaky boiler (no water damage thankfully). Because it was night rates it ended up costing me £380 + VAT. Pretty shocking but then I asked myself, ‘how much would I want to get out of bed at 1am and fix some random person’s boiler?’. The answer is, probably a lot more.