Cheap(er) energy, Homebase 15% off, 'fr ee' National Trust pass, 24 lily bulbs £9, S 24 '£30/mth', top 27mth 0% debt shift

Cut mobile phone insurance by £100/yr per person

Many pay over the odds. Switch to cheap standalone policies or 'self-insure' to save

Are you a loser? If like many of us (Martin certainly admits to being a loser), you've a habit of misplacing, dropping or otherwise damaging that expensive handset, then having cover is worth it. In our modern world, many feel their lives cut in half without a phone. Our Cheap mobile insurance guide has full info, but here's a quick briefing...

Cheap standalone insurance: £55/yr to £70/yr for phones bought in last 3yrs. These cover loss, theft & accidental damage, at a fraction of the cost of mobile network's policies. Though do check replacement speed - it can be as quick as two days (excluding processing time), but some are slower. You usually pay a £50 to £100 excess per claim. While exact prices vary by handset, we found via spot checks these four are usually the cheapest, meeting our minimum cover levels...
1. Insurance2Go* plus £10 off 'Full' cover with code 'MSE10'. 2. Mobile Phone Insurance Direct* get 2mths free if you pay for annual 'Premium' via this link. 3. Love It Cover It* code 'SAVE10' gets 10% off 'Premium' cover. 4. Switched On* 'Ultimate' cover.

The fastest replacements: Your network's cover, but it can cost up to £186/yr. Here, handsets can arrive the next working day, but you can only cover new phones and insuring an iPhone 15, say, costs £150 to £180 with excesses £40 to £149. See firm-by-firm insurance. Cheaper models? These cover them, but you're sometimes paying as much during the contract as you could buy a replacement for, so you'd often be better using one of the methods below...

In a family or couple? Pay under £160/yr to cover all your smartphones (of any age) and get quality travel & breakdown cover too. They're called packaged bank accounts, but for us the main purpose is insurance. Get one of these bank accounts (you don't have to switch it to be your main account), pay a monthly fee and loads of decent quality insurance is thrown in (do register your phones if possible, as it can speed up claims). Briefly, here are our top picks, but for full details, options and eligibility criteria, go to our Top packaged bank accounts for insurance guide.
- Families: cover for under £160/yr. The longstanding Nationwide FlexPlus* £13/mth is now slightly undercut by Virgin Money Club M at £12.50/mth, though Nationwide's banking customer service rating is far stronger at 84% 'great' to 43%.
Both cover phones of any age for all the 'family' living in the household, including the kids (Nationwide max 18 years old, or 21 if in full-time education), and give worldwide family travel insurance and UK & European breakdown cover. So for under £160/yr, you get all this insurance for roughly the cost of network cover for one phone.
Jane emailed: "I read your article about mobile phone insurance which gave info on Nationwide. I had been shopping around for annual travel insurance. By opening this account, my husband and I saved £695 on our travel cover, and have breakdown and phone cover also. Thank you."
- Couples: cover for £135/yr (and a year's free Disney+). Club Lloyds Silver* covers your & your partner's phone for £10/mth (£11.50/mth from 1 July; min pay-in £2,000/mth) if you set it up as a joint account (even if only one of you actually uses it). You also get Europe & UK family travel insurance, UK breakdown cover and a 'free' 12mths of Disney+ (with ads).

The DIY option: Self insuring - especially good for lower cost handsets. If you rarely lose or break your phone, or have an older and/or lower-value model, rather than paying for cover, you could simply put a similar amount of cash aside each month into a top savings account. If you need to repair or replace your phone, the cash is there to pay for it. If not, it's yours (the main issue is if it goes wrong in the very early days of saving - so it can be good to combine with...)

The E.T. Option: Phone, home insurance. Many home contents insurance policies cover handsets lost in a burglary or fire. Some let you pay extra to cover your phone for damage or loss/theft outside the home too, though excesses can be high and a claim could whack up renewal costs. Yet it can easily take more than a week to get a replacement phone or the equivalent cash through your insurer, so think about if you could cope without in the meantime.

Seven quick, quirky or fun ways to put a 'cha-ching' in your pockets... give your piggybank a growth spurt

There are two ways to please your pockets. We normally focus on spending less, but this note is about how to earn a bit more. Now, let's not over-egg the pudding, we're talking £10s or at best £100s here, and it won't always happen, but we wanted to bring out some hidden fun ways to get a bit extra. There are lots more in our 60+ ways to earn extra cash guide.

PS: Earn £200/day counting votes in elections? Councils need help counting votes and staffing polling booths for general, local & mayoral elections - it's a great opportunity to help make democracy work while earning some extra cash. For example, we saw counting assistant jobs at £200/day. While councils we spoke to were fully staffed for the 2 May local elections, many were still adding to reserve lists. Plus, it'll get you on the database for the next general election.