The five silly phone mistakes that could be costing you hundreds – including a battery error we all make every summer

BUYING and then maintaining a mobile phone is expensive enough – so don’t saddle yourself with extra costs for no reason.

A few silly phone mistakes could end up hitting your bank for hundreds of pounds every single year. I do my best to dodge them as The Sun’s resident tech expert, and you should too.

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Worse still, these five blunders are so easily avoidable that you’ll be kicking yourself for slipping up.

Phone mistake #1 – Forgotten subscriptions

One of the biggest cash killers is subscriptions, all quietly siphoning cash from your account.

Maybe you signed up for a free trial and forgot to cancel it, or you started paying for an app you don’t really use any more.

Thankfully Apple and Google have made it very easy to track down (and kill) these rogue subscriptions on your iPhone and Android.

For iPhone, just go to Settings > [Your Name] > Subscriptions to see everything you’ve signed up for through the App Store. Tap on memberships under “Active” and choose Cancel Subscription to end them quickly.

And for Android, go to the Google Play Store > Subscriptions, choose the one you want to end, and hit Cancel Subscription.

The downside here is that this method will only find subscriptions that you’ve used the App Store or Play Store for.

If you signed up via a website in a browser, you’ll need to go directly to that site to cancel. Sorry.

The Saving: A subscription could cost you as little as 99p, up to almost any cost. But even killing two £9.99 subscriptions would save you just under £240 a year.

Phone mistake #2 – Ignoring those ‘secret’ stores

New phones aren’t cheap. And, they’re certainly not getting cheaper.

That’s where you’re going wrong. Buying new phones can be a great option, but many providers have less well known “refurbished” stores hiding in plain sight on their websites.

This isn’t the same as buying up a used handset from a stranger on the internet, with a charging port full of grime and more fingerprints than a “place your order” screen.

For instance, Apple’s Refurbished Store gives you a relatively like-new handset, fully tested with a fresh battery, a one-year limited warranty, and no major damage.

At The Sun’s latest check-in, several models were as much as £450 cheaper than their brand new counterparts.

For instance, an iPhone 13 Pro Max with 1TB of storage is £450 off in all colours.

And you can get an iPhone 13 for as little as £419 – that’s £80 off compared to a brand new model.

By contrast, a new iPhone 16 starts at £799.

Lots of shops have official refurbishment schemes, including Amazon and Currys. And you could always check BackMarket, which is a massive sales hub for refurbished gadgets that offers warranties and protection plans.

So check those hidden stores first before splashing out on a new model. Chances are, you won’t be able to tell it apart from a new mobile anyway.

The Saving: It depends on the handset you buy, and where you get it from – but Apple’s biggest discount on a refurbished model is £450.

Phone mistake #3 – Feeling the heat

Summer is nearly here and you’ll be wanting to take that posh (potentially refurbished!) blower out to your garden, the local park, or hopefully the beach.

If your phone gets hot, it’s bad news for the battery inside.

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When a battery gets cold, it’ll have temporary problems that go away once it warms up again. But heat permanently damages batteries.

If your phone feels roasting hot after using it in the sun – or even worse, has shut down – then you’re doing damage to the battery.

Another common mistake is leaving it in the car. Your motor can get immensely hot when left in the sun, and that means your phone will start baking too.

All of this will permanently shorten the battery life of your smartphone.

That means you’ll either have to live with it, fork out for a battery replacement (anywhere from £65 to £109), or pay a load of money to upgrade to a new mobile.

So if you want your phone to last as long as possible (between charges, but also between upgrades), keep it out of the heat.

The Saving: Avoiding forking out for a new battery could save you £65 or £109 – but upgrading your mobile would mean an even bigger bill of potentially hundreds.

Phone mistake #4 – Missing bundles and family packages

It’s easy to accidentally pay way more on your phone than you need to.

For instance, iPhone owners can take advantage of Apple One.

It’s a subscription that bundles your Apple memberships together to slash their prices. So if you get the basic tier for £18.95, you’ll get Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and iCloud+ (with 50GB of storage). It’s £9 cheaper than buying them individually.

And don’t ignore Family Sharing options too.

Loads of memberships offer Family Sharing plans that let your entire household use the same membership – but with individual profiles.

For instance, you can do this with Amazon Prime, Spotify, and Apple’s iPhone subscriptions too.

Some services – like Netflix – even allow you to pay a smaller fee to let people outside of your household use it.

So weigh up all of those options before paying full price for any subscription. Otherwise you’re just throwing away money.

The Saving: Amazon Prime can be shared across five people. The £8.99 monthly fee is £107.88 a year, but that’s just £21.58 for each person – or £1.80 a month. Do this with a few more subscriptions and the savings add up fast.

Phone mistake #5 – Forgetting battery upgrades

If your old iPhone is starting to feel slow and the battery life is rubbish, it’s tempting to upgrade. But wait!

You’re much better off trying a battery replacement first.

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All smartphone batteries get worse over time as you charge them up and discharge them. It means they’ll hold less charge over time.

And as your iPhone battery ages, its performance can slow too – in a bid to protect the battery.

So one option is to simply pay for a battery upgrade, which is usually less than £100.

This will give you like-new battery life, better performance, and breathe new life into your mobile. So it should last for a few more years before you really need to upgrade.

Don’t splash £1,000 on a new mobile when yours might be as good as new for £65.

Just take it to the phone shop and get that battery swapped.

The Saving: Spending £65 on a new battery could cost you far less than, say, the £799 starting price of an iPhone 16. The true saving could be even higher if you were eyeing a top model.