Talk may be cheap, but phone bills can be a real drain on your finances. Whether your friends and relatives live over the road or on the other side of the world, if you feel you are paying over the odds for texts and calls, it’s time to find a better mobile phone deal.

Buying and using a mobile phone can be a costly business. Many handsets are expensive and the call charges can mount up, but there are a number of steps you can take to keep costs under control. Firstly, don’t use your phone for the sake of it. Texting your sister from Egypt to say “Wow, they’ve got UK Alegria shoes here in Cairo!” is likely to be a waste of time and credit, for example.

Secondly, bear in mind that most new mobile phones are aimed at techies and teenagers. If you don’t want to take video clips of skateboarding dogs or photos of your best friends skinny-dipping, then you don’t need a camera with your phone. In addition, if you are unlikely to be updating your facebook status or searching for UK Alegria shoes online via your phone, then opt for a basic model without internet capability. With PAYG contracts, the difference between a basic phone and a top-of-the-range one is substantial.

It is very difficult to compare mobile networks with the claims they make in their adverts, because they concentrate on incentives like free minutes and text messages. As a result, the cheapest deals are hard to find out about. One option is to visit the websites of each company, but a much easier and quicker method is to use a comparison site. Look out for cash back deals too; some contracts offer money back, on the condition that you stay with the network for a year. If you’re happy with the network, stick around and your wallet will thank you.

It’s easy to get carried away with our credit cards on the high street with so many tempting displays, special offers and million dollar marketing strategies designed to part us from our cash, but many shoppers find that buying online can be just as costly. Perhaps it’s because no hard cash gets passed over the counter; on the internet it’s just a matter of entering your credit or debit card details and waiting for the item to arrive through the post. Auction sites are particularly addictive for bargain hunters as everything seems to be such a great deal…before you know it, you’ve emptied your pay pal account.

However, the internet can be a shopper’s friend. Just as you would use a search engine to find makeup tips or hotel recommendations, use the internet as a tool to get the best price on anything you plan to buy. There are many price-checking websites (shopbots) to choose from but the mother of them all has to be Megashopbot.

Websites like Super savvy me may be great at coming up with money-saving tips but Megashopbot puts money-saving into practice at the click of a mouse. Is a website that trawls the web in a matter of seconds to find the cheapest prices for goods online. Type in what you want, click on ‘Compare’ and it’ll list your item’s price at a wide range of different retailers. Shopbots like this can track the cheapest online deals for books, DVDs, white goods, perfumes, sports equipment, and many more. In the same time as a single retailer will give you its price, you can get a price from multiple retailers and hopefully that’ll mean you find it cheaper, saving you money.

Make sure you incorporate shopping around into your online purchases by using a shopbot – it will save you money in a matter of minutes.