How to get your hands on some amazing bargains

Fancy a new Mini for under a tenner? How about an iPod shuffle for sixpence? If so, try a few 'reverse auction' websites. They may take a little getting used to, but you can pick up some astonishing bargains, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

Most of those of us who fancy a new car this year are just not getting one. A survey out this week showed that 77% of buyers expect the current financial climate to "drastically change their car-buying plans". And that's when car sales have already plummeted and several car manufacturers have moved to cut production dramatically.

But what if you could get a new car a brand new car for £6.83? That would change your car buying plans pretty dramatically too, wouldn't it? Just in rather a different direction from the way the credit crunch has changed them. Take then the case of Sandeep Anantharaman, a 26-year-old profiled in The Sunday Times this week. In September he bought a new Mini One (list price £12,135) for just under £7. At the same time he picked up a Tom Tom navigation system for 10p (list price around £120) and an iPod Shuffle for 6p.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.