People who know me know that I hate paying full price for anything. Last weekend I managed my biggest bargain yet.

Justina and I have been watching a lot of “Most Haunted” and “Dragons’ Den” on SKY TV. Some nights channels dedicate entire evenings to the shows (can be six hours solid!), meaning we could watch some, record lots and ’save some to watch later’.

We did not own a DVD recorder or hard drive recorder. We do own a VHS recorder, which will record for about four hours. Piles of blank tapes and DVD’s are not really desirable for me so I wanted to find a Hard Drive recorder which can record and store a few hundred hours of TV.

First stop in the search was the obvious review places… Ciao and dooyoo …. but to be honest, with so many products available it was time to look at the models in the shops….

I set off to Chelmsford and explored Curry’s, PC World and Comet to see what bargains I could find. In all three stores (all within the same retail park) I managed to find all sorts of combination machines but more interestingly all three stores were selling ex-display models which had no remote controls.

One absolute bargain was a JVC DR-MX10SEK model, 160 gig hard drive (over 200 hours of recording) DVD player/recorder and VHS player/recorder all in one. Of course, the remote control had been lost some how, it was ex-display and an amazing £180 instead of £399. The sales assistant told me that remote controls can be purchased online on the internet for around £60 each. I knocked Comet down by a further £5 to £175 and bought it.

Once home I ordered the correct replacement remote control from AV UK Ltd for £26 (with free delivery). It arrived within three days. The instructions (also lost) were available online to download in PDF format on the JVC website.

All in all I spent £175 + £26 (and I guess £4 in petrol) = £205.

For a brand new machine off the shelf in Comet it would have cost £399. My Total Saving therefore being £194

From Amazon.co.uk £412.28 delivered. My Total Saving against Amazon being £207.28

So, check out the models in the stores where the remotes and instructions have been lost for a bargain. PC World, Comet and Currys Chelmsford all have models for sale seriously discounted because they have lost the remote controls…. I wonder how they lose them? …. surely something management need to address.?.?.?.?