Are you a fool to pay full price? From replacing your phone to buying a bike or renovating your home, buying second-hand isn’t second best – it can be one of the smartest ways to save money.For years, slick marketing has sold us the idea that new is always better, pushing continuous new lines and upgrades, even when what we own still works. But as cost of living and environmental challenges grow, upgrade culture is becoming a bad look for brands and consumers alike.It’s no surprise the second-hand market is booming. Spending in clothing stores fell 9 per cent in May, while in second-hand stores it surged 197 per cent year-on-year, according to AIB customer data. As household budgets remain under pressure, more people are discovering that buying preloved items can save hundreds, sometimes thousands of euro. It may even get you something unique too. Bargain paintSinead Smartt wouldn’t dream of paying full price for paint when she can get it second-hand at a fraction of the cost. Her Donaghmede home is the second she has made over using recycled paint. “We moved in here five years ago, and we painted the whole house with recycled paint,” says Smartt. “I did my previous house too.”She heard about recycled paint at her local recycling centre in Malahide, which accepts old paint. “My Mam and Dad would have had a load of paint in the shed from over the years. I gathered it up and brought it there.”Rediscover Paint, located at the Rediscovery Centre, the national centre for the circular economy located in Ballymun, collects high-quality, water-based paint from recycling centres and recycles it.“The paint is screened and mixed by trained staff to bring the highest quality paint to customers,” says Eileen O’Sullivan, Rediscover Paint programme manager.Recycling saves some of the thousands of tonnes of paint that get exported for incineration every year, says O’Sullivan. Eileen O'Sullivan, programme manager at Rediscover Paint Smartt picked the shades she wanted from a high-street paint brand’s colour chart and Rediscover Paint colour matched them. “They help you pick different shades for the different rooms too,” says Smartt. “It takes about a week for them to make up the paint. They ring you when it’s ready to collect.”Rediscover Paint is part of the Paint Reuse Network, a social enterprise which has locations including Cork, Waterford and Limerick.“By buying recycled paint, you are supporting positive social impact through training and employment opportunities for people distanced from the workplace,” says O’Sullivan.Savings for householders are significant. Rediscover Paint charges €12.50 for 5.6 litres of paint in its basic range of colours, and €18 for bespoke colours, says O’Sullivan. This compares to branded paint priced between €70 for a 5 litre tin of a mid-range brand up to €137 for high-end brands, she says. A 5 litre tin of paint from one well-known brand costs €90, and €60 for 2.5 litres.To paint the interior of an average three-bedroom house, excluding woodwork, you would need about 35 to 50 litres of wall paint and 15 to 20 litres of ceiling paint, assuming you are applying the standard two coats. Buying 70 litres of the high street brand will cost you €1,260.Buying the equivalent amount of recycled paint comes in at €156 for the basic shades and €225 for colour-matched shades. That’s an 82 per cent to an 88 per cent saving.“Our customers are paying for our work, sourcing, screening and remixing paint – not the materials themselves. As a not-for-profit enterprise, we are able to keep costs low and pass on the savings to consumers,” says O’Sullivan.“Customers are getting massive cost savings and very high-quality paint.“Most members in the Paint Reuse Network offer a standard range of colours to choose from – whites, greys, creams, magnolias, and your personality picks – greens, blues and oranges. If you want a specific colour, we can make it up for you,” says O’Sullivan. Shortt is a convert to second-hand and now her neighbours are using it too. “I wouldn’t go back to buying new paint. You are doing your bit for the environment, it’s cheaper, and you are creating employment as well,” says Smartt. Tech savvyWhen Sarah O’Brien struggled with the pace of notetaking in lectures during her University College Cork degree, she knew some tech was required. As a cost-conscious student, she needed value. A friend who had found a cheap replacement for a phone lost on a night out recommended Refurbed.ie. It’s a marketplace for refurbished electronics, claiming to offer items at up to 40 per cent less than new. Products are sold on the site in four conditions – from “premium”, which looks identical to new and works like new, to “good”, which works like new and will have some signs of wear.All have a 12-month warranty and 30-day free trial, are restored to factory settings with a valid software licence and are data-cleansed and unlocked for use with all networks, the site says. Sites like Currys.ie and Vinted also sell refurbished tech. “A lot of my classmates had iPads. I knew I didn’t want anything top of the range. I found an iPad 4 on Refurbed.ie for around €150. It was very, very cheap,” says O’Brien. “I’d been putting off buying one, but when I saw the price it seemed worth it. I’m still using it two years later.” The latest iPad 11 costs between €389 and €809. Newer models may have greater functionality, but her second-hand one does what she needs it to do. Now in employment and earning while completing a master’s, O’Brien has become a convert to second-hand tech. Her latest purchase from the site is Apple AirPods.“These are AirPod 4 and they were €99. They came in a white box and looked brand new. If you didn’t know, you would think they were brand new,” says O’Brien.This model retails for around €150 new. For her brother’s birthday, she and her Mum clubbed together to buy him a preloved iPhone. “We got him an iPhone 13, so it’s a new-ish model. It was about €300,” says O’Brien. “It came in a box with a charger, as if it was new.”A new iPhone 16 costs from €879, while an iPhone 17 retails from €1,339.Is buying full price a waste of money when near-new tech is such great value?“I definitely think so but, that being said, I don’t care to have the newest version of things,” says O’Brien.“Other people might get more enjoyment out of having top-of-the-range technology but, for me, it would be silly to pay for brand new when it feels just the same as using something second-hand. It’s not worth it to me.“People might be slow to do it, thinking if you are spending money, you might as well spend extra and get it new, but I can’t say there is any difference in the feeling of newness, and things like the battery have been great,” says O’Brien.Rather than opting out of tech upgrades entirely, consumers are reshaping how they upgrade, according to a spokesman for Refurbed.ie.Its sales in Ireland grew by 46 per cent in December, with phones, laptops, tablets and smartwatches the strongest categories. Sales of second-hand printers and scanners have grown by 84 per cent year on year, he says. “Trends show a rising uptake of new batteries in older devices, suggesting consumers still want better technology, but increasingly want it to last longer and cost less,” he says.Recent prices on the site include a refurbished iPhone 14 (128GB) in premium condition, with a new battery for €394.99, or 20 per cent less than the €494.30 new retail price.An Apple MacBook Air 2020 13.3 inch costs €1,057 new while a model on Refurbed.ie with a new battery costs €550, close to half the retail price. Apple AirPods 3 cost €112.97 new and €84.33 on Refurbed.ie, more than 25 per cent less. Whether buying new or second-hand, consumers are asked to recycle their old tech. “Every old and broken phone, hairdryer or game controller tucked away at home contains critical raw materials that the EU desperately needs to be less reliant on China,” Leo Donovan, chief executive of WEEE Ireland, which works to help producers comply with recycling rules, has said. Our old gadgets contain critical raw materials like aluminium, copper, lithium and nickel. The materials, unused and forgotten in drawers in our homes, are essential for making new heat pumps, wind turbines, EV chargers, servers, smartphones and defence equipment. Europe’s e-waste mountain is now being called “the new oil”, Donovan has said. You can recycle anything with a plug. Just drop off old and broken electronic devices, batteries and cables for free recycling at one of the hundreds of local authority civic amenity centres and participating electrical retailers around the State.Bargain bikes For Tom Sweeney, buying second-hand meant his son got a much higher spec bicycle than his parents would have been prepared to pay for the new equivalent.“We saved money on what we would pay for a bike by going somewhere like Halfords, but this is a way better bike. It’s probably worth €400 or €500 new, and we would never have spent that money on it,” says Sweeney.“It’s a great bike, and we paid just €150 for it,” he says of the Trek mountain bike, with front suspension. He bought the bike from Rediscover Cycling, another social enterprise based at the Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun. It was a Christmas present from Sweeney and his wife. “Some people might ask, why are you buying a second-hand gift for your child at Christmas, but he didn’t bat an eyelid; he didn’t care. He loved the bike.“I think there is a message there too that not everything needs to be shiny and new and perfect. We are making do with ‘good’, and this is more than good, this is excellent,” says Sweeney. You can save up to 60 per cent on the original retail cost with a reconditioned bike, says Mark Dunn, programme manager at Rediscover Cycling. It accepts donations of bikes from the public. The bikes are stripped, rebuilt and must pass a 170-point checklist by accredited bicycle technicians, he says.Rediscover Cycling offers a free service to buyers, with any faults repaired in the first eight weeks.“Almost no one comes back because we have tested and serviced them so extensively already,” says Dunn.The centre offers bike maintenance classes and parent and child workshops to keep your purchase in tip-top nick and prolong its life too.Second-hand is more than “grand”, Sweeney has found. An ex-rental mountain bike he bought second-hand more than 20 years ago has travelled with him to London, Dublin and now Westport, Co Mayo, and is still going strong. Dunn recommends purchasing second-hand bikes that have been reconditioned by trained professionals. “There are many social enterprises across the country offering these services,” says Dunn. “If kept in good condition, a bike will always keep some inherent value and could be resold again.Sweeney says his family will continue to go second-hand for bikes. “You are saving money, you are getting a better bike, and you are doing something sustainable.”“My daughter is envious of my son’s bike, so we are thinking of getting her one for Christmas. I’ve already contacted Rediscover Cycling, so we are planning ahead to see what’s available.”