crazy rewards

Is it any good? Carphone Warehouse are offering free laptops to new customers who take up their mobile package. At £35 a month for an 18 month contract, is it any good?

The deal offers:

• Free 2.8Mbps dongle from 3, but only a 3Gb data allowance and is highly restrictive to medium or heavy internet users
• Acer Aspire 5315 Laptop
• 80Gb Hard Drive
• DVD Writer
• Wireless Enabled
• Intel Celeron Processor
• Windows Vista Home Edition
  

You also have to spend £14.99 on delivery of the laptop. The monthly tariff is over double that of Vodafone's 3Gb deal, at £15 per month. This offer also includes a dongle, with speeds of up to 7.2Mbps.

If people did a bit of consumer research, they could find a laptop with a higher spec for the same amount of money that they would spend on this offer, over the term of the contract.

Even though these offers sound awesome, it may be worth shopping around.

A Best Before date must be given, by law, for non-perishable food. Food that is used before this date will be at it's best quality, although its legal to sell food past this date, as long as its not eggs. In contrast, a Use By date is applied to perishable food, such as dairy, meat and fish, and is the date up to which food remains safe for consumption. You can't sell food past this date.

But does eating gone-off food harm you? Obviously, it will impose a higher risk, but surely, as long as you aren't stupid and eat something that smells considerably off, or leave things for a year, a couple of days wouldn't matter? Aside from the legal perspective, my thought would be that if things are cooked thoroughly, the risk would be minimal. I eat things that are a couple of days past their sell by quite often, and I'm still alive. Even when it comes to eggs, which are renowned for being a bit dodgy (due to the salmonella hazard), can be eaten after their best before date. Just pop them into a jug of cold water - if they sink, they are still ok. You can watch eggs sink 2 weeks after their "best before" date, meaning they are perfectly fine - just not "as good" as they could have been.

It just makes me think, after reading an article about just how much money we, as consumers, waste on food which we throw away, even though it's perfectly edible. According to WRAP, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, we throw away 6.7m tons of food every year - most of it is fine. This year, it's estimated that we will throw away £10billion worth of food which we believe isn't suitable to eat.

Thats £420 a household.