Find a ‘£9’ real Ikea Christmas tree in Martin's Quick Deals

‘£9’ real Ikea Christmas tree, urgent warning for first time house buyers, new cheapest loans for over £7.5k and cheap 8GB/mth Three sim. These are our Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis’ Quick Deals.

Remember, deals can change quickly, even while I’m on the programme. So always double-check the terms and conditions before spending. Plus, while I hope these deals will save you cash, don’t spend if you can’t afford it, don’t need it, or won’t use it.

Buy £29 Ikea Christmas tree and get a £20 voucher

Every year this tends to be very popular. Go into your nearest Ikea store and if you buy a £29 real Christmas (was £25 last year), you’ll get a £20 voucher to spend at any participating store between Monday 13 January and Sunday 23 February next year - so it’s effectively a £9 tree as long as you’d have spent £20 in the New Year anyway. Officially, it's on till Tuesday 24 December, but in previous years the trees have sold out before this - so go quick if you want one, as it’s likely to be tree-mendously popular. The trees are all of the same variety (Abies Nordmanniana) and they're typically about 170cm (5ft 7in) tall, but do vary in size, and there’s no delivery option, so do think about how you’ll get it home. It’s not available at the collection point at Westfield in Stratford and the planning studio store in Tottenham Court Road, London.

Urgent – one week warning to anyone 16+ who's never owned a home

You’ve probably heard me bang on about Help to Buy ISAs a lot over the past few years, as these special ISAs are a no-brainer for first-time buyers aged 16+, as they give 25% bonus on top of what you save in it, up to maximum £3,000 when buying their first property. But it close to new applications from next Saturday 30 November, miss it and you’ll no longer be able to get one. But open one with a £1 before then, and you bag the facility to use it for the next 10 years.

New cheapest big loan - 2.8% rep APR

Loan rates are cheap right now. A mix of low interest rates and weak long term economic predictions mean they’re rock bottom for many amounts. Now that isn’t a clarion call to get a loan. Don’t do it unless it’s planned, needed, budgeted for and affordable – even then minimise the amount and repay as quickly as possible. There’s a new cheapest for larger borrowing (£7,500 to £15,000) with Santander-owned Cahoot at just 2.8% rep APR – that’s £40 cheaper than the previous best, and more than £1,000 cheaper than some high street banks' loans for £15,000.

For £5,000 to £7,5000 Admiral and Zopa are 3.4% rep APR. For £3,000 to £4,999 Admiral again is cheapest at 8.2% rep APR. But remember this is only a ‘representative APR’ which means only 51% of those accepted get the advertised rate – others can be charged much, much more. Yet you're usually only told the rate after application, so once accepted, ALWAYS check it. And use a loan eligibility tool either from the firm or for a wider range a comparison site, e.g. Martin’s ‘loans eligibility calculator’ first, which will tell you your chance of getting a loan, but not the specific APR you’ll get.

Plus always remember to follow the Golden Rules… 1) Minimise the amount you borrow and repay as quickly as possible and 2) Pay on time (preferably by direct debit) or you may get a charge and a missed payment on your credit report.

Cheap 8GB sim only for £8/mth - are you paying more than £10 a month for your mobile?

Tech firms tend to be the worst at stretching the definition of Black Friday. So even though it's 8 days to go, mobile phone firms have launched a price war to try and win your custom. The good news is some of the prices really do live up to the hype - so if like millions you’re out of contract (and many still pay extra fees for their handset even though it’s paid off) – you may be able to save huge amounts switching to them.

The real key to this is how much data you use; most people use less than 3GB (but if you can get more without paying more, it gives you a big buffer in high use months), so unless you watch a lot of TV via your mobile signal, stream films, or games then that’s probably you. You can find your usage on old bills or use a tool such as Billmonitor - you give it your mobile account login and it assesses your past usage to match you to cheap tariffs. But it doesn't search all deals, and there’s lots out there, so for me here are the top ones …

- Three is £8/month and gives unlimited minutes and texts on a 12 month contract. This is cheaper than the cheapest 5GB deals and the cheapest I remember ever seeing for this much data. So if you’re paying more a month ask yourself why (acceptable answers include paying off your handset or huge data use or need a specific networks signal).

- For higher users also on Three network, the Smarty sim gives a massive 45GB data, unlimited minutes and texts for £15/mth on a 12 month contract. Alternatively Virgin Mobile (uses EE network) have a 10GB sim-only, with 5000 minutes and unlimited texts for £10 or 15GB for £13.

And remember you can do this and switch your current number over to it in just one working day. You may need to unlock your phone, but provided you’re out of contract your existing firm should let you do this free of charge.