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4 days ago
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Garmin watches and iPhones whose prices fall from insanely unaffordable to merely very expensive may be the headline-grabbers of Black Friday, but they’re not exactly cheap. In a cost-of-living crisis, the true bargains of the sales season are those useful and joy-giving items discounted to genuinely affordable prices.
Here we’ve assembled the best sub-£50 bargains we’ve found so far, with prices falling even further as you scroll down the page. These deals span the Christmas gifting gamut from premium vodka to Sealskinz socks, plus the Filter’s top-rated household items and tech – all now for less than the price of a takeaway.
How is the Filter covering Black Friday?
ShowAt the Filter, we believe in buying sustainably, and the excessive consumerism encouraged by Black Friday doesn’t sit easily with us. However, we also believe in shopping smarter, and there’s no denying that it’s often the best time of year to buy big-ticket items that you genuinely need and have planned to buy in advance, or stock up on regular buys such as skincare and cleaning products.
Retailers often push offers that are not as good as they seem, with the intention of clearing out old stock, so we only recommend genuine deals. We assess the price history of every product where it’s available, and we won’t feature anything unless it is genuinely lower than its average price – and we will always specify this in our articles.
We only recommend deals on products that we’ve tested or have been recommended by product experts. What we choose to feature is based on the best products at the best prices chosen by our editorially independent team, free of commercial influence.
The best Black Friday deals under £50: from £40-50
The best-looking umbrella
Oswin Hyde Joseph Handcrafted Umbrella, all colours now £49 (was £75)
Look and feel like a million dollars for less than fifty quid with this glorious Oswin Hyde brolly, correctly named “best-looking umbrella” in Pete Wise’s roundup of the best umbrellas you can buy. Its robust quality and broad coverage match its fine looks, which remind Pete of traditional Indian state umbrellas.
Kids’ electric toothbrush
Oral-B iO Kids Disney Stitch electric toothbrush, £40 (was £100)
A child-friendly cousin of the Oral-B iO3, voted “best oscillating toothbrush” by Alan Martin in his mission to find the best electric toothbrush, this brush is carefully designed for kids aged six and up. The iO3 itself is also in the Black Friday sale, but at £50 it’s 1p too expensive to make it onto this list. Rules is rules.
Smart alarm clock
Echo Spot (newest gen) smart alarm clock, £44.99 (was £79.99)
It’s no surprise to see Amazon’s own products getting some of the biggest early deals for Black Friday (or Black Friday week, as the site insists on calling it). The latest generation of its Echo Spot smart alarm clock with Alexa and Wi-Fi, plus support for Spotify and Apple Music, falls to £44.99 – a special low price that seems to be reserved for Black Friday and Prime Day.
Park Tool adjustable torque driver, £44.91 (avg £66.71)
A torque wrench lets you tighten nuts and bolts to the correct level of tension for your bike, avoiding damage when taking care of your bike at home. Park Tool’s excellent model has hovered around the £65 level for the past two years but now takes a deep dive to £44.91 at Amazon, with Halfords not far behind.
Child-friendly camera “phone”
KidiZoom Snap Touch 5MP camera, from £42.49 (avg £59.23)
Perfect for kids who want a mobile phone but are too young to have one, this brilliant touchscreen device lets the little ones take photos and videos, play games, listen to music and make voice recordings. It’s an absolute steal, especially now that it’s fallen below £50, and a great gift idea.
The best Black Friday deals under £50: from £30-£39
EA Sports FC 26
EA Sports FC 26 for PS5, from £34.99 (was £69.99)
EA’s FC 26 was released to great fanfare in September, and it’s proved to be one of Amazon’s fastest Black Friday sellers so far. As Ben Wilson explains in his four-star review, this versatile game is a sim offline and a whole other beast online, where it’s purely an esport with shots and goals prioritised over defending. Unusually, Amazon is beaten to the lowest price on this one – by the PlayStation store, no less.
Marc Jacobs’ scent of summer
Marc Jacobs Daisy Love eau de toilette 50ml, £37.50 (was £75)
Bring back summer, or at least a whiff of it, with Marc Jacobs Daisy Love. The scent’s travel-friendly capsules we raved about in our guide to the best travel size toiletries are sadly no longer available, but the next best thing gets an almost half-price discount for Black Friday.
Charlotte Tilbury cooling eye serum
Charlotte Tilbury Cryo-Recovery eye serum, 15ml, £35.25 (was £47)
The “best eye serum for puffiness” in our roundup of the best eye creams, this cream was devised by Charlotte after using cold therapy on models backstage at shows. “It felt soothing and cool and appeared to instantly reduce the puffiness of the skin around my eye,” wrote our tester Sabine Wiesel, who said it’s one of Tilbury’s best products.
Renpho massage gun
Renpho Reach massage gun with detachable handle, £34.06 (avg £44.79)
Soothe and unknot your back muscles without requiring the arms of an octopus (or the help of another person) with this appropriately named Renpho Reach, named “best for bad backs” in our guide to the best massage guns. It has cost as much as £60 at Amazon this year, and now drops to its lowest price ever.
Kärcher handheld window vac
Kärcher WV 1 window vacuum, from £33.49 (was £40)
Blitz the condensation from your winter windows with this lightweight (500g) but powerful piece of kit, which can suck 100ml of dirty water into its tank and run for 25 minutes before a recharge, making it one of the best window vacs we’ve tested.
Classic Stanley insulated flask
Stanley Classic thermal flask 1L, from £33.49 (avg £40.44)
Stanley’s flask is a design classic and a winter lunchtime gamechanger whose ability to keep liquid piping hot in icy conditions guaranteed its place in our guide to wild swimming essentials. Now with around a fifth off its average Amazon price for Black Friday.
The best gradual fake tan
This Works Perfect Legs gradual fake tan 150ml, from £31.91 (was £42)
Dial down the shock value of your fake tan with this “sumptuous, premium-feeling” product that our writer Danielle Wilkins named “best gradual tan” in her mission to find the best fake tan. “Don’t be put off by the name: it’s great for an all-over glow, not just your legs,” wrote Danielle, who remarked that it’s a bit pricey – so we’ll have to let her know about this £10-off deal.
Premium Polish vodka
Chopin Potato Vodka 70cl, £31.10 (avg £39.50)
“Dreamy in a dirty martini” and now the preferred Polish vodka of our best vodka tester Joanne Gould, this earthy, smooth spirit from family-owned Chopin drops £8 for Black Friday.
Portable baby rocker
Rockit rechargeable baby pram rocker, £30.95 (was £40)
“The Rockit Rocker has been an essential bit of baby kit for me,” wrote Isabelle Aron in our guide to the best gifts for newborns and babies. This simple gadget that rocks your baby’s pram for you is now around a quarter off its usual Amazon price. John Lewis and Argos are still holding out at £39.99, but we’ll keep an eye out for their own price drops.
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The best Black Friday deals under £50: from £20-29
Sabrina Carpenter vinyl
Short n’ Sweet LP by Sabrina Carpenter on coloured vinyl, £27.74 (was £40)
Sabrina Carpenter‘s latest album Man’s Best Friend has just seen her nominated for a Grammy, again. Here’s hoping she’ll have better luck than last time, when Album of the Year went to Beyonce instead of the 11.9-million-selling Short n’ Sweet, now available for under £30.
Double-infused craft gin
Bathtub Gin Grapefruit & Rosemary 70cl, £27.54 (was £34.45)
The handcrafted bottles from Kent-based craft gin company Bathtub Gin make for fantastic presents – and the booze inside is one of the best gins you can buy, too. This citrus-infused beauty hits its lowest price since Black Friday last year.
Chic budget kettle
Kenwood Ripple kettle, from £27 (was £39.99)
Kenwood’s stylish kettle offered the best value for money in our best kettles test, and we’re delighted to note that Currys has undercut Amazon on it – albeit only in white. A great pourer and performer as well as looking fabulous.
Weatherproof Sealskinz socks
Sealskinz unisex socks, £25.95 (avg £34.06)
More than £25 may seem a lot to pay for a pair of socks, but there are socks and there are Sealskinz socks. These are superb winter running gear, with merino wool for warmth, breathable waterproof membrane, and four-way stretch so they fit like a … glove. Too good to be massively discounted, it seems, but still cheaper than they’ve been since 2023.
Budget handheld window vac
AmazonBasics window vacuum cleaner, £25.45 (avg £37.92)
If you can’t or don’t want to stretch to the Kärcher window vac mentioned above, this similar model from Amazon comes even cheaper. It’s heavier than the Kärcher but can store more water, and was selling for as much as £45 on Amazon in July.
Family board game
Azul tile laying game, from £25.49 (avg £31.42)
This quick-to-learn pattern-matching game is suitable for tweens and up, so it’s ideal for bonding across the generations over Christmas. This is the first time its price has dropped much below £30 since 2023.
The best Black Friday deals under £50: from £10-19
Pour your own draught Guinness
Guinness Nitrosurge device, £19.99 (was £30)
Guinness Nitrosurge cans x 10, £15.67 (was £20.75)
The growing popularity of Guinness, especially among women and gen Z drinkers, led to a shortage of the black stuff last Christmas. Don’t risk it this year – pour your own. This DIY draught device with special Nitrosurge Guinness cans (also in the sale) lets you pour at bartender quality, and it’s a third cheaper than usual this week.
TV streaming stick
Fire TV Stick 4K, £19.99 (was £49.99)
Turn your TV into a smart TV with iPlayer, Netflix, Disney+ and the rest by plugging in Amazon’s USB dongle. This deal is for the latest version of the Amazon Fire TV Stick, launched for a not-unreasonable £49.99 in October and is down to £19.99 for Black Friday.
Viral eye cream
Peter Thomas Roth Instant Firmx Eye, 30ml, £19 (avg £25.45)
This viral eye cream has been called “botox in a bottle”. Sabine Wiesel put it to the test for our best eye creams roundup and found it really did work wonders, banishing bags instantly – but temporarily. No other retailer has come close to matching Amazon on its £19 deal yet, but we’ll keep a (bag-free) eye out.
The best travel mug
KeepCup Commuter travel mug 340ml, from £18.40 (was £31.95)
KeepCup’s near-legendary product helped spawn a reusable coffee cup industry, and “remains the best in the business”, according to our travel mug tester Pete Wise. Amazon has reduced it to all sorts of prices depending on colour, but KeepCup’s own store discounts all colours of the 340ml size to £23.80. Unlike Amazon, it has also cut prices of the small (8oz/227ml) and large (16oz/454ml) versions.
The best deals under £10
Pukka Tea Advent calendar
Pukka Herbs herbal tea Advent calendar, £9.49 (was £11.45)
A lovely antidote to Christmas excess, this Advent calendar hides a different organic herbal tea blend behind every one of its 24 doors. Already good value at £11.45, it’s now down to under a tenner and may fall further as December lurches closer.
Low-risk picture hanging
Command picture hanging strips value pack, £8.99 (was £12.99)
Hang framed pictures and even mirrors without damaging your walls, using these sticky velcro-style strips. Our US colleague John Brandon tested picture hanging products and found the Command strips easy and effective. There are 16 in this pack (eight medium, eight large), now its lowest price of the year.
Reliable meat thermometer
ThermoPro TP03H Meat Thermometer, £8.46 (was £9.99)
This probe thermometer gives exact results to help you cook meat and fish just enough, so it’s an invaluable kitchen gadget for anyone who cooks with meat. Already a great buy at £9.99, it’s now a positively Christmas stocking-level bargain.
L’Oréal volumising mascara
L’Oréal Paris Big Deal Mascara, from £7 (avg £10.68)
L’Oréal Paris Telescopic Mascara, from £5.99 (avg £7.88)
L’Oreal is mentioned a few times in our guide to the best mascaras. Our writer Sabine Wiesel gave the “best budget” crown to the brand’s Paradise Big Deal product, which she found to offer “long-lasting length and volume” and is now a better buy than ever. Even better though, is L’Oreal’s original Telescopic mascara, which drops to £8.99 at Lookfantastic and just £5.99 at Amazon.
