Whilst many hundreds of millions around the world don’t have any hearing aids at all.  It’s our mission to change this.  One hearing aid at a time.  Working together we can do it!!

Short on time to read through our blog post at the mo’?  No probs, (we won’t take it personally) here’s a short ‘thank you’ film from us!  One of our 2025 resolutions is to smile more!!

The changing of the last digit on the dateline is such a small and innocuous thing.  Obviously, it signifies the turning of another year.  The perfect opportunity to reflect, take stock, project and make lots and lots of New Year’s Resolutions (we’re definitely going to stick to ours – are you!!??  Make one of them ‘new’ or ‘new to you’ hearing aids and we can make sure you can easily keep that one.

We asked one of these Wombles what their New Year Resolutions were.  As well as getting a refurbished hearing aid they responded: lose wight, drink less and read more (sound familiar!?).  We can’t send you the will power, we can lend you our ears if you want to talk about it though.  More importantly, as the home of the most comprehensive collection of secondhand hearing aids we can definitely help you keep any ‘hear well in 2025’ resolutions!

Once upon a time, I found myself alone in a world silenced by hearing loss. It was an isolating experience, one that profoundly shaped me and my vision for Affordable Hearing. That time of difficulty gave me the determination to try to ensure no one feels disconnected due to hearing loss and a lack of hearing aids.

Affordable Hearing has grown from that personal resolve into something special, thanks to your trust and support. Together, we’re creating a world where affordable and accessible hearing solutions are a reality, again, one hearing aid at a time.

As we approach 2025, we wish love and joy not just for our customers but also for the people around the globe that you enable us to help. We deeply appreciate the circularity of all things—spiritual, economic, and beyond. It’s a beautiful balance: the more we help each other, the more we achieve together. Without our customers we wouldn’t be able to donate 50% of our profits to directly ‘help others hear’, around the world.  Thank you for making it all possible.

Happy New Year to all the Affordable Hearoes here, there and everywhere! This year, Affordable Hearing has truly come into its own. Focussing on making quality hearing aids ‘affordable’, without extended waiting times in the UK.  Making a difference in lives every day.  Demystifying the process of affordable, high quality hearing care for all and concentrating on our attention to customer service.  Whilst helping as many people around the world as we possibly can.  Here’s a few events from 2024 we’re proud and that help illustrate our ‘why’!

What Affordable Hearing is evolving to offer:

We’re thrilled to see our mission reflected in every aspect of our evolving organisation. Affordable Hearing is more than a company; it’s a community striving to make hearing aids accessible for everyone, everywhere.  As the saying goes:  ‘we’re on a mission’, it’s a good one, wanna come too?

We feel we’re a bit like The Wombles.  Remember them?  The small, furry, pointy nosed, early adopting, champions of circular economy with their ‘making good use of bad rubbish’ motto?  We feel no hearing aid should be ‘bad rubbish’ without a fight!

By working directly with manufacturers, we’ve streamlined processes to offer top-quality hearing aids at prices people can afford.

Our refurbished options are an even more affordable alternative, providing quality devices, while promoting sustainability.

Customers can now trade in their old hearing aids against purchases for a competitive discount, monetising what might otherwise go unused.

This newly launched platform helps customers sell their no-longer-needed hearing aids, giving them a second life while helping others.

At Affordable Hearing, customer service is a key focus. One dear Affordable Hearing supporter recently likened us to the mice in Bagpuss.  Apparently they wanted to fix everything and make people happy!  I’ve just looked up Bagpuss to link in the opening song (here) and realised that, like me, he turned 50 last year.  Happy half century Bagpuss!  Don’t worry, this won’t all be a retrospective homage to 1970’s children’s TV shows!  Although, I’m sure we can probably slip the odd Ivor the Engine, Trumpton and Mr Ben reference in if we really scratch our heads and try our best!  You know what, let’s include them anyway, why not flip our boxes (thought we’d never ask!!??) for a quick whizz down memory lane.

When an elderly gentleman visiting his family forgot his hearing aid charger (a Starkey Custom Charger), our team member Fenella jumped on a train to London, hand-delivering the charger at Marylebone station, before heading straight back.  His family were thrilled and reckoned we’d “totally saved the day”!

One man just loved his hearing aids –  Phonak M90‘s.  He was delighted to find a replacement, refurbished pair in our eBay store. We first spoke to him on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path (that’s our (tenuous!) reason for the sea pic!)!  Why not call us and see if we’re still at sea?

A young bus driver, feeling self-conscious about struggling to hear customers, found his confidence again with a pair of discounted hearing aids (Oticon OPN3).  We thought, it would take a while for him to hear the benefits of his new (to him), refurbished hearing aids. It didn’t!

When a customer lost one of his hearing aids, we matched his remaining device with a refurbished replacement pair within his insurance budget, even facilitating a trade-in for his existing aid (Oticon More 1 aids).  Win, win for all, just how we like it, do call us, we’re always here to help.

Malawi: We’ve continued to support Fletcher Chisalipo’s efforts to help people like Baby Abel and Rosemary hear.

We’ve adored Fletcher from his very first Facebook message.  There are very few nicer humans on the planet!

Watch their stories here.

Rosemary – https://youtu.be/eT5gst6xRS0

Fletcher Outreach Clinic – https://youtu.be/wuSoRELR7gE

A chance call during my summer holiday in France from a lady in London, worried about Pakistani relatives unable to afford hearing aids, led to a partnership with Mohsin Malik at the Dr. Hina Hearing Institute.  From that call, we’ve supported Pakistani hearing initiatives.  Mohsin was so inspired by his wife Dr Hina he trained to be an audiologist and set up the Dr Hina Hearing Institute in her honour.  Mohsin has a specialist interest in paediatrics.  He wrote and recorded a charity single to raise funds for free hearing camps throughout Pakistan.  You can hear it here.   Dr Hina was diagnosed with profound hearing loss as a very small child.  She was in her own words ‘written off’.  She has written a book about how her determination and intelligence as enabled her to triumph in the face of adversity.  It is incredibly inspiring and can be ordered on Amazon here.

The increased global conflict has added Ukraine to our priority list. We’ve answered countless requests for help.  One of which led to us driving through Storm Darragh to deliver hearing aids.  The hearing aids were bound for Elona and Egor’s work. Look out for our co-written article in ENT and Audiology News this spring.  We’ll also be uploading some more photos to the gallery soon.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on what we’ve achieved together in 2024 and imagine what we can accomplish in 2025. Thank you for being an essential part of our journey. Here’s to a fantastic New Year, and we can’t wait to hear from you soon. Let’s make 2025 unforgettable!