Well, it wasn't quite like that...

She started to look slightly askance – and only then did I realise what it looked like, pulled myself up and said, “oops, no sorry, don’t worry, it’s not my phone number!”

I always travel with my laptop, and am often moving from location to location throughout the working day, so I do a lot of work in wireless-enabled coffee shops. This particular time I’d sat at the empty space on a table with a woman and her friend.

They were talking reasonably loudly and I couldn’t help but hear her say “so I really want the house; I don’t know if I can afford it with my other outgoings, but it’s just so gorgeous”. Her friend countered with “oh then you have to get it, just do it and then worry about how you’ll work it all out later.”

This went on in a vicious circle of conviction that buying the house was an absolute must regardless of any practicalities. The friend was like a devil on the shoulder, tempting and spurning sensible home economics, yet the buyer herself did keep going back to, “I am worried though, I’ve some other debts to pay, and it would really put a stress on my finances – I just don’t know how to work it all out.”

Having sat through 20 minutes of this, they got up to leave, at which point I couldn’t help myself – I wrote “www.moneysavingexpert.com/budgeting” on a scrap of paper and leant across to pass it to her. At first she shirked but then I speedily (no suprise) said “I’m sorry but I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation, and you really do need to go and do the sums before you do anything else; you wouldn’t want to lose your home after you got it because you couldn’t pay the bills. This should help you do it clinically, then speak to someone about the actual cost of the mortgage, and if you can afford it you’ll breathe easy.”

Half way through that I think I saw a sign of recognition in her eyes (which makes things a little easier). Normally I’m shy with such things, and never work up the courage, but given the scale of the potential personal financial disaster, I just couldn’t resist giving a minor echo of caution.

Comment and Discuss

How far can you go on a tank?

My latest graph based obsession is fuel economy. After doing a film for Watchdog on it a few months ago (based on the cheap petrol guide), I wanted to see if I could further drive down my costs with a simple challenge: how far can I go on a tank? 

This isn’t my first foray into petrol cost cracking. A few years ago, when I proposed to the now Mrs. MSE on holiday, I undertook a fuel efficiency experiment (yes I know, I’m such a romantic), and boosted it by around 20% (see the petrol efficiency experiment blog).

Recently I wanted to take this a step further. I’ve been driving in a fuel efficient way, as you’d expect, for a good time, and I have a smart car with a 699cc engine (one of the small two door ones), which is perfect for central London driving.  

• The experiment. The measurement is easy, once my car is low on petrol, it indicates the number of litres left, so I can be pretty specific about how much I put in. I refill it when there’s only 4.5 litres left, and put in the amount until I hear the click and no more.

• How consistent are my journeys? I don’t use the car to go to work (I usually either go on my scooter or I jog), but when I do drive it, it’s in central London, which means serious urban driving, i.e. very low mpg even in a Smart, with all that sitting in traffic or moving very slowly.

The Results.

Here are the results for the last three tanks of petrol:

• Test Tank: Here I drove as I normally do, conscious of my fuel use, and using the right driving tactics, but not overly anal about it.  Tank Distance: 245 miles

• Tank 1: Here I started driving with much more attention to fuel efficiency, road positioning at every moment, only pressing the accelerator when needed, trying to stop gradually without using the brakes (see driving techniques in the cheap petrol guide for more), and this improves safety too. Tank Distance: 269 miles.

  It should be noted, Mrs MSE borrowed my car at some points during this particular trial, and she wasn’t using the technique to any great extent, much to my ‘experimental’ frustration.

• Tank 2: Continuing with the same technique I found it’d now got much easier. It’s all about forming the habit, and I’m now driving in the super efficient way without having to think about it. Tank Distance: 293 miles

  Within this trial, there was one 50 miles round-trip outside London on the motorway, which is likely to have helped a little.

The amount of fuel I usually use is around 30 litres, which costs around £37. So this decreased my cost per mile from 15.1p to 12.6p, a substantial saving. And as I say I was already driving pretty efficiently, though without my current obsessional methods.

A few super nerdy observations

It's not about speed

• Stay a good way behind the car in front. On one section of a journey, with busy traffic moving at about 20 miles an hour, I counted how many times the car in front of me braked at lights compared to me. It braked 27 times over a 2 mile stretch, but I didn’t brake at all. I had given myself just enough space that when it braked, I could just stop accelerating and slow down gradually.

  While you may not think braking has anything to do with saving petrol, remember when you brake you are getting rid of the energy that you’ve paid to build up in the car, therefore the less you need to brake, the more efficient your driving is (though safety first obviously).

• It’s not about speed it’s about acceleration.
  I can’t say this one enough, I’m not driving more slowly, I’m just taking a few seconds longer to get to the same speed, and very rarely does that make any difference to the time of the journey (in urban driving it just tends to mean you catch up with the car in front of you at the traffic light).

  Of course there is a balance of consideration here, you don’t want to annoy the driver behind by accelerating too slowly. Yet I think it is possible to find a happy medium.

• The traffic light dilemma. The one dilemma I have is when closing in on a traffic light. The most efficient way to travel through is not to stop, i.e. go through on green, yet sometimes the only way to ensure you make it in time is to accelerate more quickly from the last one (especially if you know the sequence). 

  So there are times I did find myself using the accelerator a bit more to save petrol.

I would love to know how you get on if you try it?

Comment and Discuss

1000 pages of magic & history - perfect combo!

I’ve reached page 1006, finished the story and closed the book.  I’m left with that slight feeling of loss I always get at the end of a long novel I’ve been engrossed in.  My top ten summer reads list from earlier in the year’s a mix of historic novels and science fantasy, so imagine my delight at discovering this book, which is a cross of the two genres.

Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrel is set in the early 19th century, in the period of the Napoleonic wars (or the Sharpe period for historic novel readers). It’s a massive epic that beautifully describes the ‘rebirth of modern magic’ in England (England as you will know has a long and auspicious history of magic, ever since the Raven King’s reign as King of Northern England from the 11th to 14th century).

And that’s what makes the book so good: the mix of fiction and fact, the normalising of magic into a historic content. You hardly realise there’s anything odd when you discover some of the pervasive nastiness of some faery magic.

The book started rather slowly (the first 200 pages or so) and didn’t really get enjoyable until the advent of Mr Strange (one of the two eponymous magicians). After that you get dragged into the narrative, and by the end it was unputdownable. 

So if you’ve a decent chunk of time to be able to read this mammoth book in a couple of weeks, then go for it.

It’s a good read, but doesn’t quite make my top ten

Comment and Discuss

Do you read on the loo?

Is this a male/female divide issue? I was having this discussion the other day with friends, and while the men saw it as the most natural thing in the world, the women thought it abhorrent.

I suggested to Mrs MSE that we place a few of our easy to pick-up and put down books in the downstairs loo, and was initially met with horror. She added it would be horrible if someone else picked it up afterward.

I’m not sure why, but when it comes to scatological issues, the gender divide is bigger than ever (regular readers will remember my Are you scared to poo? blog).

Do let me know.

Comment and Discuss

Double your points

When do double points become single points?  The ‘temporary’ increase in Tesco reward points so customers earn double the prior amount was introduced in August 2009, so when will the ‘double’ novelty wear off?

Stop to think about it and it’s sheer marketing genius. I’m not knocking the scheme; people certainly get more points per pound than they used to (two points per pound spent rather than one), though how that interrelates with profit margins on in-store goods would be fascinating to see. In fact I’m a relative fan of Tesco’s rewards scheme. It’s certainly the most flexible of the supermarket redemption plans, hence the high number of Clubcard points chasers (See Boost your loyalty points).

Yet by calling it ‘double points’ – and maintaining the aura of impermanence (even though I’ve been assured there are no current plans for it to end at all), the marketing campaign gives the entire scheme’s appearance a frisson of extra value.

Imagine for a second Tesco had introduced this scheme without this form of marketing behind it (unlikely in the cathedral of consumerism that is the supermarket sector). If it had simply said “we’re going to permanently give you twice as many points as before” without the name ‘double-points’, it would’ve have been different.

While, initially, people would’ve been pleased to get more points, this amount would’ve soon become normal. Everyone would’ve automatically started to think Tesco shopping now earns two points per pound and forgotten they’d been given more.  

Yet by calling it ‘double points’ there’s a sub-conscious continual reinforcement that ‘we’re getting more than we should’ or ‘we’re being treated’ or ‘this is great value’.

Clever, innit?

Comment and Discuss

The campaign for financial education in schools is back

Compulsory personal finance education in schools was days away last year, then in the pre-election “wash-up” it got scuppered as a by-product of the parties’ disagreement on sex-ed.  Now it’s time to re-kick-start it and, with the News of the World’s help, I hope we did a bit of that yesterday.

This campaign needs to be set firmly in the political sphere; only Cameron, Clegg and their Ministers can make this happen. While some headteachers thankfully already do it, most don’t.  

And I believe this is about knocking at an open door. In the  pre-election MSE leaders debate, almost all of them supported it; the problem is getting it back on the agenda now they’ve so many other pressing priorities.

The News of the World

What seems crucial is to move this out of the attention of those who already care about money issues and into the wider sphere. Three weeks ago I called Matt Nixon, the NOTW features editor, to ask a special favour.  

Normally I use my page there to write about techniques to save money, but I wanted to do a departure and asked for them to indulge me for a week with space to urge the PM and Dep. PM not to let compulsory financial education fall by the wayside.

This was escalated up to the editor Colin Myler, and the word came back that they were happy (see the web version of the end result here, News of the World).  Yet on opening the paper, I was delighted to see they’d gone much further. 

Not only was my full page there with a great illustration of Dave and Nick at the top, but in the main editorial column, Colin had written:

“Kids need owe-levels

“Millions of people in this country are unafraid of owing money, yet they are debt-illiterate with no clue about APRs, endowments or bank charges.  It is not possible to go through modern life without borrowing – either for a house, or increasingly for a degree.

“So our financial crusader Martin Lewis is absolutely right to call for COMPULSORY personal financial education in schools – to understand the difference between good and bad debt.  If you care about your children’s prosperity, join his campaign and make sure your MPs know how he feels.”

I know from the financial education poll we did that the vast majority of site users (97%) support this, yet to have the UK’s biggest newspaper on board with this campaign  is fantastic, and makes it far more difficult for Messers Cameron and Clegg to ignore the message. Since the election it’s been difficult to get through the doors and meet the ministers to persuade them, maybe now that’ll get easier.

How much work needs doing?

Until recently plans were in place and materials were being written by Pfeg, the personal finance education group and others. 

I wrote here earlier in the year (see past blog) how proud I was to be standing alongside then Children’s Secretary Ed Balls in introducing it to teachers. (the News of the World also supported it then with 2.8million free printed versions of the teen cash class guide given out with the paper).

Yet pre-election, in what’s called the ‘parliamentary wash up’, where parties horse-trade to agree which legislation to speed through, the wheels fell off.

The legislation to make this compulsory also included sex education and the parties couldn’t agree whether parents should be able to opt their kids out of that until 15 or 16. 

Yet behind the scenes many – especially pfeg, continue the work and we all hope for resurrection. I’ve even been working on one module with them that’s a free teachers’ curriculum pack version of the Teen Cash Class guide.

So anything anyone can do to take up cudgels and start campaigning is welcome. For more details about what it entails see my past financial education blog and the financial education petition.

Fingers crossed we might get somewhere this time, it won’t be quick, but hopefully the wheels are back on, and starting to turn again.

Comment and Discuss

What is a spendthrift?

Filming for Watchdog yesterday, we discussed using this word in what we were doing, but I was resolutely against it as I thought most people didn’t know what it meant. So to prove it we did a couple of experiments, the result being not only did people not know, but they actually thought it was the opposite of what it actually means.

• Experiment 1. We popped outside to the production team and asked three – two got it wrong.
• Experiment 2. I posted this question on my Facebook page, where a substantial number of people got it wrong too (there were 500+ posts so I haven’t calculated the exact number).

So what does it mean?

OK, so before reading on, answer the question out aloud yourself then scroll down to see if you got it right….

SCROLL DOWN FOR ANSWER

In fact a spendthrift is someone who…

“Spends money wastefully or recklessly – someone uninhibited about splashing the cash.”

I suspect it’s the ‘thrift’ bit of the word that makes people define it the other way round.

I’ve done a bit of digging on the web and it’s replaced the previous usage ‘scattergood’ or ‘spend-all’, yet in some ways I think they are less confusing words and maybe should come back – or perhaps the modern pop-culture word ‘spend-aholic’ is better.  In the programme I just went for ‘spender’.

If anyone knows more about the history of the word and why it means what it does, do let me know.

Comment and Discuss

It may’ve shifted far from its roots as a social experiment, but Big Brother still holds a certain fascination. Nothing for me is more visceral than the shopping task, where a group of adults need to co-operate on a difficult purchasing decision, and even with mega-brains Andrew and Mario they don’t always get it right.

The Shopping Task…

Each week housemates earn a shopping budget, and this week it was a pantomime horse race. Whilst the only thing that teaches is how to run as fast as possible with your nose up someone’s backside, far more useful is the collective decision of what to buy and how much they get.

• Luxury Shopping budget.   This is £500 for around 10 people, or roughly £50 a head.
• Basic Shopping budget.  This is £100 for around 10 people, or roughly £10 a head.

Last year we ran a poll asking how much people spend per head on groceries. Here are the results:

From this, it seems Endemol certainly did its research in terms of budgeting. £10 is right at the bottom end, £50 more than most.   

Of course, it’s not a natural equation – I believe in BB leftover food from the previous week is confiscated (not 100% confirmed – do correct me if I’m wrong here), so there’s nowt to tide housemates over on bad weeks.  What I’ve never ascertained is whether some staple food and cooking stuff like margarine, salt and pepper is automatically provided, or if they need to buy that too. 

Without that, you’ve a slightly false situation, as most homes gain benefits from long-term purchases of such things, which are effectively amortised over a long period.

Then again, they also earn treats and booze through other means throughout the week, which probably balances this out.

The lesson of economies of scale

When it comes to ordering the groceries, it’s a fascinating thing to watch. A tribe who normally live in a primarily non-money environment suddenly need co-operate in a timed purchasing decision.

In weeks with limited budgets, it’s frustrating they oft don’t realise the only way to live decently is to put aside personal pecadillos, and bulk buy staple foods and cook collectively. Yet with people with specific dietary requirements, or just dominant, uncompromising personalities, it’s never going to be easy (not sure how good I’d be at it either).
 
Hidden within this, I suspect there’s a great money educational game buildable. It could be a good service from Channel 4.  A challenge for a group to see how they maximise their purchasing power amid competing priorities.

After all, you can buy a giant bag of pasta that could feed 10 people for a night, for not that much more than a pack of pre-prepared tofu that can feed two.

The 68p Shepherds Pie

I was prompted to write this blog after an email read out yesterday during my weekly Radio 5 Consumer panel slot on the Gabby Logan show (great fun I’m really enjoying it).

We were discussing students and budgeting, amongst other things, and, as best as I remember, this was the email:
 
“I’m very proud of my son, I went to visit him at university and one of his friends has calculated that if they cook together they can get all the ingredients for a Shepherds Pie down to 68p per person.”

Hoorah. This is such a powerful  lesson, the concept of bulk buying and working together.

It’s one that people don’t find so easy to grasp, I suspect boys especially – I remember from my own school days.

During A-Level economics we were set a game type task by Mr. Hutton and Mr. Hallis. We had pre-specified materials of which we needed ensure we had shelter, food and clothing.  

Those materials needed processing with drawing, sources, cutting out and making, and there was a strict time limit and limited resources.

In the first attempt we all tried to make our own home, food and clothes, and no one survived. Then the second time, people started pushing and shoving to try and get resources and getting tribal, and again we all died.

Our disappointed teachers told us how normally groups manage to work out the only way to produce sufficient goods in the appropriate time is to work together and set up a production line.  I suspect the 68p shepherds pie boys would’ve got this immediately.

Comment and Discuss

There are some phrases you couldn’t make up if you tried, and this one from MSE Jenny is pure genius.  Let me set the scene…

MSE Jenny is the site’s senior writer; she’s a great journalist and has been working on the new top gold selling sites guide, doing an undercover investigation.  

As part of the article I wanted a picture of her by the report of the undercover work, but as Jenny wears braces she didn’t really want them in, so our graphics team kindly deleted them for her (check the pics - by the way in case you’re worried, Jen thinks me writing this blog is fun; I’d never have done it otherwise.)

Jenny after

Jenny before

As we were discussing the picture I asked her how the braces were going.  Frustratingly for her, she’s been wearing them for four and a half years (though as a good MoneySaver she was keen for me to point out they’re on the NHS as it’s a serious condition).

When I asked when they were due to come off, the answer was,

“Every month they say it’ll be next month, but the gap isn’t closing. I thought it’d finally closed the other day but I’d just got a bit of Chilli Con Carne stuck in my teeth”.

You couldn’t make it up!

Comment and Discuss

We racked our brains, but couldn’t for a second think of who.  A couple of years ago I was surprised and a wee bit disappointed when MSE, having been ‘hitwise number 1′ in our category for a good while, suddenly became ‘hitwise number 2′….

Hitwise is the big web traffic measurement firm owned by Experian. After the news, I sat at my laptop trying to work out who had overtaken us, and how I could’ve missed some new mega money site. Then I walked across to see MSE Richard, whose job is partly to keep track of these things, and asked him. He sheepishly replied he was sorry but didn’t know. We were both stuck.

Then ten minutes later an email came through saying “congratulations, the MoneySavingExpert.com forums is the hitwise number 1…."   Richard’s relief was palpable. It seems MSE had been split up in the rankings, yet we’d still managed to retain the first and second places.

Now the main site has overtaken the forum

Yesterday I got our new quarterly awards email from Hitwise, and it seems the main site has now over taken the forum. Here are our proud shields.

MoneySavingExpert.com No.1 in Business and Finance – Business Information	MoneySavingExpert.com Forums No. 2 in Business and Finance – Business Information	MoneySavingExpert.com Forums No. 8 in Computers and Internet – Social Networking and Forums

Comment and Discuss

1,600 calorie salad

When we were in New York a couple of months ago, Mrs MSE and I walked into a restaurant in order to have a healthy salad. Then we saw on the menu that they were 1,600 calories each…

We don’t have that kind of info on British menus. However yesterday’s Sunday Times reported the Government wants our restaurants to follow suit, and they might even be regulated if this doesn’t become widespread.

It works

Certainly from a health perspective it works. After seeing the calories and fat content of the salad, it totally changed our attitude to it. Mrs MSE was put off eating it altogether, and I had it but then knew in the evening I’d have to be more careful of what I ate.

Of course for those who don’t watch or care about their calorie intake, this would have very limited impact (I would’ve been one of them until eighteen months ago, see my  I lost a stone in six week blog). But for those who try and balance their food, the extra info is of course helpful.

It’s not very ‘romantic’ though

However while it’s practical, it’s hardly romantic to think the tasty treat you’re about to eat provides enough calories to feed the army of a small country; it somewhat bursts the bubble.

Thus far, restaurants in the UK haven’t been that willing to follow suit. I remember reading a trade publication article a couple of months ago, in which many in the profession voiced their objection, saying it’d be expensive to introduce and could ruin the experience of going out to eat.

I can understand their point of view, perhaps they don’t want to leave just a touch more guilt on the bill than people would like.

Yet overall I think we’re currently in a relatively perverse situation. All food packaging in a supermarket must give you nutritional info, but it’s never mentioned when you’re eating out.

Any thoughts?

Comment and Discuss

10m users in a month!

I’ve just seen the stats for July and for the first time ever over 10 million different people used MoneySavingExpert.com in a month.  Staggering!

The actual stats according to our internal Google analytics software are as follow:

• Number of people who visited: 10,004,323
• Number of times they visited: 18,109,454
• Number of pages they read: 79,865,443

For a UK only site I think these numbers are quite phenomenal. Of course there are always vagaries of measurement, but these are strongly indicative. Thanks to all site users and especially those who help spread the word.

Comment and Discuss

Benefits discussions on the forum

The UK’s in the midst of the biggest benefits policy changes for a generation, and of course that’s reflected in the MSE forums, the UK’s biggest place to discuss money.  Yet the team and I are dismayed and infuriated; one person has accused us of being “complicit in a hate crime” because we allow benefits to be discussed on the forum.

Even though a mass of others shot this opinion down, it’s still particularly galling. For years my team and I have worked hard to ensure people claim their tax credits and benefits and maximise them, and we’ve tried to get people to overcome the stigma of claiming.  

Perhaps it’s just complete ignorance of what a web forum is, though I’d think it pretty obvious that the view in the forum doesn’t necessarily reflect our view.  Yet I want to explain exactly how things work.

MoneySavingExpert.com’s view on benefits

We have adopted a non-partisan stance on taxes and public funds. It’s the job of elected officials to decide on policies, not us. However we think:

“People should be helped to claim all the entitlement they are legitimately entitled to under the current system.

For example within the state pension guide, we urge the 2 million pensioners who are entitled to pension credit, but don’t get it, to claim. 

While we do campaign on these issues, we’re far more focused on the process than the payout. 

Examples include the terrible system where individuals confusingly need to choose an ‘appeal’ or ‘dispute’ form over a tax credit overpayment; or the poor design of stamp duty as a tax, rather than the amount charged.

The MSE Forum’s view on benefits

This is much trickier, even though it’s on MoneySaving, on its own the forum’s in the top ten UK social networking sites, with millions of visits per month. Over 30 paperback books of information are written there every day, so of course the team and I don’t read even a fraction of it.   

Asking what the ‘forum view’ is a bit like asking what the ‘public’s view’ is. The answer is it’s split into 1,000s of separate and often conflicting thoughts.

As a classic Wet Liberal,  I find some of the views about benefits policy posted in the forum abhorrent. Yet I don’t think that’s a reason for banning them. But the aim of the forum is to help those with MoneySaving questions, including about benefits.

That’s why we’ve developed a specific policy in the benefits board. Here’s a cut ‘n’ paste (with a bit of grammar improvement) of my post on the rules there:

“It’s about helping people get their entitlement! Not about benefits policy!

This board is here for help and support for those on or looking to claim benefits, not for judgement.

Its ONLY focus is helping people with their money.

It’s here to help people find out what they are entitled to under the current system, and to help them get it.

Benefits provide a lifeline for many, and this site is here to help people with their money, and not to judge. Of course, how to illegally defraud the benefits system shouldn’t be discussed here, but ensuring you’re getting your entitlement is exactly what it’s about.

We all know the benefits system is a mess – but that’s for the discussion time board.

Whatever you’re political persuasion, we’re all aware the benefits system is a mess. Whether it’s the malpayments of tax credits, benefit fraud, or simply the fact that sometimes it doesn’t pay to work – everyone has their grumble.

Yet to discuss the benefits system itself and issues around it, the appropriate place isn’t here but the Discussion Time board and even there, please remember courtesy and not to make it personal about anyone. This site’s prime purpose it to help people with their money and I will always act to protect that.

Thanks for your co-operation”

As you can see we have deliberately split up discussion about benefits policy and asking for help, so that we don’t have people making judgements on individuals.  If that does happen we ask people email abuse@moneysavingexpert.com so it can be dealt with.

We help people get what they're entitled to

The MSE forum is a place for people to discuss issues relating to money, and while we may disagree, some express widely held views against the current benefits policy.    

If we didn’t allow it there, we’d get it on the benefits board itself, which is much more damaging, and I don’t believe I have a monopoly on correct opinion.

The two boards are a great distance apart, you’d need to choose to go to the discussion board (which only registered users can see) to see the content, so people looking for help on benefits shouldn’t stumble across it.

The only way for me to ensure anti-benefits views that may upset people are never posted on this forum would be to shut the entire forum.

Look at every newspaper site, every political party site, every web forum, and more and you’ll see similar disparate views on benefits. After all we spend more on social services than we do on health, or education or defence. However what I won’t do is have my forum be a place where individuals are abused, that is what we try to protect.

What’s acceptable?

This is our nightmare, we don’t have the wisdom of Solomon. We see the appalling word ‘scroungers’ used by major newspapers every day.   Let me give you an example of controversial posts (made up examples):

• “Did you see that benefits scrounger in the paper claiming £10,000s in disability payouts, while he’s still playing football? People like that are scum.”
• “We give too much money in social services in this country.  People need to be encouraged to work, we should cut off ALL benefits let people fend for themselves, if they starve, they’ll soon get work.”

Should we allow these types of posts? Should we ban them? The forum isn’t a free speech forum, so we could press delete for any post like this, but is that pushing the censorship button too far?

The language in the first post is nasty, but I suspect it’s probably similar to the way a tabloid would present this.
The concept in the second post is pretty offensive, yet it’s presented in a rational way of someone’s viewpoint. One I would strongly disagree with, but is that a reason for banning it?

And it gets more complex. Many complaints come in about a long discussion, where a comment in a thread of over 100s of posts is reported as abusive, yet judging it out of context is very difficult.

The MSE Forum is a place to discuss

There are of course many views posted too from people who defend the system and benefits claimants. If you disagree with someone’s view, polite & measured debate is a great response. But becoming argumentative will never solve the problem, and only make the forums an unpleasant place to be.  

We always consider personal aggression and abuse a more serious issue on the forums. If someone posts a view you find offensive, and you reply being personally abusive to them, rather than rebutting their points, there is a chance you’ll be the one who loses their privilege to post. 

Recently my forum team have been subject to some disgustingly viscious attacks, one poster writing almost threatening language because the team hadn’t responded to a post twenty minutes earlier on a Saturday night. That’s not acceptable, remember I’m actually an employer and need to protect my staff from such outrageous attacks. 

Ours is a free forum without ads, we will always respond within two working days, and usually much much quicker, but some patience needs to be adopted.  It’s not easy, and we don’t always get it perfectly right, yet this is an important subject of national debate, and I don’t particularly want to curtail it. However it must stay in the discussion board only, and never be personally directed at individuals posting on the site.

If that’s what some believe is being complicit in hate crime, then I’m upset, but I won’t change a thing. But if you spot a post you believe is abusive, then please don’t just complain, or attack, often it’s ‘trolling’ to get a response. Just report it and let us deal with it.

Comment and Discuss

How you doin'?

I feel a bit like Joey from Friends… How you doin’?  I’ve just spotted the ‘insights’ section of my Facebook page and been rather surprised by the profile of members on there, it’s packed with women. So for stats lovers here you go…

Total number 51,830

USER PERCENT

ACTIVE USER PERCENT

What’s interesting is how different Facebook users are to site users. While of course they’re only a fraction of the number of site users, it’s a pretty decent sample size.

While on an age basis it’s roughly similar, it’s far more skewed towards female MoneySavers. I suspect that’s more to do with the demographic of who joins people pages on Facebook rather than anything else (so nowt for Mrs MSE to worry about). But I think I know now, if I put tips in my Facebook page, to remember who’s reading!

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P.S. Update: Lots of people have been asking who the ‘other 2% are’ – sadly it’s a boring answer – they’re people who haven’t specified their gender.

Act of genuine kindness

Well, my tear ducts have just had a manly workout due to a beautiful post in the forum.  There’s something transcendent about strangers reaching out and helping each other…

Below is my edited version of Easter65′s post about toniq in the comping board (see the comping guide if you don’t know what it is):

Toniq…Words can’t express how thankful I am to you. You have made me cry with joy.

Toni knew I was struggling with my old computer Bessie and said when she upgraded, I could have her Laptop. As you can imagine as a mom to 5 kids and husband on very low wage a laptop was a complete dream.

Today at around 12.30 I had a knock on the door and the Royal Mail delivered me a ‘Dell Inspiron 1545 In Flamingo Pink’,

Not Toni’s but one she has purchased for me and her message to me was "You can comp properly" and now I’m crying writing this again.

I have never known such kindness from anyone and will be forever grateful to you Toni.. Words are just words and I know I thanked you so many times but no one will know what this means to me… I honestly am so emotional and happy all rolled into one. It’s sparkling, shiny, beautiful and will be so loved.

You are Amazing, Lovely, Kind and Genuinely helpful to people. Thank you from the bottom of my heart “

You can read the full post here.

This isn’t the first time I’ve blogged about such generosity in the forum, there was the cot bought for a struggling mum by strangers and the single dad helped out feeding his kids.

The joy of this for me is that toniq’s gift (go you!) was unasked for and given without guilt or obligation from someone she’d never met. I would hate the forums to become a place where people start to come and ask for financial help from strangers, but sometimes you’ve got to admire the sheer glow of humanity.

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Picture the scenario, you’ve seen someone off the telly, and for once got so excited you want to go have your picture taken with them, but feel a prat for doing so. The solution? Take Moira Stuart along as your photographer of course!

Yesterday, thanks to the delightful invite from my agent, Mrs MSE and I got to go to one of the pinnacles of the ‘society calendar’, the Cartier polo at Windsor, as guests of Cartier , another of my agents’ clients.

The day starts by walking past the gamut of photographers, which I always find uncomfortable as I don’t know where to look and feel bit of a fraud, though as Mrs MSE looked gorgeous not much focus was on me anyway. In fact, a few even asked me to step aside for the ‘fashion shot’, which is fun as Mrs MSE was again in high street clothes, amongst the designer and couture – we’ll see if she makes the fashion pages as she did last year (see my the girl in the £35 dress blog).

It’s a spectactular day, most of which is spent in the glamorous marquee, sipping Pimms and eating an Anton Mosimann lunch of ridiculously high quality considering you’re effectively in the middle of a field.

Yet as I’ve written about that in previous years (see my How the other 1% live, and So Michael Buerk, what’s the manly way to hold a fan? Blogs), on with the story…

Moira and the misfit

Midway through the afternoon while having sandwiches and petit fours (don’t you know), we were sitting having a great chat with Moira Stuart, who is simply hilarious and, even better, has a naughty streak (made better still by her sultry voice), as well as a few others.

Then across the room, beyond the models and society people I spotted Nathan from Misfits, one of our favourite shows (see my Misfits v Being Human blog). OK it was actually the actor Robert Sheehan who plays Nathan, but you get the point.

While this is a completely star-studded event packed with the likes of Geri Halliwell, Katherine Jenkins and many others – for me the Misfits star was REALLY exciting, so I had to have a photo.

Even though I’d already been approached by people myself asking for photos (which I don’t mind), I am really quite shy about asking others, so started discussing tactical ways to try and do it without feeling a prat. Then the ‘Moira’ angle came up (after all, who can turn down Moira Stuart?), and I took Mrs MSE along for extra backup.

My ploy succeeded, as you can see from the picture of Mrs MSE, Robert and I. Taking a news legend as a photographer is a wonderful icebreaker; it’s a shame Moira isn’t available more often! Then again, her photo skills were a little tepid; it took a good few attempts for her to press the right button!

P.S. Seems like Mrs MSE did get picked up by the fashion pages.

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"It was a Shih-Tzu!" - Get it?

Every Friday on my Facebook page it’s become a bit of a tradition that I write something a wee bit funny and wish everyone a good weekend.   This week’s was a rewrite of a good old groaner, but it’s the responses from some MoneySavers that are really roll on the floor funny…

My status update was…

“This is NOT a bargain! Went to this new place that’s trying to compete as a cheaper version of London zoo, that wanted listing on our summer holiday zoos page. However when I got there there, outrageously all the cages were empty except for one, which just had a small dog in it – it was a Shih-tzu! (sorry). Have a great weekend.”

While of course many saw it for the poor humour that it is, there were some corking comments, my particular favourite being,

“Oh dear. I read it through. Twice. Then complained to my hubby about the sort of places that want our money these days. Couldn’t work out why he was smirking!”

Though others I liked included (hope no one minds me putting them here),

“It took far too long for me to get this one…..I was in bed when I finally got it!!!!”

“Nice one, but actually could be a good premise for a business. Like the Tussauds that has the waxworks of famous people who look nothing like who they are supposed to, or like the realistic ones in Madame Tussauds. Have a bargain basement zoo with made-up animals, stuffed toys etc. in a variety of zoo type settings. Banksy did a great one in his Bristol exhibition, with fishfingers swimming in a goldfish bowl. Fun, family, amusing day out at a great price. No inflated food or drink prices here. Right, I’m off to pitch my idea to the Dragons in the Den. I’m out!”

“No, you’re joking, right?”

“I’ve stolen it, edited a bit and put the Scottish version on the Autism in Scotland FB group discussion about going to the zoo at the weekend . Good timing, Martin!”

“Every time you post one of these I think it’s a real story till the last line. You’d think I’d have learned by now!“

“Have you been to London Zoo?? It’s almost as bad as that joke Martin…have a good weekend everyone….x”

“Oh my, you need help.”

Love it.  You can read the rest of them on the page.

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RSI makes it painful to type

As typically I write about 5000 words a day as accommodation of e-mails articles and information for the site, RSI is incredibly debilitating. As I have a new laptop since my last bout, I’ve had to get new software of the old one was not compatible with the new 64-bit computer.

And this version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.1 seemed to be a vast improvement (combined with the increase processing power my new laptop house).

I am of course being slightly unfair by not correcting the mistakes as  the program learns your speech as you go along and it’s very early days, but I thought it would be interesting to those people reading this to see how good or bad it is.  It’s also a little bit of a struggle to learn to punctuate a syndicate (that was meant to be punctuate as you dictate).

The real challenge I found before with speech dictation though, isn’t the writing but if the editing and finessing of documents, as whole sentences are easy but directing the mouse on the page using speech dictation is much tougher.

No suggestions needed my RSI

I know how kind many MoneySavers are, whenever I’ve written about my RSI in the past I get swamped with suggestions of what to do to make it better. 

While I do appreciate the thoughts, I’ve  been living with our asylum after 10 years (note space ha ha that was meant to say I’ve been living with RSI for 10 years), I have tried everything under the sun – new bed, osteopathy, physiotherapy, chiropractic, tens machines, changing my desk set up, gym workouts, compression bathing and a host of others that I can’t be bothered going into.

What I’ve learnt in the end is the one thing that makes my RSI better is time, less typing and not using the stylus on my mobile phone.  So while I do appreciate the gestures of anybody planning to email or reply to me with suggestions, actually all it does is create a bit more typing for me so it’d be great if you tell me by not doing so. Last time I had about only lasted six weeks and this time I started using speech dictation much earlier so hope it won’t last as long.

Anyway I hope you been able to understand this and I must make sure to remember to ask my team not to proof it  or it’ll lose the ‘charm’.

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If bank says no, go to the Ombudsman!

How many times must something be said before it hits public consciousness? I’ve been campaigning about reclaiming PPI insurance for years, and have ALWAYS said to expect your bank to reject the claim as real justice comes at the next stage, the Ombudsman.

Yet while I was at the restaurant with Mrs. MSE, the waiter came up to me and said…

“Thanks for your help, I tried that payment protection insurance thing, but it didn’t work.”

That’s always a shame, of course there’s no 100% guaranteed success but it has a good chance, so I asked him what the Ombudsman said, his reply made my heart sink,

“The Ombudsman, what’s that? I just wrote to the bank telling them I’d been missold PPI, using your letters, but they said I hadn’t.”

Of course I politely replied and explained the situation, and told him to carry on and go to the Ombudsman. But how many others are under this misapprehension?

Not sure what more can be done?

It’s the mainstay of the PPI reclaiming guide, the three prime time TV programmes I’ve done on it, my News of the World columns on it, every GMTV appearance and scores of other appearances or articles. I always make this point loud and large.

He used the guide to do it and in there I’ve even put a massive mnemonic poem (even though I’m verse-ally challenged):

“Complain to your bank
And it’ll say no
Then it’s off to the Ombudsman
Where your chances grow”

Unless people get this core point, the banks will win. Some reject all PPI complaints out of course, in the full knowledge that 99% of people who take them to the Financial Ombudsman will win. Yet as the waiter proves, this tactic obviously works.

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Energy Monitors

Sitting on the table by the sofa in the living room, is our energy monitor. I got this clever wee gizmo to test a few months ago, and was originally a sceptic about claims it could make a substantial difference to energy usage.

These widgets are the new sexy ‘usp’ for certain energy tariffs – though even though I’m a fan, as I’ll explain later, in most cases you shouldn’t sign up to those.

I’ve been converted

My initial doubts are now long gone. However, what I’ve found is it isn’t the actual cost that makes me change habits (as mine’s a trial monitor it’s not actually on my specific tariff it’s more an indicator), it’s the institinctive knowledge you learn about what it should cost and when there’s a problem.

Yet over time you come to learn the rough rates it should be. On mine:

       • Bed time – most appliances off £0.02/hour
       • Watching TV, with some low lighting on £0.08/hour
       • Watching TV, while Mrs MSE with lights on in another room £0.12/hour
       • Boiling the kettle while watching TV £0.45/hour

These markers are all important, for example, if I’m watching TV and the monitor is on £0.20/hour I know somewhere something is wrong.

In fact I’m now at the state that I know if it’s specifically £0.20/hour the bathroom lights have been left on (as they’re not energy saving bulbs due to the sockets in there); so I head straight there to turn them off.

The amount saved can quickly add up – we’re pretty good with turning things off anyway, but even so I suspect the saving over a year to be £50 – £100.

It isn’t just me who loves them

I was chatting to the rest of the MSE team, and Jenny’s also been converted…

“I’m not very gadgety but the monitor was simple to set up. You just plug it in, fix it to your electricity meter and you’re off.

“When you boil the kettle, the monitor starts jumping about crazy and it’s really exciting. I had to stop myself boiling it again to show everyone the effect of boiling it.

“Advice like ‘put on a jumper instead of putting the heating on’ sounds a bit trite until you see how much heating actually whacks up your bill. Plus when you go to bed, you can check how much energy you’re using and run around unplugging laptops and phone chargers.

“Some of it is a bit depressing, for example, our whirring old fridge eats electricity and our landlord won’t change it. So when we have to kit out our own house with mod cons, I’ll definitely look at energy efficient appliances.”

Don’t go for an energy monitor tariff though…

Having just raved about the monitors, you may be surprised by this. The reason’s quite simple – the cheapest energy cost around £30 while in most regions the cheapest energy meter tariffs are at least £100 a year more than the cheapest tariff (see cheap gas & electricity plus cashback).

So buy yourself an energy monitor and switch to the cheapest tariff.

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