Martin’s Blog…

Went to the ‘Headline Money’ awards last night, an internal media awards do. Sat on an interesting table expecting fireworks. It was power-packed with personal finance editors from the Financial Mail on Sunday, The Times, Sunday Times, Sunday Indie, The Mirror, Thisismoney as well as me. Yet everyone was remarkably well behaved. Shame.

I did win £1 though off Bill Kaye, the Sunday Times personal finance editor, who I was sitting next to (a very nice chap he is too). The aim was to predict the winner of each award, with 3 points if you got the person in first, 2 for second and 1 for third.

Overall, I won by a few points, earnt right at the end from correctly predicting Bill as consumer columnist of the year, when he decided not to back himself!

So there I am, checking e-mails and getting ready for bed at 1.30 am this morning when I get a call from a producer on GM-TV. Can you come on tomorrow morning and talk about the report that’s just come out (it was embargo’d which means we journalists get it but don’t write or talk about it till a certain time) about the UK spending £1.5 million during their lifetime?

“Oh that” says I, “It’s an absolute pile of pants, press release by the Prudential, based on limited research and the figures so blunt they couldn’t cut water.” The response, ‘cool, come on and say it.”

My next question was what time. 6.30 was the hilarious reply. To get to GM-TV at 6.30, they’d have to send the car to pick me up at 5 am - less than four hours time, so after laughing at the absurdity I told him “not on your nelly”. However I did volunteer (assuming they’d say no) that if they came to me I’d do it after 8.30.

Five minutes later a call back, we’ll have an outside broadcast truck at your house at 8.00. No way out now. I asked him if he’d get the crew to wake me up. They duly did, I let them in, they set up in my living room, while I had a shower, shaved, walked in front of the camera, and started talking to Eamonn.

Watched ‘Skint’ on BBC1 for the first time last night. Sadly didn’t manage to catch all of this fly on the wall documentary series about people with serious money problems. The focus was on ‘cash converters’ - a modern version of a pawn shop.

It was eye opening. I freely admit that my MoneySaving focus is saving cash for those people ‘in the system’ not for those who are outside it. It did make me think ‘is there anything I can do?’ Yet it’s tough - getting the best deals, buying the best bargains, reducing your expenditure and being a savvy consumer is fine for people with some form of cash flow.

Yet once you’re outside of the system and have nothing coming in…. many of those techniques aren’t particularly helpful. Even at a raw level this website is self-evidentally only there to help those who are on the internet. All the others are information disenfranchised, even if they could use that info in the first place.

All this set me pondering. Currently there’s a site charity fund, which is becoming quite substantial, see the About Us section. I’ve often said I’d like to set up a specific charity to help. The two ideas I’ve previously mulled are ‘a debt education charity for children’ and ‘a helpline of helplines - a one stop shop which directs anyone to the right non-profit agency to help them’.

Any more ideas would be welcome. Just put them in the ‘This Site and Suggestions’ part of the Chat Forum.

So it’s a days filming today for a Tonight with Trev Mac programme about Rosie Millard, the former BBC Arts Correspondent and now presenter/Sunday Times Buy-to-let columnist. She’s been slammed recently for being £40,000 in debt while having a huge amount of property. My job was to go in and see her and find the real story and help if I can.

I’ve worked with Rosie before (on a property programme) and we get on rather well. In fact we both actually have the same agent for TV work and when I first read the story I did send a personal email saying I’d happily have a chat if it’d help. However in the end it turned out I would have to do it on camera.

I arrived at her beautiful home in Islington, to be greeted by quite a strong expresso, as well as the producer, cameraman and soundman (both called Steve, it makes it much easier).

The funny thing is both Rosie and I present Tonight with Trev on occasion, so it’s a rather strange doubling to be there together. In fact in this she’s the presenter of the programme and I am ‘experting’. A bit of a shame for me as I suspect it’ll mean a softening on the agenda.

On to looking at the debts. The first thing that was obvious was the papers didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. She’d been slammed for a horrendous £40k of credit card debts. Yet between her and her hubby it was actually £20k and all at 0% and she’s a good tart constantly moving it.

Without giving the programme away too much (it’s on 13 May), Rosie’s problems are pretty simple. She’s overexposed to property, has no cash due to really poor money management, and spends substantially over her means (or did before anyway!)

For someone who earns north of £200,000 she really should have a good life. Before I went I didnt have much sympathy (well it’s tough to isn’t it). Yet actually after the day together, I felt much less antipathy to the situation. To be fair, she isn’t asking for sympathy, is aware of the issues, and rather bravely takes it on the chin (If you were well known would you expose your finances that way….?)

Right I’m going to stop writing now. After-all I am a journalist too, and don’t want to deny a bit of income writing a juicy piece for a paper on the day by giving everything away here! Can’t let Rosie reap all the pennies can we?

Went in to do Jeremy Vine’s Radio 2 show as normal. The big difference, Tony Blair was doing the hour before me. Sadly, they ran long with the PM and he took 30 minutes of my MoneySaving time (anyone’d think there was an election on or something!).

So I crossed Mr. Blair in the corridor and nodded hello. I was pleased to see he wears more fake tan than me (well… when you’re on the telly, don’t ask me about being told i needed to ‘dye my eyelashes!)

When I sat down the chair was warm, obviously provided by the PM’s bottom heat - some people would pay for that (though I’m not one of them, so shifted uncomfortably).

Onto the programme, which was titled ‘What’s the cheapest?’ As I scribbled down my notes it occurred to me I hadn’t brought paper in with me and my scribbled on top of TB’s page.

So I looked at his notes. Like me he writes down details of the caller and their name so you don’t forget during a phone in. His said

3 year old,
11 year old
school failing
curriculum issues.

Having listened before this was obviously from a discussion of a parent who’d called in. She’d complained bitterly about the fact her child had been rejected from three schools. Blair’d been on the back rope and the points scored were heavy.

Sadly there was nothing salacious in his notes. No scandal! I did for a moment entertain a huge temptation to mimic his handwriting and write in the word ‘bitch’ afterwards, then flog the paper to the Sun.

I’m not that brave though, so good manners meant in the end I took the paper home clean with both my and his notes on it, having got Jeremy and the producer to verify it and it now hangs on the wall in the office. A nice memento!

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