Thanks to Marion for sending me this note:
“I was asking the helpful and well-informed lady at NatWest a few general questions about credit limits, and the subject of credit scoring came up. I asked whether her information came from within the bank, and she said, ‘Well there’s this website called MoneySavingExpert.com that I get most of my information from…”
There’s a story on page 19 of the Times today about the site and the Great Tesco Beef in Gravy Loophole. This is fab PR for the site, but we’ve been working on a full press release.
I’ve also been in dialogue with Tesco, to make sure the thing doesn’t go ballistic and MoneySavers are protected and get their beef. The journalist at the Times obviously spotted it on the weekly email and wrote. That’s great. Though a wee bit of a shame she didn’t manage to get in contact with me.
Now the press release goes out and it’s likely it’ll only be in the Times rather than the other newspapers. Cross your fingers and take a look (I can’t really complain about being caught out by good journalism).
There are two invites flying around the personal finance journalism world at the moment from large financial services companies. One was a yachting day with 5 star hotel the night before that I was invited to. The second, a fellow journalist told me about another jolly available to the Edinburgh festival that another provider’s putting on.
These come thick and fast when you’re in my position and I must admit it’s a wrestle. Lots of journalists from all the papers and elsewhere will be going on them. However, I recommend products in a way they don’t and ask myself the question “if there was an article on the front page of a newspaper detailing that I’d gone, would I be happy?”
So the line is difficult to draw. Personally my rule is - I won’t go away for the night, but will go for dinner and entertainment - so sports and events in London are a yes, further a-field a no.
It’s tough. I genuinely don’t believe any hacks are influenced by such treatment. It’s treated as a fringe benefit to the job. So you may ask, why do the companies do it? Well it does buy them something. It buys them ‘not having the phone put down’. They do it for relationship PR, as once you know someone you have to listen to them when they call you.
This works and is true. The PR officers I know and respect I listen to. Doesn’t mean I agree, and mostly I don’t and still slam their products. Yet I give them a couple of minutes on the phone - rarely does it change my mind. Then again I work off spreadsheets, rather than emotions when I write.
Tricky issue though…..
I don’t want to be a killjoy, but let’s be honest, most people aren’t going to be hugely successful and famous. I saw an interview with Kinga the ‘bottle girl’ from Big Brother the other day, in which she said “I’m going to be a success, I know it”.
Now while ambition is great, this ‘belief over talent’ mentality is rather worrying. This isn’t some snobbish rant. Actually it comes from seeing people time and time again planning based on a belief that they will be successful, when a rational look makes it obvious it’s unlikely.
In a money makeover I did a week ago, I met a man seriously in debt and hideously overspending… Why? “Because I’m going to get my dream job in TV so I know it’s alright.”
To dissuade him of this was a very tough process and draining. Of course he may get the job, but it’s relatively unlikely and he MUSTN’T plan his finances around it. Sadly he’d struggle even with that dream job.
Unsurprisingly he’s also a lottery player, spending hundreds of pounds a year. It’s more ’selling the dream’. To me this ‘aspirational society’ is dangerous. In the old days royalty and celebrity were distant images people never hoped to aspire to. These days we see inside their homes and their lives so they appear to be normal people. This gives the public the misguided belief ‘I can be rich and famous too’.
Yet the numbers say different. Not everyone can be famous. If they were there’d be no fame. Not everyone can be rich, or it wouldn’t be rich. Perhaps being happy with our lot, being ambitious but realistic, would leave less debt and more contentment.
Sorry, it’s not as exciting as the title. I just got back from Channel 5 news, where I filmed a live slot for today’s news, plus pre-records for the next two days. To look different I had to take three different shirts, and Helen the news anchor had to change to her next two day’s clothes as well. It left me pondering on the way back - different shirts, same pants, for three days - yuch!
I needed a replacement key for my Smart Car recently so I went to Smart upgrades and had it done. The new key, unlike the previous one, only had two buttons. It was missing the remote ‘boot-opening button’.
When I asked why I was told the model I had didn’t offer that feature. Yet my existing key has the button and it works. Turns out all Smart models are built with the remote control receiver, you just don’t get the key. The functionality is deliberately turned down purely to allow a level of product differentiation!
It’s 11pm. Just finished filming the third Make Me Rich (my new ITV1 series, though it may not be shown third). I’m on the train back to London from Rugby. Left at 6.30am this morning. It’s been an exhausting day, but I’m very pleased with the result (plus I ache, I’ve just started going to the gym, and I went for the second time last night, and it huuurrttsss!)
First of all the savings are all pain-free. I didnt have to make the family ‘cut back’ at all. I love that. It’s where my passion is. Plus the savings are enormously gigantically HUGE! And some really interesting issues came up.
The worst bit was I was made to film in a jacuzzi and had hefty “I dont want to show too much flesh - it’s bad for my credibility” issues. Whereas the producer (as they always do) thought ‘great, a different shot’ and wanted to milk it. Modesty mainly prevailed, I’m pleased to say.
Now I am a Smart car driver. I have a little black two-seater car. It’s fantastic. I live in London and parking in central London is amazing (plus it’s very fuel efficient and if you’re self employed and buy it on a company you get a big capital write-off). Anyway, for Make Me Rich they say “we’re going to get you a special car for the series” to travel round in.
So I’m thinking - OK, in London when I’m paying a Smart’s great, but outside when they’re paying it’d be nice to drive a TVR, Ferrari, Porsche, Jag…… Guess what? I saw it the other day. My new car for filming in the series (I literally just drive it to be filmed in. As soon as that’s done I get out and someone else takes it back. I’m never really even in it) is… a little black Smart car. OK, this one’s convertible, but still….
I just received an email from a parent who’s daughter wants to be a lawyer, but needs to borrow £20k to do it for postgrad funding yet none is available. As a single parent she can’t help and is lost to know what to do. Thought I’d copy you in on my response.
There is a huge poverty of funding of postgraduate education in the UK. You’ll find articles on the site on career development loans and if you look into the student finance section you’ll see links to a website that lists grants and scholarships – you’d be amazed what’s there.
Ultimately though there is a lack of cash. We’ve seen higher education expand from around 10% of the population in 1989 to around 50% now. A degree has become commonplace, and we’re seeing many graduates struggle to have their expectations of employment met. So, then, to ‘show I’m different’ the student takes steps to get a postgrad and yet there’s limited funding. So here we are, a nation that educates students into debt when they go to university with students loans, educates them further into debt to make a difference with a postgrad, yet never educates them about debt and leaves them underfunded and potentially exposed for a long time to a dangerous cash situation.
Can I help? No. You’ve written to me – but perhaps this is one to write to your MP about and ask why?
Martin
I’m on the train back from Dover, where I’ve just been filming the first Make Me Rich (though it won’t be the first one shown). It’s been an exhausting two days. While the money makeover is done in a day, because of filming for TV we have a second day’s filming on top. Yesterday was 14 hours, today 12, and while talking for a living may sound easy, actually it’s full-on constant performing and is exhausting.
Whilst I can’t go too much into detail about the programme (not allowed - it gives the game away) this one caused me some problems. The savings I could make were huge, but this was someone so deeply in debt it wouldn’t hit the sides. Yet the aim of Make Me Rich is to free up people’s cash so they can have something they want (new bathroom, kitchen etc). That’s the format, it’s what ITV wants, and after waiting five years hearing “your stuff is too complicated, we prefer cutting-back programmes” it’s what finally got me my own series.
Yet here’s the dilemma. While I saved loads, of course it’s tough to allow someone in serious debt to go spending. So what do you do? I can’t play against the format because I’m not the boss (contrary to opinion, while I’m presenter and expert, I’m not involved in editing and formatting. The producers put it together, and they’re governed by the ITV commissioning areas) and I want the series to work too.
If it does work then I think it’s incredibly important, of course for me personally, but also because it’s the first time I (or in my opinion anyone) has been given the chance to talk about real money on the TV. (Most ‘money shows’ are, I think, actually psychology shows dressed up). This amount of airtime to show people how to take on big companies is unprecedented and important and can make a real difference - surprising it’s ITV, not the BBC, that was brave enough in the end.
Getting that message, the bigger picture, across is very important so there’s a need for balance. It’s tough though as I’m a purist. I can’t tell you too much about what I did, but the issue, I suspect, is one that will be repeated and cause more dilemma moments for me.
How many people in life get to email their female friends saying “would you like to play with me?” I couldn’t resist… sorry
OK I’m rather chuffed today, as one of my best friends has made her big TV presenting debut. She’s a new main newsreader on the Channel 5 news, and while she’s been there a few weeks, this is her first time doing the flagship 5.30pm programme. So if you see ‘Barbara Serra’ doing the C5 news, you’re to wave at the telly from me.
When you work in broadcasting you make friends with lots of people, but Babs (as I call her) isn’t a work friend, we actually met (gulp… 11 years ago) at University. I was in my third year at LSE and she was in her first year; but we were doing the same ‘public international law’ class.
Now if I’m honest I did sit in the room for the first couple of weeks going “wow, who is she?â€? Though if you’re wondering, there’s no salacious gossip (well not between us anyway, yet I couldn’t dish the dirt as she knows too much about me!) and we ended up becoming close friends.
It’s pure coincidence we both ended up as broadcasters; neither of us went that way after graduating, but in 1997 I went to Cardiff to do a broadcast journalistm postgrad and she did hers at City Uni a couple of years later.
She did once interview me for a Sky news package, but I suspect the bizarre day will soon come when I get called in and interviewed by Babs. I may just have to kick her under the desk to see who loses concentration first - luckily I’m always in there as an ‘expert’ so we’re on the same side, rather than an adversarial grilling.
Funnily enough, it’s the fact Babs is doing what she’s doing that makes me think I might now be a grown up! How scary….
I just don’t get pop-ups on websites. Who on earth clicks them? I point blank refuse to have them here (I even got the game reconfigured as some of the options looked pop-up like).
My favourite one was when clicking on the Channel 5 news website, and a full page ad for Aol opened up. Best of all, as it was opening the page title (in the browser itself) quickly changed from ’subliminal advertising’ to ‘aol’. Subliminal my donkey’s bum! It was a full page ad for heavens sake! That’s megabliminal not subliminal.
Yet, someone must be clicking them - otherwise people wouldn’t use them. Personally even if something intrigues me, I won’t click it on a pop-up. I go into google and find the site seperately. This way hopefully it won’t show up on their advertising figures and we’ll discourage sites from using them.
Now I have a confession to make. I do absolutely love playing games and am incredibly competitive. That’s why I got the new MoneySaving Game added to the site, and we’ve had great fun in developing it. Unfortunately I rather embarrassingly have got slightly addicted to my own game. Worse still, I’ve started dreaming about it. Now this often happens to me when I play a game: I find myself locked into Tetris or Sudoku as I start to go to sleep.
Yet last night I started dreaming of my own game. I was dreaming of myself in the character of the game, which rather bizarrely is me. This is enough to give anybody nightmares. However at least you now know the reason for the farty noises from my earlier blog.
I do hope you like the game.
I’m on the train back from Manchester after my first meeting with the production crew of Make Me Rich (the new series I’m doing for ITV1). It’s quite fun to meet the team, and quite daunting to know there’s a lot riding on it.
I think they may be a little tired though. I tend to get a little carried away when talking about MoneySaving and the philosophy behind it, very evangelical. It’s important to me that the team understands what it’s all about. Just hope I didn’t go on a bit too much.
We’re still looking for candidates. It’s not an easy job, as like all TV Make Me Rich is formatted and therefore the candidates have to fit into the format we’re looking for. These things tend to have quite rigid structures and it’s not just finding people I can help, but people to make each programme distinctive, different and bring up different issues!
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