Worrying developments at my house. The MSG was round and gloriously had offered to make dinner. She had a packet of risotto, and was about to cook when we noticed a tragedy. In large print on the back was NO MSG. We had bread and cheese instead!
Archive for June, 2006
Don’t say moo to the NFU!
Thursday June 29th, 2006
I recently had a call from an old colleague, Carlton. We worked together as producers for Radio 4 & 5 in the BBC Business unit in the late 90s. He’s now an IFA and called up out of the blue with the fun suggestion we meet up to chat about old times.
His call reminded me of one of the most embarrassing moments of my professional career. Then I worked a mix of day and night shifts, and when you sometimes work with a group from 9pm to 9am, you all (hopefully) become friends. On one particular shift, I was chasing a story involving the National Farmers’ Union, and more specifically (forgive me if it’s inaccurate, it’s a dusted-off memory) the fact many farmers were depressed and even committing suicide due to the poor farm economy.
Carlton heard me on the phone to the NFU, and without realising the story’s gravity, decided to play a joke. As I talked to its senior press officer, he started loudly mooing! Yes, literally making noisy, cow-impression sounds! I frantically and angrily signalled for him to stop, yet this only raised the level of the joke and his volume. After another 10 seconds, I’d no option but to tell the press officer, “I’m really sorry, but my colleague is finding it funny to do cow impressions, I know it’s inappropriate, please let me call you back.” A phrase I don’t think I’ll ever repeat again.
Are we being sold the fear of ID Fraud?
Tuesday June 27th, 2006
I’ve done an interview on ID Fraud for GM-TV. This is to go in a reporter’s package and I have no doubt they’ll use the animated one of me talking about how ID Fraud works. What probably won’t be mentioned is my quote, “there’s a growing ID fraud protection industry out there, trying to scare us into paying for protection products that actually very few will need.” When told there’d been a survey on the dangers of junk mail for ID fraud, my first question was “was it by a shredder company or an ID fraud protection company?”; in this case it was the latter.
This isn’t to say ID fraud isn’t an issue. It is, but it’s by no means the most dominant type of card fraud, in fact it’s one of the smaller ones. Yet as it’s nice and frightening it’s a good one to sell us protection products for. Capital One’s Alistair McGowan adverts boosted the profile of ID fraud… why? To sell a credit card. We should be duly wary of ID fraud, but not unnecessarily panicked. Just try getting that message out there though when there’s an industry worth millions growing on the back of selling us fear.
Sneak Preview of the new MSE
Monday June 26th, 2006
I mentioned in a previous blog, we’re working on a new look and structure to the site, that’ll make it crispier and easy to use. We’re about half way through the process, and I thought it was time to give you a sneak preview. Now of course there will be changes and so not to give the whole game away, I’m just linking to the new look home page below to give you a rough picture. The design is centred around the L shaped bar at the top and the right of the site. The top bit will be for navigation, the right for browsing and this’ll be on every page in the main site and the Chat Forum.
The new logo is almost complete, though I need to get a new picture for it. While the blue is definitely the main colour, the rest still has to be finalised. I think the browser bar will have a white, not coloured background, the recent articles a soft green rather than the blue, to distinguish between that and the most popular articles, plus a few of the proportions will change and the ‘This Site and Martin’ button’s prominence will be reduced. Yet overall this is roughly the shape of things to come. The articles’ pages, Chat Forum, and other sections of the site will fit into this new look and colouring.
The Chat Forum button is at the top right, and the colour will be changed to match the new forum colours. It’s also likely (if we can) that the browser bar will contain a link to the day’s previous most popular thread in the forum. I suspect a few forum comments will say “couldn’t you make the forum button bigger?” Well it’s just as prominent as it is now, and its current prominence is deliberate. New MoneySavers start with articles and are then drawn into the forum. There are only 100,000 forum members, yet 1,000,000 people use the site each month; most users prefer to gain info from the articles - the aim of the new design is to gradually move people into the forums.
I do hope you like it; the team is working very hard on it. So while critique is welcomed, please remember this is another step in an on-going process, and there are many different considerations (including disability access) that have to be taken into account in the design.
What is salad?
Friday June 23rd, 2006
It may sound a rather bizarre question yet as you’ll see from the phone picture below, the all-you-can-eat place I had lunch in with some of the MoneySaving towers team yesterday defined it as simply tomatoes. This prompted me to ask ‘what is salad?’ Surprisingly it isn’t as easy to define as you think - potato salad, fruit salad, all tend to skew definitions. In the end, we came up with ‘cold food, of at least two types, in bite-size chunks’.
However MSE Dan queried this, pointed out, ‘what about hot chicken and bacon salad?’ Yet I’d argue, in this case it’s the chicken and bacon that’s hot not the salad - thus it doesn’t change the definition.
We decided it has to be bite-size because having originally thought salad ‘must be chopped’, some salads do have whole baby tomatoes or new potatoes in. And it must be two different types of food, because a salad really must be a mix (in other words the restaurant was wrong).
Now I have quite deliberately avoided googling this issue, as it’s more fun to try and do it alone.
The MSG was triumphant in the free bet. Go on Robocrouch
Friday June 16th, 2006
The £5 totally free bet linked to in this weeks e-mail was a triumph. Sadly I wasn’t watching it with the MSG who was presenting a charity football do for Cancer Research at the time. Yet the previous night, having got the e-mail, she asked me what to bet on, as her football knowledge is erm.. .well… let’s just say limited. I thought at 5-1 Mr. Crouch to score first seemed a nice bet, so she duly put her £5 on! Now she’s £25 better off. Yippee! The only question is, do I ask for half?
P.S. As noted in the tip, gambling isn’t MoneySaving, except, as in this case when it is totally with the bookkeepers money.
Thank heavens I always spend on my credit card
Friday June 16th, 2006
Having had terrible service from a funiture company, I’ve just had over £400 returned onto my cashback card. Hoorah for credit cards, if I hadn’t spent on one, I doubt the money would’ve come back this quickly and easily. This is all about Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, a wonderful piece of legislation that’s great for consumers, but if I’m honest is totally outmoded and out-of-date, and long may it remain so!
This is one of the reasons I always spend on a credit card. Of course I repay in full each month so there is never interest to pay, I use my card purely as a transaction method, and to earn cashback (see Best Cashback Card article).
Anyway, on with the story. I bought a piece of furniture from a company called JMC Trading, whose behaviour has been shoddy and terrible, shame on you - I wouldn’t touch you again with a bargepoll. It was bought last September for delivery in December. It didn’t arrive, I called numerous times, greeted by an answerphone or occasional surly members of staff who told me they didn’t know what I was talking about and they’d call me back. That never happened. After continuing to go through this until March, I called my credit card company and said ‘I want my money back’.
The card company checked it out and said “you paid for the goods legitimately, you’re not disputing that, so this isn’t really a problem.” Not so according to me, and I invoked Section 75 whiich means if you pay for goods worth over £100 even partially on a credit card then the credit card company is equally liable with the retailer (see Consumer Rights article for more). As I hadn’t had delivery of goods and didn’t believe they were ever coming, I wanted my money back and I held the card company liable. Today after Capital One admitted it too wasn’t able to contact JMC, it told me they’d disputed the transaction and the money is now back in my account.
Had I spent on a debit card, this would all have been much more difficult. There are no rights on a debit card, of course fraud can be disputed, but that’s different. Section 75 applies to anyone borrowing money, it was set up when HP was really starting to come into fashion, and when credit cards were still mainly a twinkle in the moulders eyes. In the modern world, many use credit cards as transaction cards to earn cashback, much as I do (see Best Cashback Cards article), it doesn’t make so much sense, but lets not worry, it’s great consumer protection.
So I shall continue to spend where possible on my credit cards, never paying interest, usually earning cashback, always gaining extra protection. Of course, if I needed the cards to cut the cost of borrowing, it’d be different, and I wouldn’t always spend on the cards building up debts. However for the debt free out there, use credit click every time!
The End Of Balance Transfers As We Know It?
Wednesday June 14th, 2006
Today I discovered Amex is ending balance transfers for all new customers. Let me be honest, I was gobsmacked. This is quite a momentous decision in the credit card market. For one of the UK’s biggest players to totally turn its back on cheap debt switching offers, is a smack across the face for those seeking to reduce the cost of existing borrowing. Let’s get this straight, it isn’t just a change of ‘offer strategy’, it’s a withdrawal from the balance transfer market as a whole – that’s a radical first.
Its stated reason is that it wants to concentrate on cashback and reward type offers, but it’s been doing these for a while anyway. The truth is that customers correctly using their cards hurts. If people follow my ‘never, ever, ever spend on a balance transfer card’ rule, then Amex won’t be making money from its balance transfer offers.
At the moment there is no panic, the next best equivalent card isn’t far behind (see Best Balance Transfer Article), but the real worry is if this strategy is adopted across the market as a whole. That’s a little far fetched, but it is no exaggeration to say the balance transfer top offers market has retracted. With only negligible rises in interest rates (compared to credit card rates that is) we’ve seen 0% offer lengths get shorter, the introduction of balance transfer fees and now Amex withdrawing from the market as a whole.
In one way we should cheer hoorah! The savvy consumer is starting to get the better of the debt industry, yet the cost could be the market’s competitiveness. I still think we’re a long way from that, I don’t believe the end of tarting is upon us just yet. There are still many great cards out there - and the saving grace is as the market contracts, it becomes less costly to beat your competitors with a market leading deal. Yet Amex’s announcement is a wobble!
House prices could fall…
Monday June 12th, 2006
It’s true. No argument, house prices could fall. They could also, it need be said, continue to rise. This isn’t about predictions, but about understanding the risk. I was moved to blog about this again (see past blog) having been reading through some forum entries which effectively say “house prices can only ever go up.” We’re in an age where media and especially TV property programmes pump the home ownership dream, but often this misses the financial reality. It simply isn’t true, house prices are a risk-based asset class just like shares, and while the swings tend not to be as wide or as rapid as the stock market, they can, and do, and at some point in the future will happen.
When that will happen no one knows… 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 10 years or, 20 years. Yes no one knows - many will opine one way or the other, but the only real certainty is there isn’t any certainty. Anyone who tells you they know definitively what will happen is lying. Of course speculation and argument about moves are important to consider, but always remember they are only that.
Let’s make this plain. Owning a house is great, but no necessity. If you’re buying a house to live in, the fact you won’t need to pay rent really does help the equation. Yet there’s no need to starve to do it. Your overall finances are more important, make sure you can afford the house and definitely don’t overstretch yourself – if you think it may be a little much, take a step back and pause, don’t hurt yourself to get a house. Better to wait a little until you’re secure.
Remember renting isn’t a crime. Of course in the perceived market where house prices constantly rise, renting is a disaster, but if house prices plummet, the renters would’ve been right. And no one knows what the future holds.
If you’re still unconvinced or perhaps using the “yes, house prices may drop but Hampstead/Wilmslow/Hull (delete as applies to you) never drops” then think again. I remember the talk about shares during the year 2000, when it was said “there won’t be a collapse in internet shares, the market has had a fundamental shift and revaluation”, but we all remember the dot com crash. Property just isn’t as safe as houses.
Now I’m not suggesting anyone panic or sell. Just that you don’t make decisions believing that having a home is the be-all and end-all. There’s no prediction of a crash, a fall, or even a flatline, just that when planning your finances you should take this possibility into account.
Somewhere over the rainbow… who’d have thought it?
Friday June 9th, 2006
It’s been a bizarre week being a radio critic for Radio 2. For those who haven’t listened, I was picked alongside Peter Oborne of the Spectator as neither of us have ever bought a record, tape or CD in our lives, and music doesn’t play a part. Ten songs were short-listed from viewers’ suggestions, they were then played to us after being championed by a supporter and then we musical illiterates passed comment.
This isn’t as easy as you may think. I’ve no musical education, never listened to it, so it was a very new experience. After the first day the Editor suggested he wanted more ‘music critique’ and less criticism and we both promised to sit back, eyes closed and properly listen.
Was there an epiphany…? No. Did I learn to appreciate music more…? Yes. Especially the lyrics, perhaps the first time I’d tried to understand them. In the end the one that worked for me was “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”. Whether due to the music or more the association with the film I’m not sure, but it was without doubt the one that impacted me most on listening and this was called ‘music to change your life’.
My quote for Radio 2’s website is:
“I came to this a music virgin, and having been touched for the very first time, it was by Judy Garland.
It’s based on a personal memory, not any musical merit. It returned to me memories of the innocence of my childhood, watching the film with my mother, before she was tragically taken from us when I was 12. I found myself truly moved by the memory and my eyes welled.â€?
My personal order of the ten was as follows:
1. Over The Rainbow – Judy Garland
2. I Say a Little Prayer – Aretha Franklin
3. Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen
4. God Only Knows - The Beach Boys
5. Imagine – John Lennon
6. Something Inside So Strong – Labi Siffre
7. Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves - Giuseppe Verdi
8. Everybody Hurts - REM
9. Dark Side of The Moon – Pink Floyd
10. Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
To see the result of the listener vote click here
We are the champions my friends….
Thursday June 8th, 2006
The MoneySaving Team descended en masse to the Liverpool Victoria-organised journalists’ Table Football Tournament last night. The party was a wee bit of fun pre-World Cup. Well fun for most that is…. as you may guess I’m quite ridiculously competitive - and table football is a game I like. I used to play in my hall of residence at Uni, and it was no laughing matter there.
So to decide who was with me (it’s a doubles game) I’d held heats beforehand at MoneySaving Towers, and MSE Neil just managed to triumph. To avoid calls of ‘why are you in the 1st XI (or 1st II)?’ I then played Neil and thankfully scored a 7-2 win proving my suitability.
Thus onto last night’s tournament itself, where we were fielding a massive four MoneySaving Teams. The round-robin was easy, staggeringly there were even people playing there who didn’t really know the rules or thought it was just a bit of fun!
There was controversy afterwards, when young Neil was spotted with a bottle of Corona in his hands, after I’d specifically barred him from alcohol. The others argued his corner, noting that playing in defence to my attack, with me grunting and growling was deserving of a stress relaxant. Perhaps winning the in-office trials was a poisoned chalice!
Onto the next section; the four top teams included two MoneySaving teams in the round robin. The key match was Neil and I (badged as Portugal) against Latvia, who were made up of the Liverpool Victoria hosts. Both teams being the only ones now unbeaten, a crowd drew. Many comments of ‘bloody hell they take it seriously’ were heard, and the tension racked up. At 5-5 a poor put-in from the opposition let me in with a straight shot from goal and it was victory. Then we played the MoneySaving 2nd XI for the first time and thankfully proved the selection system worked.
Onto the final, again against Latvia. My left hand was by this time literally blue, bruised from ramming it against the side of the table. Palms sweaty and stony silence amongst the spectators, I must admit my bottle was going. Yet the Schmeichel-like skills of Neil in goal kept the opposition out, and then he twice scored from defence. We were in the lead, and before my grip gave out, we knew we had to capitalise. Thankfully, the ball placed right, the goals kept going in and we hit the magic 6 goals, while they only had 4. So it was first and third places for the MoneySaving teams - and the inflatable trophy was ours.
Now all we need is Mr. Beckham and the like to follow suit and it’ll be a top summer.
MoneySaving Old Style The Book: what to put on the cover?
Tuesday June 6th, 2006
My plan for this weekend was to read the first draft of MoneySaving Old Style, the book. It’s been written based on posts in the Old-Style Chat Forum, and compiled by Sue Haywood a great journalist on a brief we worked out. For those who don’t know, the Old Style board is much more ‘thrift’ than ’system-playing based’.
My job is to edit the book, ‘Martin-ify’ it, and write the introduction and the MoneySaving context for it. I’m quite excited about it as I’m hoping it’ll be a great read and a really different approach.
The one fly in the ointment is its cover. My publisher sent a draft through which involved a big picture of me changing a light bulb. To be honest this made me baulk somewhat; in my eyes this isn’t a ‘Martin’ book like the Money Diet in which every word is mine, but a MoneySavingExpert.com book, and I feel uncomfortable being massively plastered all over it. This whole project for me is meant to reflect the community feel of the book, it’s one of the reasons I’m not taking any of the proceeds (well, technically I am as I’m going to donate them to charity, but you know what I mean).
As someone who’s on TV regularly having my face on it is important to the publisher; it helps sell books, but my original hope was for a pic of me with the main Old Style board contributors, which I thought would look fun. Yet now I’ve been told apparently ‘the format space doesn’t allow room for that’.
So where do we go from here? I really want the book to work, but it’s also important this is seen as a community project, not my work; thrift isn’t my bag and some of it even occasionally jars with MoneySaving New Style, which is more my thing.
At the moment the publisher is going for its initial cover draft for the ’sell-in’ to book shops, but going to try and rework the cover, so that the ‘community-written not Martin-written’ message comes across. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Either way though, I suspect it’s going to be a cracking read. The amount of info on the site’s chat forum is huge. Perhaps a Debt-free Wannabe book next?
All the fun of a preacher man! The most bizarre day’s filming ever
Monday June 5th, 2006
What a bizarre sunny Saturday afternoon spent in St. Anne’s Square, Manchester preaching to a massed crowd about bank charges. I was there for last-ditch filming for the Tonight with Trevor I’m presenting tonight on reclaiming unfair bank charges.
Booted from the Trafford centre by the banks?
The problems started with attempting to put up a demonstration stall proclaiming “Tonight’s bank charge clinic”. This was designed to be done on camera in five minutes. The problem? Originally filming was scheduled for the indoor Trafford Centre, yet the banks based there seem to have got wind, and complained so we had to change setting at the last minute, and in the outdoor breeze the stand became a sail, desperate to breach its bounds. After an hour we managed to put the thing up, leaving one researcher to stand hidden behind holding the thing.
Two preachers, two subjects, one space
That overcome, the next problem. The intention was I’d hopefully preach to a crowd about how to reclaim their charges, but a real life evangelical preacher was already there. Yet his rather nasty sounding invective seemed to alienate people more than cajole, and many people were shouting back some nasty stuff. Not only did all this make the sound man wince and declare it unfilmable, it also meant the last thing I wanted to do was get on my temporary soap-box! Even so the producer politely asked if he’d mind moving and he did - so my options were closed.
The Soap-box moment
Onto the metal filming case I stepped to do the job. With hundreds of people milling about, as much as I’m used to being on telly, this was a whole different ball game, especially following the preacher. However, I did my duty, took a deep breath and stood up there, at full volume and I mean full; “ladies and gentlemen, a moment of your time please. Last week someone was repaid £17,500 in unfair bank charges and I’d like to explain how they did it”.
Thank heavens a crowd of around 100 gathered and I began my story. Luckily many there had suffered bank charges and were on side…. until one boy amongst a group of lads in football shirts (yes the England v Jamaica match was being played at Old Trafford not much later), wanted to get in camera and somehow thought mouthing obscenities was the way. I politely asked if he’d stop, so he shouted louder, until the cameraman asked him to shut up with stronger terms, as did the rest of the crowd, who thankfully at this point seemed interested in what I was saying. His mate then dragged him away.
When I asked, many in the crowd had great examples. One man talked of a £35 overdraft fee for going 10p over the limit, two students told of £800 of snowballed charges with credit cards, and one man, who’d been paying a third of his wage in bank charges and was drowning from them, walked away with an extra kick in his step, off to write a letter. I must admit it was a great feeling to see people get fired up that way.
The heckling
There was some heckling though. One guy even shouted out “tell them about your website, it’s fantastic”, an opportunity I of course didn’t miss. Near the end though, someone started to shout “the banks are only doing their job, making money” and “they’re doing nothing wrong” much to the displeasure of the rest of the crowd, some of whom shouted “which bank do you work for?â€? Strangely this echoes my own philosophy; “a bank’s job is to make money, people knew about the charges when they signed up” but misses out the “our job is to minimise the amount they make from us and fight back.” He then continued (and I do think he was playing a bit of devil’s advocate for the camera) but I explained that there’s making money, and there’s imposing charges which are disproportionate and unlawful. I added it’s an argument now backed by Which? and a number of other groups, with even the OFT saying the charges are unfairly high.
Scores of MoneySavers in the crowd
After finishing, many of the crowd turned out to be MoneySavers, and they stopped aside to say hello, which is always cool. It’s strange to realise how many there are out there. Most of them had simply been passing by and came over to listen.
There were a few who’d turned up specially though, as I’d put a wee note in the Chat Forum about it yesterday. They came with copies of the Money Diet to be signed at various points in the afternoon, it was lovely. Sorry for those who came in the midst of filming so I couldn’t say Hi properly. The biggest hello goes to Chat Forum Board Guide NearlyRich, who stayed most of the afternoon and helpfully wrote out the web address of both this site and the consumeractiongroup for those who needed help.
Does anyone ever think Martyn Lewis is me?
Monday June 5th, 2006
I was being picked up to go film a Tonight with Trevor MacDonald and, as happens quite regularly, the driver said “thought it was for Martyn Lewis”. Of course in speech the difference between the ‘y’ and the ‘i’ isn’t apparent.
As I always do, I replied “it is for Martin Lewis”.
To which (and I wonder if someone feeds them the script) he said “no, I meant the TV presenter Martyn Lewis”, at which point I bite my tongue.
Thankfully this happens a lot less than it used to, and I’ve managed to get over the need to justify my existence. These days, occasionally some of the TV company drivers are actually MoneySavers, which is always fun.
I have to admit, I do secretly hope one day I’ll hear that the former BBC newsreader and Today’s the Day presenter Martyn Lewis, got in a car and someone said “I thought it was for the Money Saving bloke.”
