Sometimes maths is wonderful. We were out the other day with some of the MSGs friends in their mid-20s; they were teasing about my decrepit status of mid-30s.
Yet here comes the maths bit, as I explained in fact they were ageing far more quickly than me…
You see, in a year they’ll be 26 which is 4% older, whereas I’ll be 36, having only aged by 3%. Therefore in fact they’re ageing a third faster than me!
Nerdy I know. But at least I tried…
I love my work, but there comes a point when the sheer load is intimidating. And January is one of those times. It’s a difficult call to know what to do; everything is exciting, yet having had a few health issues this year due to over work and stress, looking ahead does make me gulp with a bit of fear.
Frankly, I think there’s a few things I’ve forgotten; which shows you the extent of this. On paper it’s amazing; and most of the time I count my luck to be at the centre of it. Each project in itself is very exciting. However, even the thought of trying to get through all of it in combination’s very draining. I do have fantastic support from the team here at MoneySaving towers, which will help a lot, plus I’m already trying to ensure that the weekends are breaks and I manage the work load…. Oh well, see you in February!
There are some things you never think you’ll say in a work context (or privately for that matter!); yet at 7pm on Tuesday I found myself saying: “Can you quickly find me a picture of a baboon’s bum?”
It’s all J-Lo’s fault
It all came about because I was writing a note on A&L’s new savings account for the weekly e-mail; here’s the note:
New Top Savings Accounts. 6.5% sounds good, but it isn’t for most
There’s a new top sounding rate offered by Alliance & Leicester* eSaver; it’s paying 6.5%, which sounds like a market leader; yet like a baboon, there’s a seriously big but(t). First of all, 0.35% of this is a bonus, and drops after fourteen months, plus if you withdraw money, you lose all the interest for that month. After number crunching, for almost everyone, the ICICI* clean savings account at 6.41% with a good rate guarantee until Dec 2011 is much better. Updated Article: Top Savings Accounts Related Articles: Regular Savings, Are your savings safe?
If you read it carefully, you’ll have seen the comment “yet like a baboon, there’s a seriously big but(t).” It’s the first time I’ve used the phrase, as I always used to say, “yet there’s a big but, a J-Lo sized but!” - because of course J-Lo’s one of the few people you could politely say this about as her bum’s a big positive. Yet that’s now become a bit hackneyed so I wanted something new.
The problem was, what to choose? I was going to say ‘like an elephant’ but while elephants have big bums, they have big everything. Then I thought about the red-bummed monkey I’d seen at the zoo and was pretty sure it was a baboon. Thus I asked Richard, who was in the office but not on panicked tip preparation status like the editorial team to search for a picture….
PS Here’s the pic he found!
A press release just dropped into my inbox: I’d not known a word about it before, but it brought a huge smile to my face (and a wee bit of pride too). Every year, ‘Morgan Stanley’ Great Britons awards are given for seven categories of achievement in public life, and in the awards press release (which I’ve reproduced below) I’m being suggested as one of the nominees for campaigner of the year.
The irony is it’s sponsored by Morgan Stanley, which, amongst other things, is a provider of credit cards. Considering my nomination is mainly based on the work this site’s done in raising people’s awareness of how they take companies on and deal with their debt, alongside reclaiming campaigns like credit card charges and ppi reclaiming (plus council tax and bank charges) the irony looms large.
Now I know at this point its supposed to be bad form to say “I’d love the award”, but let me be honest, I would; of course, a part of it is for career and ego purposes and I’m not going to deny that; but it also provides an additional platform for raising bigger issues - from the woeful state of financial education to the suspension of bank charges reclaiming - and the fact a big bank’s paying makes it even better.
Next step is to get the nominations, if any MoneySavers fancy nominating me at the Great Britons site that’d be fantastic; looking at who else is there… I need all the help I can get.
Campaigning & Public Life in 2007
Morgan Stanley celebrates Great British achievements for the fourth consecutive year.
London, 6 October, 2007, Morgan Stanley today announced that nominations have opened for the Morgan Stanley Great Briton Awards 2007, offering each member of the public the opportunity to put forward the British person they believe has made an exceptional contribution to their field over the past year.
The Awards, now in their fourth year, seek to explore, express and celebrate Britishness in the field of Campaigning & Public Life as well as across six other categories including Arts, Business, Creative Industries, Environment, Science & Innovation and Sport.
In 2006, 16 year-old Laurie Pycroft was awarded the Campaigning & Public Life Morgan Stanley Great Briton Award for his Pro-Test movement which promoted and supported animal testing in medical research. Jamie Oliver won the award in 2005 following his astonishing energy and determination in persuading schools, the Government, parents and society at large of the need to change school lunch menus from junk food into nutritious meals.
This Award recognises the countless individuals who work with steadfast determination on community issues or fight to correct social wrongs. At a time when the British population is evolving so rapidly, focusing on and celebrating people who best represent Britishness in any given year, gives the nation a real feel for what it means to be British.
Who will win the award for their contribution to Campaigning and Public Life in 2007 - will it be Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer for England and the UK’s Chief Medical Adviser, since 1998 or perhaps Martin Lewis, the award-winning TV & radio presenter, national newspaper columnist and bestselling author, who set up the website MoneySavingExpert.com? Nominations for the Campaigning & Public Life Morgan Stanley Great Briton and all other categories can be made now at http://www.greatbritons.org.
Following public nominations, category judging panels will select a shortlist prior to the final judging panel selecting the overall winners of each category. The winners will be announced at a prestigious awards ceremony held in central London in January.”
Last week the MSG was on a programme called “Cooking the Books” on Five TV, presented by Jeremy Edwards. On it she was asked “surely going out with the money saving man, your cupboards are bare, as he won’t buy anything?”
The MSG, I’m very proud to announce, replied something akin to, “it’s not about not spending it’s about getting best value, so where they’re the best we go for own brands rather than branded goods; don’t worry we don’t starve!” Talk about being ‘on-message’, hoorah.
By coincidence, later that day she’d been to the supermarket to grab our weekly food shop; and was getting me some Sugar Puffs (I’d had a yearning for some and hadn’t eaten them for years).
The problem was, the Sainsbury’s own brand version she bought were horrid; not a patch on the real thing. Then again that’s what the downshift challenge is all about, trying something a brand level lower… and then only sticking with them if you can’t tell the difference… as for Sugar Puffs… this time, the downshift failed.
When I set up this site in 2003, I remember a few industry voices said what’s the point of what they called “a personal brand money site”. At the time, this high falutin’ title seemed a bit much; I wasn’t setting up a specific branded site, I was setting up a glorified home page I ran by myself, to support my print and broadcast work as Money Saving Expert.
Now, four years later, and with this site the UK’s biggest money site, it’s interesting to see it’s become all the rage. All the big faceless money sites have suddenly sprouted pictures of ‘experts’ on their front pages. Go to MoneySupermarket and you’ll see Stuart and Richard, two of the Directors with their pics there, ready to help. Uswitch hired the former boss of Energywatch to front some of their e-bulletins and work on consumer policy, and the trend continues on other sites too; it’ll be interesting to see how it develops.
This weekend’s papers are full of the fact that there’s a supermarket price war in the dirt-cheap lager market. Asda’s now dropped the price of its cheapest lager to 22p a can, and all the main supermarkets now sell their no-frills equivalent brand for about the same cost. There’s much gnashing of teeth and righteous indignation. Yet when I read it I can’t help but think “hold on, here’s something being sold cheaper than usual, isn’t that a good thing?” There’s certainly a dilemma here; is this the type of thing I should be covering and encouraging on the site, or would that be socially irresponsible?
Of course, the 22p lager isn’t exactly rated the greatest quality, but it’s cheap and legal and if you’re planning to get drunk, as many do; then the fact this enables you to do it while spending less is certainly a good thing. It also can’t be argued it’s a bargain, as some estimate the supermarkets actually lose money by selling these as the excise duties higher than the can cost.
So I thought I’d set out my view of the pros and cons…
Is dirt-cheap booze MoneySaving?
The arguments for…
The arguments against…
What’s the answer?
I remember discussing the UK’s attitude to alcohol once while on the panel on The Wright Stuff and my overall view was I think the UK as a nation doesn’t have a drink problem, it has a drunk problem. Cheaper alcohol if then used within reason isn’t a bad thing; yet if the result is more inappropriate binge drinking it’s not healthy.
Perhaps the answer is, rather than putting it directly in the weekly e-mail or covering it on the site, I should just write a blog about it which provides the information, but in a neutral way and putting both sides of the argument. What do you think?
I’ve just taken a look at the new supposedly ethical credit card launched by the Co-Op bank… What a load of nonsense; it’s about as ethical as my bottom. Of course the Co-Op is an ethical bank with regards to its investment policy; yet to hype this card in this way is shocking…
Its pitch
The card promises lower interest rates if you buy things on it from one of sixteen ethical partners and to give money and donations to charity when you get it.
The reality
Yet when I looked through the details I was shocked. What you actually have is a rather nasty case of charitable marketing; trying to lever people conscience to sell them a very poor product. Here’s some examples of issues with this card.
Yet elsewhere you can get a 0% card for spending lasting for 12 months, with an interest rate just a smidgeon higher thereafter. Alternatively, you can get a card with a flat rate of 6.8% APR. Is it ethical to charge so much more than people can borrow for elsewhere.
If you buy something from one of its 16 partners, you are charged 7% APR,. Yet, as I note above, there are cards which charge less than this as a standard rate! Not only that but the 7% only last for 6 months after each purchase with Co-Op.
I’ll leave you to make your own mind up on this one… their ethical partners are…
Ikea
The trainline
Lush
Raleigh
Adili
Traidcraft
Coolearth
Energysavingworld
Ecotricity
Nigel’s store
Ethical Superstore
Ecologist
Arriva
and of course… it’s included its other brands to ensure some ethical cross-selling:
The Co-Op
The Co-Op electrical shop
Co-Operative Insurance
Then again of course the card wants you to have a nice warm glow as it says it… “makes a contribution of 25p for every £100 spent to Cool Earth, an organisation that buys and protects the rainforest.”
Doesn’t that sound nice… yet remember right now, my top deals in the Best Cashback Cards article are Amex has a cashback card paying 5% cashback for the first three months followed by up to 1.5% and Capital One 4% followed by a flat 1%. Whereas Co-Op is donating just 0.25% to charity. Plus by using cashback cards then donating the cashback the charity would get you tax back on top. Meaning roughly over a year a basic rate taxpayer spending £10,000 a year would be donating £25 with Co-Op whereas around £225 with one of the cashback cards; nine times more.
So do forgive me Co-Op, if I say ethical… schmethical!
After the nightmare this site’s had with the malicious DDOS attack a fortnight ago, I must admit to feeling a little bad. In this week’s tip one of the main articles was Cheapest Mobiles and one of the main links in there is the use of the mobile comparison site One Compare. Sadly as the email goes to 1.5+m people it couldn’t cope with the volume of traffic and has been down for two days.
We had warned them in advance, and they did of course welcome the traffic. Yet technically what happened does count as a ‘denial of service’ - even though in this case it was involuntary. Hopefully it’ll be up again soon, I know they’re working through it. As for news on our DDOS (which was a malicious simulated attack) the police are continuing their criminal investigation and I cross my fingers they’ll get to the bottom of it.
I recently added the Google toolbar to my browser. It means now when I do a search or get a site name wrong it’s Google rather than MSN that appears. One thing of note is when you enter something into the Google toolbar it brings up a series of popular searches as an option. Now if I quickly want to find one of my articles and I’m not on the site, I just type my name and then the article name into Google and it comes up e.g. “Martin Cheap Trains”.
I’ve just noticed now what’s on the list of popular searches…. The first is Martin Luther King, the second is Martin Lewis! It’s quite a strange moment to know that I’m number 2 in Google’s list of popular Martin’s; and more than an honour to be second to one of the greats of humanitarian campaigning. Now don’t worry I’m not getting too big for my boots; I know my searches are mainly just people looking for m’MoneySaving tips and not (thankfully) interest in me personally; yet either way though, I did sit up a little bit straighter in my seat.
The other day I was called by a journalist doing a story on the credit crunch and its impact on borrowers. After a while they admitted they too had substantial debts and it was a big worry and we discussed the real stigma attached to admitting it.
Yet there’s no stigma to borrowing; after all we now educate our students into debt and The Times today ran a headline worrying about the lack of available credit card borrowing. Yet there’s still such a huge stigma to admitting that you’re actually IN debt.
This is a shame; if people were more open about debt issues; like those making heroic efforts in the debt-free wannabe forum, people would talk about it more; offer solutions and caution each other about making mistakes.
Yet when it comes to debt problems; so many people keep quiet. The truth is our neighbours, work colleagues and cousins can be in tradgic debt and we don’t know. They can be sitting at dinner with a restaurant panicking when it comes to splitting the bill; feeling ill and depressed when the talk of the latest product comes along or someone makes fun of their less fashionable clothes.
We need to be able to admit our faults, seek help without judgement and honestly talk about our cash. Yet our society now seems to have the worst of both worlds. No one is scared to borrow, yet we are scared off asking for hep and admitting problems when we’re in debt. How depressing.
PS If you’ve problem debts, please read the Debt Problems: Where To Start, What To Do, Where To Get Help guide.
For whole site search, use the search at the top of the page.
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