Martin’s Blog…

While doing a little preparatory work for upcoming e-mails, I stumbled across the note below. It was my intro “hiya” note from the top of the tip of 28 Dec 07…

“2008 is likely to be the worst financial year in a long time. Sorry to be so gloomy in betwixt the festivities, but with the credit crunch biting, house prices teetering and the economy wobbling, the outlook for 2008 isn’t great. There’s nothing any of us can do about this except sort out our own finances to make them as strong and efficient as possible.

Help your friends and family too. Collective consumer action is the best weapon we’ve got. Please spread the word about the site and especially this e-mail; suggest people start to read it as a New Year’s resolution. All they need do is go to moneysavingexpert.com/tips”

Reading that back, I think I possibly underestimated! Yet what’s strange is I feel the real financial gloom has only actually hardened in the last four months or so; and I find it tough to remember that was already the sentiment a year ago.

Now the question is quite how much worse will 2009 be?

Comment and Discuss

The UK credit-card summit called by Peter Mandelson a few weeks ago had some rather paltry results. Now, as I’ll explain in a moment, the US has launched a similar new set of rules and perhaps we can learn something from them.

Our own summit produced very weak guidelines. Either the government doesn’t understand the practical realities of credit cards, or it couldn’t push the plastic providers into any real results so just had to get them to codify what is, in most cases, existing practice. The rules include:

• Card companies should honour the interest rate given for the first year and not increase it (this one isn’t too bad, but generally follows the older ‘treat companies fairly’ system. It doesn’t mean get a cheap card and you should stick with it.
• Companies will agree to give 30 days breathing space if people go to the debt counselling agencies (see the debt help guide for details of those).
• They will notify customers in advance of rate hikes (wowee, how kind).
• If they are increasing the interest they will allow customers to close accounts or offer them an alternative form of payment (e.g. a loan) at the current rate (as credit card rates are usually much higher than loans this isn’t a great deal).

Sadly I’ve not seen any mention of not cutting credit limits below people’s existing debt levels and then demanding payment, that may have helped. Yet the most laughable thing discussed in the summit was the idea that lenders should reduce rates in line with base rate cuts.

The following is from a press release I put out as the summit took place to comment on such a farcical idea.

“Credit cards and UK base rates are like rabbits and sofas: nowt to do with each other. This is why the Government’s reported call for the ‘base rate cut to be reflected by card companies’ is bizarre and irrelevant.

“Until recently, the base rate was 5%, and many high street cards are 18% APR; in other words, they were charging three times the base rate. In the last couple of months, the Bank of England’s dropped the rate by 2% points to 3%. Even if credit card rates were also cut by the same 2%, they’d still be a mammoth 16%. The impact on most borrowers would be paltry, plus it’d actually leave the rates proportionately higher, with credit cards charging over five times the base rate!

“If the Government really wants to make a difference, we need the rates cut by at least the same proportion, and sadly today’s talking shop won’t come close to doing that.”

The USA style

It can’t be a coincidence that the US senate has just released a similar set of rules to counter what’s called “rate jacking” over there. The one big difference though is that in the US rules, not only do the card companies have to hold the initial rate for the first year, but they then can’t increase the rate for any debts run up in that first year.

Mr. Mandelson, how about that one?

Then again, after four years of studying the plan, laughably it’ll only be introduced by July 2010!

Comment and Discuss

Hoorah. I’ve just hit my target of losing a stone, not a Money Diet but a real one. It all started when I saw myself on the beach in a friend’s wedding video, and my belly didn’t resemble my own self image.

So I immediately said to the MSF “I’m on a diet”. She asked “when?” and I replied, “now.” When we got home I weighed myself… gulp… 13 stone 8; I’d always been 12 and a half stone. The last time something similar happened I was 27… I think there are certain ages where you start putting on weight without any life change… I think 36 was the latest watershed.

I wanted to note down what I’d done somewhere, so I can remember in case I need to do it again, so where better than my blog?

My Diet Plan.

This was less a methodology, more a “I’m going to cut down and eat healthily” mission. I’ve always exercised, so I stepped up gym visits a little and started spending longer there. Yet most of it came down to using a bit of discipline, to try and turn around my admittedly dire dietary habits.

• No drinks with calories. I’d never realised the calories in most drinks, especially fruit juice. So I switched to water and the odd diet Coke (caffeine free). Luckily I’m not a big drinker, so cutting out alcohol wasn’t a problem. Hardest was cutting back on coffee: I switched to a touch of skimmed milk at home and a “skinny decaf cappuccino” if out at work meetings, rather than my customary “latte” - after all, there’s less milk in a cappuccino.
• No crisps. Without doubt the most painful bit of all was cutting out my salt and vinegar crisp habit (see past New crisp flavour hits the spot blog). Chocolate went too.
• Fruit snacks to beat hunger pains. A bag of clementines/satsumas was permanently on standby in the office (10-30 calories each).
• Breakfast change. Breakfast has morphed into a bowl of special K, or a generic equivalent. While not a big change some days, it has been a huge one for filming/GMTV days (usually 2-3 a week). Previously, in between my two GMTV slots on a Tue morning, I used to nip to the canteen and grab a baguette with two fried eggs and some mushrooms.
• Counting calories. This has been the most fun bit. As is probably evident by now, I’m a numbers nerd, and it informs everything I do. So I’ve started to learn and count calories quite consistently. On a typical diet day I was having between 1,250 and 1,750. Now I’m lightening up and am on about 2,250 which is still slightly under the suggested 2,500.
• Don’t eat even when still hungry. After eating I always feel hungry, and in the old days I would simply keep eating and stuff myself. Now I always try and wait an hour after eating my meal to see if I’m still genuinely hungry or the food just hasn’t registered yet.
• Smaller portions. Same food. Smaller portions.
• Not not eating late. This was my big failure; while I know you shouldn’t eat before going to bed, my work style doesn’t fit that. I usually finish work at 9pm or 10pm, so dinner is often pushed out.

Forgive me sounding like a diet ad cliché, but I feel so much better since losing the weight and eating more healthily. I’ve got more energy and stamina and a bit more of a spring to my step. I work hideous hours and this is helping me survive through them more.

The next challenge is to end the diet. I don’t need to lose any more weight, but I’m sticking to it out of a slight fear of suddenly putting all the weight back on. Then again, with the winter holidays coming up, maybe I need to keep hold of the reins a little longer.

Comment and Discuss

OK I feel better now I’ve come clean. It’s been playing on my mind for a while; there’s something about the scent you wear that says a lot, and this is my dirty secret.

The idea of wearing a personal brand scent fills me with horror, especially when it’s from a football player who made his name for United. This isn’t just a male issue either, I suspect women will find the concept of wearing “Britney Spears” a polarising one… some will think fab others would rather bathe in a stagnant pond.

Yet it’s worth thinking about it before going to the shops (and if you are buying then see the Cheap perfume guide and the new perfume comparison in the mega-shopbot.)

How it happened

For years, I’ve safely had Chanel Sport pour homme in my cupboard for the moments I need to smell. Yet early this year I went to a TV show (I think it was An audience with…) and as I left, I got a goodie bag which included a bottle of the Beckham aftershave. And for a while it lingered in the bathroom cabinet, as lonely as Victoria on matchday.

Then one day, I felt compelled to try my freebie. It smelled perfectly reasonable so I splashed it all over. Rather shockingly, I started to receive some decent feedback. The MSF, and many of my female friends kept saying “what’s that you’re wearing; it smells lovely?” My reply: “just something I picked up.”

And ever since, I’ve worn it occasionally, not completely replacing the Chanel, but as an option, and it continues to garner positive nasal feedback.

Fragrance is all about the brand

It does go to prove that most of the smelly market is about branding. After all, you can’t really see it or hear it, so pictures and TV ads don’t convey any of its real qualities. That’s why we get the ridiculously pretentious TV ads for perfume, the ones with 17 glamourous women, pouting about the essence of life.

The link with celebrity isn’t new, many have been used to promote brands in the past, but actually naming a perfume after them seems to be very noughties. Of course, it’s hard to believe Beckham or Britney actually designed their scents, rather just put their name on the bottle. And as with all brands, there are some that’ll be attracted and others who’ll be repulsed by the concept of wearing a celeb scent.

Yet if you go beneath that and just check out what smells nice, there are of course some great bargains to be had. Still, it’s a hell of a mouthful to explain that when people ask “what’s that nice smell?” I seem to find myself coughing and never quite saying the words…

Comment and Discuss

Today we heard Tesco is reducing 1,000 lines by up to 50%. House of Fraser doing something similar, and of course there’s the Woolworths closing down sale. Is this finally the beginning of pre-Christmas sales?

You may be surprised by that question; after all, the one day sales and shopping vouchers deals notes on the site have been reporting a raft of different sales types for weeks now. However I was mulling the idea that we’re seeing sales move into a pattern of three overlapping types:

• Tactical/Discrete Sales

  These are sales primarily designed to attract new customers without cannibalising the existing trade.

  The obvious examples of these are shopping vouchers, which are discrete discounts to those in the know. If you’ve got the piece of paper you get it cheaper, yet if you walk in you pay full price.

  However, less focused one-day store wide discounts, like those Marks & Spencer has twice done, can have a similar impact. With heavy publicity these can draw in shoppers, especially price-sensitive ones, who wouldn’t shop there otherwise. While of course it brings in regulars too, the overall impact is likely to skew towards new customers.

• Promotional Sales

  Here the aim is to publicise the store, bring in more customers, keep it fresh in the mind, and make it the first port of call. Many pre-Christmas sales seem to have this aim, as well as lightening stock levels slightly. Yet the discounting often isn’t too heavy, it’s more about drawing in customers and maintaining market position.

  What I find interesting is how the pre-Christmas sales seem to keep being reported as a ‘shock’ event. Actually it’s become a stalwart part of the retail calendar, as regular as January and summer sales.

  We’ve had these sales for years now and they tend to come in a week or so before Christmas to catch the impulse or last-chance buyers, whilst persuading those waiting for the sales that the discounts have arrived early.

• Stock clearance sales

  This is the aim of the January sales and summer sales: to clear the floor space so the stores can restock to enable next season’s ranges to be brought in.

  These seasonal clearance sales are usually by far the most heavily discounted, with prices of whatever sales stock is left continuing to drop until it’s all gone.

Now of course my definitions are arbitrary, and with different stores the distinctions are blurred. Yet as a thought piece it’s interesting to try and characterise the different types.

At this point I’ll revert to my original question, have the pre-Christmas sales started? It seems the volume of one day sales and vouchers are dropping and slowly we’re hearing announcement of the “up to 25% off selected lines” such as Ikea’s sale starting on 18 December, that have more traditionally characterised the late December reductions.

Comment and Discuss

The following Telegraph guide to top search terms on Google has just been pinged to me by a friend. I was quite surprised when I read it that both the website and I make different Google top ten search terms.

Here’s the two key categories:

Fastest-rising searches for people

1.) The Ting Tings
2.) Barack Obama
3.) Cheryl Cole
4.) Heath Ledger
5.) Alexander Graham Bell
6.) Chris Brown
7.) Martin Lewis
8.) Hannah Montana
9.) Perez Hilton
10.) Chuck Norris

Financial search terms that were more popular in 2008 than 2007

This is an interesting one, and it’s great to be in there as its about increased popularity. As MSE was already the biggest money site in the UK by quite a long way in 2007, the fact we’ve still increased enough to make the top ten is great.

1.) Icesave
2.) Hot UK Deals
3.) Natwest
4.) HMRC
5.) HboS
6.) Money Saving Expert
7.) Halifax
8.) Barclays
9.) RBS
10.) Lloyds TSB.

Enough of growth, how about actual traffic?

Having read this, I couldn’t resist playing with a few wee comparisons. As you know I’m a nerd, so what interested me was the above stats are based on growth as opposed to actual numbers.

Therefore I went onto the Google Trends traffic mapping tool which allows you to measure both search and web traffic through goodle to see how the actual numbers stack up.

Thought I would share a bit of my playing with you…

1. MoneySavingExpert, Hot UK Deals, NatWest and HMRC. WEB TRAFFIC

This is an interesting one, to see how the site stacks up against some of the others in the list in terms of actual traffic. As you’ll see in this Google Trends graphs, NatWest is by far the biggest. Not surprising really as its internet banking service is a must-use tool for all its customers.

2. Martin Lewis v Robert Peston. SEARCH TERMS

I was trying to think of someone else in money to provide a search barometer. Robert’s a hugely influential journalist, and his blog is very popular, so I thought I would see how the searches measure up.

And I was slightly surprised by the result… Martin Lewis v Robert Peston. Of course, I have the not-insubstantial advantage that people type in my name when they want to come to the site, which I think makes this contest a little unfair on Robert.

3. Cheryl Cole, Hannah Montana, Obama, and me. SEARCH TERMS

Taking on Robert Peston’s one thing, but testing the might of Hannah Montana, now that’s saying something… check this Google Trends graph (for the UK) out.

The Google Trends tool is fascinating. If you’re going to have a play yourself, do ensure you comma separate the terms, and select UK to filter out international traffic. You can compare both search ranking and actual traffic to sites.

If you do any interesting comparisons, do post the in the discussion below.

Comment and Discuss.

Rather bizarrely I’ve noticed a trend of people asking me to sign five pound notes. It happened again recently. The MSF and I had gone to the food hall in the Westfield shopping centre to have a ‘sort it yourself salad’ (I’m on a mini-diet… more on that another time) and were playing Scrabble (I won 436-322 this time, which is good as the MSF’s been doing too well in recent games).

Anyway, a polite man came up to me rather nervously, said his wife was a fan, and asked if I’d sign a fiver for her. Now this isn’t the first time: If I had a fiver for every fiver I’d signed, I’d have about £90. So I asked him, why a fiver, why not a piece of paper? His answer: “well this way she can’t spend it”. Can’t argue with that.

Comment and Discuss

I’ve just booked BA business class return flights to the USA for the MSF and I, for a total of £600; the cash price is £4,500. Sadly, this isn’t a deal anyone can grab hold of, as it was with BA Miles and it’s made me re-evaluate the British Airways American Express credit card as an even better deal.

The BA Amex card.

Put simply, use the card and you earn British Airways miles. Yet, most importantly, spend above a certain limit of c. £20,000 (depends which incarnation of the card), and you get a “companion pass”. This means that whatever you use your points for (provided you pay completely in points), you get the same for another person, thus effectively doubling the value.

Better than a cashback card?

In general, I’m a fan of cashback cards (paid off in full of course), and until about 18 months ago I used the Amex Platinum card (see top cashback card guide) as my primary card.

Yet then my expenditure on the card started to increase. This is because as well as using it for ALL personal expenditure (i never pay any other way if I can help it) I started using it for work expenses (and travelling around filming, being out of the office a lot means that speedily adds up), getting close to £50,000 a year on the card. At these high levels the BA Amex starts to come into its own. Especially as my intro 5% cashback Amex Platinum period was long gone.

Yet I must admit, even I’m surprised at the value I’ve got for my points. I redeemed them last week, when as noted in the weekly email, there was a promotion on, so you only needed half the number of points for the flight. As such, I couldn’t resist going business clas s… a little luxury isn’t a bad thing, especially as the only cost if you use the points is the taxes and charges, so the excess isn’t really that different.

We’re currently starting the process of reviewing the rewards cards and reward checker study for the site, and BA Amex has always done very well. Yet I am going to double-check the methodology, to ensure that this type of deal is adequately reflected for others who put lots of expenditure (work and pleasure) on the card.

Comment and Discuss.

The team and I found out yesterday that the planned series four of It Pays To Watch on Five isn’t going to happen.

It was quite likely to be the last series anyway, as I’d already discussed that the additional workload it added was too much, but that’s been overtaken by commercial pressures from new management at five which means there’s no budget for a show like It Pays To Watch (and quite a number of others) in the new agenda. Quite bizarre that the credit crunch programme’s been credit crunched.

Personally my feelings are mixed; I’m sad to see such a worthwhile public service programme go, but I’ve been overcommitted for a long time and am relieved I may only need to work six days a week at the start of 2009.

My real sadness is for the team who will now need to find new contracts. To them I want to say thank you for such an amazing effort. Some will be spending a little bit of time at MoneySavingExpert, on a few projects I have for them, but many will look for pastures new.

How can this happen to a successful show?

The show was strong, successful & original, and it rated strongly. Yet five has come under new management since the last programme and like any business, its bosses want to take a new strategic direction – and that is invariably a more commercial stance.

The three big problems with It Pays To Watch were as follows:

• No sponsorship. Most non-news programmes on commercial TV are sponsored these days. It was something that was discussed with me, but I felt very uncomfortable about its impact on the editorial content.
• Non-repeatability. The show was recorded two hours before transmission, and had no repeatability factor. By that I don’t mean it can’t be shown that week, but that the same series can’t be reshown six months later, or sold on to another country. These days in TV, when a show is paid for the aim is to get four or five further showings out of it. With It Pays To Watch that wasn’t possible.
• Programme strategy. Of course there’s also a change of programming strategy, and five seems to be moving back towards its more tabloid origins. On that basis, It Pays To Watch is no longer fit for the channel.

On the bright side, I’m currently discussing recutting some of the videos and using the production team to add a lot of video content to articles on this site.

And frankly I have about 25 programme pitches from production companies sitting waiting to be looked at for a new series.

Overall though, RIP It Pays To Watch, and thanks to all who sailed in her.

Comment and Discuss.

During one of our regular scrabble games (see past ‘I scored 596 at Scrabble: why does it depress me?’ and ‘Rude words in my new Scrabble dictionary’ scrabble blogs) I used the term “DELINKED” as an eight letter word scoring me around 90 points. The MSF challenged this saying she’d never heard of it.

I explained it was the term for a request after divorce that your finances are no longer linked on your credit file (see Check your Credit File guide) and thus was fine. We didn’t have our big scrabble dictionary with us (we were playing on the mini-scrabble set) to check so the MSF had no choice but to accept it.

Now actually it’s an Americanism, and tends not to be used as a specific term in the UK, though that should still allow it to be acceptable for Scrabble. Either way, to ensure its veracity, and because it’s nicely descriptive, I’ve just written it in my News of The World column on credit scoring, for a week Sunday. After all, if it appears in a National Newspaper it can’t be disputed can it…

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