I’m worried the banks have bunged some money to Microsoft… the auto-correct on Word seems to want to disempower some of the site’s reclaim campaigns. I was just typing an answer about PPI reclaiming for my News of the World column and it changed it to…
“This type of nasty payment protection insurance misspelling is common”
Somehow that doesn’t quite have the same impact…
Update Note Sept 09. Well it’s been a long time since (this blog was written in Jan 09) we recorded it, but the transmission date is now set and it’ll be shown on Tue 15 Sep if you want to watch.
I’m recording “Charity Who wants to be a millionaire” tonight. I thought I’d better blog it now as I’m not allowed to reveal the result afterwards until it’s on. I don’t yet know the transmission date, but I’ll put it in the weekly email when it’s time.
When I was asked to do the show and who i’d like to do it with, I instantly thought of Angela Rippon and she thankfully agreed to do it with me. Regular blog readers may remember I used to work with her when I started out, and she was wonderfully helpful (see Thanks Angela blog). She’s as competitive as I am, and seriously clever, so hopefully she’ll carry us through… we even spent an hour talking millionaire tactics the other day.
As a strategy we’ve decided until £50,000 just play safe, then if we’re lucky enough to get further, just go for it and take risks. At the moment though, sheer fear means I’m just hoping we get to a grand! The real worry of course is getting a money question wrong, something like “what’s the currency in Guatemala” that I wouldn’t have a clue about but people may think I should know.
I’m doing it for Citizens Advice Bureau
I didn’t feel it would be appropriate to play for the MoneySavingExpert Charity, so instead I’m doing it for Citizens Advice Bureau. I’m hoping to be able to gemmy in a call for people to seek debt help, plus it’s a great opportunity to let people know that CAB is actually a charity and needs funds. All of which I hope will have an effect on a big prime time entertainment show.
One interesting note, this is a proper “charity show”. Whereas some of the charity programmes out there pay large appearance fees, millionaire just gives a much smaller fee and automatically gives you the option that it’ll just go to your charity (which I took, as I suspect most people do).
Phone-a-friends
We’re allowed five phone-a-friends each, and Angela and I decided the best way was to divvy up subjects and go for people with real expertise. Very kindly the following people have agreed to be mine. The rules state they must be at home between 7pm and 9.15pm on Thursday in case there’s a call.
Angela’s five include David Mellor for politics and sport, she’s deciding which of a host of top news anchors will be our news person, and various other luminaries to cover theatre, science and more.
Cross your fingers!
Update Note 5 June 2009: In the past week, financial strength agency Moody’s has downgraded some Irish Banks (read full MSE News story) and after a record pre-tax loss was announced, the Irish government decided to inject 4 billion Euros into Anglo Irish Bank (read full Guardian article).
Update Note 14 April 2009: Lib Dems warn over Post Office safety.
A leading politician has called the Bank of Ireland ’shaky’ after ratings agency Moody’s downgraded the debt ratings on all Irish banks. Read the full news article “Lib Dems warn over Irish banks’ safety“
Update Note 24 Feb 2009: Anglo Irish raided by police.
The fraud investigation department of Irish police has raided the head office of Anglo-Irish Bank (see the Telegraph Story). In itself, this isn’t an issue for savers, but it is a salutary reminder that the Irish Banking system has questions to answer. It’s worth remembering if you’ve savings in a UK account owned by an Irish bank you don’t get the usual UK £50,000 per person per institution protection: you’re reliant on the Irish government’s protection.
Republic of Ireland banks have been in the news a lot lately, for two main reasons. A couple of weeks ago the Irish Government nationalised Anglo-Irish, and there have been some muttered comments in austere journals about the solvency of the Irish state.
The cruel joke doing the rounds in the City is “Q: What’s the difference between Iceland and Ireland
A: One letter and six months.”
This is big news, not only because Anglo-Irish often has savings best buys, but another Irish institution, Bank of Ireland, provides all the savings for the Post Office.
As such, my mailbag’s started to get jammed up with questions about their safety, so I thought I’d briefly jot down some of the issues. Havings said that, at best consider these to be MUSINGS. This type of situation moves so quickly that many things that are impossible to pre-guess could come into play. We’ve seen many precedents set in recent months; my hope is to try and explain the situation as I see it, but there are no guarantees.
It’s Post Office savings NOT NS&I
Yet let me clarify one common confusion first. Bank of Ireland provides all Post Office branded savings products (with the exception of its Child Trust Fund), but that’s not the same as NS&I or what used to be called National Savings, which you can also get from the Post Office. NS&I is owned by the UK government. Here we’re talking savings which specifically have the word “Post Office” in the title.
What’s happened?
Anglo-Irish has been taken into government ownership, just like Northern Rock here in the UK. This would normally be a positive step, i.e. the bank was struggling before, and the Irish Government has taken it over and shored up its finances. Yet these aren’t normal times; in this day and age questions are raised even about the solvency of European Union governments, and fingers seem to have been pointed at Ireland more than most others.
On top of this, as some Irish banks have opted for the passport exemption (though Allied Irish haven’t), if one goes bust you must first claim from its home country’s scheme, and as Ireland offers bigger compensation than the UK, British Savers are solely reliant on the Irish compensation scheme.
In a nutshell, that means if any Irish bank now went into default, all the money would have to be claimed back from the Irish government, and it seems the UK would have no legal responsibility for it (see safe savings for a detailed explanation).
How protected am I?
Put plainly, by the book, 100% of the protection comes from the IRISH government, so you have no protection from the UK government (which doesn’t mean it wouldn’t step in, but there are no guarantees).
Now, as Anglo Irish is nationalised, for it to go bust the Irish State would need to go bust too; thus in effect rather than a two step level of protection, it’s a bit of an all or nothing scenario, though it’d take an extreme problem for there to be an issue.
The aim of this blog ISN’T to spook, or to say “don’t save here” or “withdraw your money”, quite frankly my expertise does not stretch to the solvency of a international governments. It is simply to say if you have money in Irish banks, you need to be aware of the protection and the fact that you’re reliant on Ireland and take your own decision accordingly.
One of the problems here is that last year the Irish Government said it’d guarantee all savings and was the first European country to do so. A lot of people moved savings there on the back of this, in other words, it became a ‘safety-resort’. So, of course, for those for whom safety is everything, any minor change can spook you. Yet it seems many people are staying put, especially those on fixed rates, who would pay a penalty to withdraw cash anyway.
It’s worth taking a step back here, and not panicking. Ultimately it’s likely we’re talking about the Irish government needing to go bankrupt for there to be a problem – and Ireland is an Euro country interlinked with all the big European countries. If it did there would be a calamitous impact on the world economy, so it seems a relatively small risk this would be allowed to happen. Yet in our current world, where the capitalist system seems to be on trial, nothing is impossible.
To keep up to date follow this Google News feed…
Here’s a valuable MoneySaving lesson – unfortunately its application is quite specific so I’m not sure how useful it’ll be for everyone. I was filming for ITV1 Tonight yesterday, a programme I’m doing for Friday 6 Feb on savings.
It’s being put together on a very tight deadline, so we’re doing quite a lot on the hoof. One scene involves my trusty savings fountain analogy, and we were using a Champagne fountain (lots of champagne glasses stacked in a pyramid) to illustrate it. The location was the very swanky champagne bar at the new Westfield shopping centre. It’d very kindly stacked the glasses and arranged them, which meant we couldn’t take cheap sparkling £1 a bottle fizzy stuff from a local shop.
And as befits an upmarket joint, the prices were high; so we selected the cheapest fizzy white wine at £15 a bottle. Even so, filling 60 glasses ain’t easy – so I suggested once we’d filmed the top glass being filmed, we dilute it, using empty bottles to go 1/3 wine and 2/3 water.
The suggestion was met with glee from the producer, whose budget it is, yet sullen faces from the crew who’d been looking forward to snaffling the drink afterwards. It was even worse for the bar, who were slighty worried people walking past would see them diluting their booze and think it was standard practice!
Of course, the answer’s no, but you’d be hard-pressed not to ask such a question after its press release yesterday. The official consumer group that has taken over from Energywatch has singularly FAILED in its first big test. Why Energywatch, one of the few official consumer bodies that actually had teeth, has been replaced by this flaccid beast is anyone’s guess.
Frankly I was flabbergasted when I read its press release on British Gas’ rather paltry 10% gas price cut (and no electricity cut). Sit back and read this:
From Consumer Focus’ press release:
“At last, we have an energy company that the public can be proud of. British Gas today has had the courage to do the right thing as wholesale prices tumble. We have long been critical of the way in which the six energy companies act as a herd, giving consumers little real choice. Now, we have a choice.
“We have led the campaign on energy prices since starting last October. We will now turn the heat up on the other five companies that are keeping prices sky high.
“We would caution that tariffs are complex, British Gas hasn’t always been the cheapest and consumers need to check that they will get a better deal from this price cut. But if they will, our call is for consumers to switch to British Gas, not just because they would be cheaper but because they are doing the right thing.”
What kind of consumer champion are they?
Energywatch used to have teeth. Most other commentators, including me, have rightly said “it’s too little, too late”. Yet to applaud British Gas for this is shameful.
Frankly British Gas’ cut is so poor it may’ve let other companies off the hook of bringing their prices down. I’m simply stunned. Even with the cut, its standard tariff is only £3 a YEAR cheaper than NPower’s existing tariff.
And it ACTUALLY tells people to switch to it.
The worst bit for me is the phrase, “consumers need to check that they will get a better deal from this price cut. But if they will, our call is for consumers to switch to British Gas, not just because they would be cheaper but because they are doing the right thing.”
This is wrong on two points. Firstly, as explained in the Cheap Gas & Electricity guide, the likelihood is that other companies will follow suit, therefore by switching now, you run the risk of ditching a provider that will be the cheapest in a month or so. Plus the tariff hasn’t been launched yet, so it isn’t on comparison sites to compare.
And even if that doesn’t happen, this cut is so low, it’s worth sticking with your current provider while you wait and see.
Worst of all is the “doing the right thing line”. I read this as a political point to try and make other providers cut prices, by threatening them with lack of custom if they don’t. Yet is it really trying to use people’s bills to play politics.
Come back Energywatch … please.
Coming out of GM-TV the other day, I walked past the tail end of the queue of people waiting to go into Loose Women. Sadly, they’d run out of space, and a few of the women at the end had been turned away.
As I passed, one started to talk to me. Her comment was simple, “you look much thinner and younger in person”, and “better looking”, and a friend pipped in. Now you may think this is good and indeed it’s quite a common comment; people often say similar things when they stop me.
Of course, they were being lovely, but, in truth though, doesn’t it mean I look older, fatter and uglier on the telly?
On Saturday night, we were out for dinner in an upmarket, swanky, slightly dark meeja type place, to celebrate the birthday of one of the MSF’s oldest friends. She works in the high-end “fashion darling….” industry.
I had the MSF on my left, and on my right, a woman who works for a very high end Bond street type designer store. She was trying to entice the MSF to visit her store (without realising Primark or FCUK would’ve been nearer the mark) and decided to target me by saying how they give the men a copy of GQ and both of the couple a glass of champagne each if they want.
The MSF & I passed a surreptitious glance and I asked “is it an appointment type place or can anyone walk in”. She proudly proclaimed anyone could… and I whispered “I’ll put that in m’email” to the MSF.
She then looked at us strangely and asked what we were laughing, so I decided to come clean and tell her, “you really couldn’t have told anyone worse about that, my work’s about saving people money, and I’m just thinking ‘free champagne’ for everyone.”
Then she looked at me and went “oh my word, you’re Martins Money Tips” (told you it was dark) “I love your email, but it goes to millions, please don’t put my shop in, I’ll lose my job.”
Then, surprisingly she went on to tell me how the site had got her out of debt; she’s worked through the techniques and “it saved my life.” A lesson for me that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and proof that even in the high fashion world there are MoneySavers.
After hearing that, of course I couldn’t dob her in, and anyway, no store could feed champagne to all 3,000,000 weekly email recipients. Still, it mightn’t be a bad idea to dress up for the day, walk into a few high end shops and see what freebie concierge type freebies you can get.
I’ve noticed a rather disturbing trend. When a member of the editorial team sends me something to review or tweak, I often say to them “I’ve Cleopatra’d it” – referring to the song by the girl band, ie “it’s coming atcha”
This has been almost semi-conscious and even though I’ve now realised quite how naff it is, it doesn’t seem to bother me and I still keep doing it. I often get looks from the team – somewhere between rolled eyes and sympathy – and it’s made me question whether indeed I am becoming my father.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love my dad dearly, but this is the same kind of joke he would make with my 14 year old little sister, who’d roll her eyes just as much.
I’ve just come back from a lunch meeting to discover we cracked a new landmark. There are now 3,000,000 people being sent the weekly email. It’s a staggering number, not far from 1 in 10 working adults in the UK. As always I’m very proud of the site, my MSE team, and what we’ve achieved, and huge thanks to all the contributing forumites and those who tell friends about the site.
The last 500,000 has been done in less than 4 months, a staggering rate, and sadly indicative of current climes. Over the last 12 months, nearly 1,300,000 have added themselves to the email list. Plus I suspect for the first time, this January we will have over 7,000,000 unique users.
For my fellow MoneySaving stats nerds here’s the progress chart for the weekly e-mail (it includes links to the waybackmachine. Sometimes images go missing from old versions of the site, so to help improve that we may be a few days off).
August 2002… Home Page. I launched the site as a personal home page…. See what it looked like
22 Feb 2003… The Site’s Birth. I had the site developed into the first version of what it is today… See what it looked like
25 April 2003…. 10,000 on email list. See what it looked like
11 January 2004… 50,000 on email list. See what it looked like
30 July 2004… 100,000 on email list. See what it looked like
28 April 2005… 250,000 on email list. See what it looked like
3 March 2006… 500,000 on email list. See what it looked like
24 Feb 2007…. 1,000,000 on email list. See what it looked like
20 April 2008… 2,000,000 on email list. See what it looked like
19 September 2008…. 2,500,000 on email list! (not available yet)
15 January 2009… 3,000,000 on the email list.
I wrote in the 2,500,000 email announcement about what the growth of the site has meant. And the continued growth increases all of that. I do start to question “how big can it get?” At what level do we hit market maturity, when everyone who can get the email or will get the email has?
There are some battles you just can’t win. As I blogged back in June (see the credit crunch and other myths), “the credit crunch” is being incorrectly used as a general term to describe all economic woes. Back then I vowed to fight: to keep trying to use the term only when referring to the lack of available credit in the financial sector.
Now I’ve given up fighting for the purity of the lexicon. There are two main reasons for this stance change.
First because the real world impact of the credit crunch (strict definition) is much greater. Six months ago much of it was still contained within the City, and most people hadn’t felt it. That really isn’t true now: home owners, small businesses and general consumers have all felt its bite.
Language is dynamic, and “the Credit Crunch” is such a hackneyed phrase. I’ve always thought that in my job you should steer clear of jargon, and try and explain things any way that works. Now that “credit crunch” has become a common usage catch-all to describe economic woes, it seems to have become delinked from its original meaning.
So from now on, if you see me interviewed on “the credit crunch” and its impact on the cost of rice crispies, I won’t be snapping (or snap, crackle and popping) back that there is none. Now it’ll be a seamless response as if they’d just said “economic downturn”.
Supermarket habits are changing across the nation. I first came up with both the downshift challenge technique and name five or more years ago. The aim was to codify a way of dropping brands, and provide research into the savings it’d bring.
Now the system seems to be mainstream and the lexis does too. I remember trying to think of a name for downgrading supermarket products and in the end decided downshift challenge was simple and descriptive.
These days, it seems as if it’s been with us all along. The following is a press release put out this week by supermarket comparison site mysupermarket…
“2008 was a year in which shoppers faced steep rises in the price of their staple food items, far beyond the general rate of food inflation. mySupermarket.co.uk, the supermarket comparison site, has uncovered an increasing trend of ‘downshifting’: consumers swapping their favourite branded products for a supermarket own brand alternative, often surrendering long-standing brand loyalty to make significant savings.
The attached table gives a detailed insight into this recent trend, but to summarise:
The items which have seen the greatest trend for downshifting are many of the staple items which have seen significant price rises.
“With shoppers seeing the price of their weekly shop rising, becoming a savvy shopper became more important than ever in 2008. Downshifting is a quick and easy way of saving money and is something which is becoming increasingly popular. There is a definite correlation between the areas where prices have risen sharply over the past year and where shoppers are downshifting and whilst there are certain products which shoppers seem unwilling to compromise on, many are surrendering their brand loyalty on favourites such as ketchup as they move to an own brand alternative.
Saving money doesn’t have to mean giving up our favourite products or deserting our chosen supermarket. By simply swapping brands or taking full advantage of special offers we believe shoppers can often save up to 20% on their shopping bill. The trend for downshifting is set to continue into 2009, but rather than shoppers having to trawl the aisles, they can input their weekly shop into mySupermarket.co.uk and the Price Checker tool will automatically highlight the ‘downshift’ item as well as like-for-like alternatives.”
| Product | 2007 Own Brand (% sales) |
2008 Own Brand (% sales)
|
Change
|
|
Cola |
9% |
9% |
- |
|
Instant Coffee |
14% |
17% |
3% |
|
Crisps |
19% |
23% |
4% |
|
Ketchup |
21% |
25% |
4% |
|
Tea Bags |
23% |
26% |
3% |
|
Breakfast Cereal |
28% |
32% |
4% |
|
Bread |
35% |
36% |
1% |
|
Baked Beans |
35% |
38% |
3% |
|
Biscuits |
39% |
39% |
- |
|
Water |
43% |
45% |
2% |
|
Toilet Paper |
61% |
60% |
-1% |
|
Tinned vegetables |
62% |
63% |
1% |
|
Pasta |
56% |
64% |
8% |
|
Juice |
68% |
66% |
-2% |
Getting married has a few interesting consequences. One, in our case, is that the MSF is planning to change her name. However, having done a quick search check on the web, it seems her soon-to-be namesake has a rather interesting occupation.
Now of course, as both the MSF and I work on the telly, it does mean you get searched… not sure quite sure whether that’s a builder or killer for my reputation!
These aren’t random numbers. They’re the credit or debit card pin numbers of the two people ahead of me in line and one on the next till, in the supermarket last night. I was quite surprised how obvious it was to read the pin numbers. All three simply clenched all fingers barring their first finger, which then stabbed down obviously on the relevant buttons.
This isn’t just a risk to cash, it’s a risk to safety. One more common form of card crime is watching the pin number then mugging someone for the card once they know the number.
The best system is to have all fingers on different numbers on the keyboard, both those you’ll press, and those you won’t, then apply a little pressure on the relevant keys, this makes it far more difficult to work out what number is being pressed.
Update Note: To find out what happened see the Parking Fines: You can reclaim them… blog.
After all these years of reclaiming campaigns like bank charges & PPI I have never actually needed to do a reclaim myself. Until now. I received an outrageous parking ticket the other day for £120 (£60 if paid within 14 days).
Having spent a long time working on the Parking Ticket Refunds guide, I immediately got my phone out and took pictures. And have sent a version of our template letters off to my council.
Here’s a copy which explains it… (I’ve only changed a few private details)
Dear Sir/Madam,
I received a parking ticket but I believe the ticket was wrongly issued and I would like to submit a challenge for the following reason:
The alleged contravention did not occur.
I parked on Rockley Road, W14 opposite a sign which says
No Parking Mon-Sat
8am to 6.30pm.
Below is a picture of the sign, taken on my phone, as soon as I saw the ticket (I can provide a clearer version if needed, but the sign is still there, so I doubt that’s necessary).
Yet I have been given a ticket for parking after 6.30pm… “The Civil Enforcement Office observed the vehicle identified above from 18:33 to 18:39 on 29/12/2008”
I have subsequently seen new signs at the end of the road, changing the rules, to an 8pm parking. Yet I parked by a sign saying the parking restriction ends at 6.30pm. The signage is palpably unclear, misleading and thus invalid. I obeyed all the correct restrictions and therefore ask that in the sake of good governance, the fine is cancelled.
Kind regards
Martin Lewis
Having nipped out on New Years eve at 6:15 to grab a tiny bit of shopping, I was listening to Radio 5 Live and heard of a couple who’d got honeymoon flights by collecting Tesco clubcard points – recycling and then converting points into airmiles.
Now I must admit I’d read the story when it originally came out in October (see this Metro article), but what I didn’t know is what I heard John Till say tonight: “We wanted to go on a cruise, but knew we couldn’t afford it and the flights, then we remembered that my wife had read an article on MoneySavingExpert.com which said you could convert clubcard points into airmiles, and that’s where the idea came from.”
So, I’m very chuffed to read we had a wee part to play in it. And thanks very much for the plug John and Anne!
And as always remember, never redeem Tesco clubcard points in store; you get four times the value redeeming it on Tesco Clubcard deals (see the loyalty points guide)