Just watched the Sunday night edition of X-factor. In it, whether the acts get through or not, they call home on (what looks like) their mobiles with the loudspeaker on so we can hear their families’ reaction. Yet this is done in the Carribean, Canne, Dublin, St Tropez…. so it’s all roaming calls, and I doubt they’ve international roaming cards. Who pays for the calls?
PS. If you’re going abroad do use the Cheapest Roaming tariffs.
My days at the moment are frantic. At one point I got off a train at 4pm having not had lunch, needed money, and was late for a meeting. Heading to the cash machine, papers everywhere, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned round and a lady with blonde hair in a trouser suit was running after me. At first I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, then I saw she had my debit card in her hand.
It’d fallen out in the rush: not the best for a Money Saving Expert (and thankfully she didn’t recognise me!), but how kind of her to make the effort.
On the next floor up from the MSE Towers team is the MoneySaving Productions office, which is the engine room for my show It Pays To Watch. One of its stalwarts is the Assistant Producer (Money) Guy, whose job is effectively to be the resident money nerd, and be the one who understands my money shorthand when I’m talking about what we need to do in the programmes.
And it seems working in close proximity to me is having an impact; I’ll let him take up the story…
Guy’s story
“I’ve clearly caught the MoneySaving bug.
I was out shopping with my girlfriend, Leah, the other weekend when she was about to pay for her lunch on a debit card. Yet she is overdrawn so racks up interest charges every time she uses her debit card. I told her at the checkout she’s better off paying for everything on her credit card (which is clear) and paying it off in full every month, ensuring the payment date is at the end of her financial month (i.e. as far away after payday without encroaching into the next month).
That way, she’ll pay less interest on her overdraft because while the spending is sitting on her credit card waiting to be paid off she won’t be racking up interest, and will only pay a tiny amount on the day or few days in-between paying off the card and her next pay-day.
Leah’s reaction: “Be quiet, Martin. Can I have Guy back, please?”
Love it!
The last twelve months have been an annus horribilis when it comes to energy prices. The first big jumps came in January then there was a huge tranche of in some cases 30% plus rises around August.
As I explain in the Compare Gas & Electricity guide one of the major ways to prevent your bill for much of this year has been to cap, which means fix your rate to guard against future rises. The problem comes when you pay a lot more to cap than you would sticking with the standard cheap tariff. The only true way to get it right every time is if you KNOW what’s going to happen to energy prices.
Sadly, short of a crystal ball, that knowledge doesn’t exist; yet I’ve been speaking to a few people in the industry (special thanks to Mark Todd at Energyhelpline), and wanted to write a brief note on what the expected outcome is. Bear in mind though, even this is just a back of the envelope type of thing, and could be wildly inaccurate.
First you need to understand why prices are rising.
Of course utility companies like raising prices and increasing profits, but the underlying cause is the rise in the cost of wholesale gas - the price the energy companies buy it for.
The important measure here isn’t the current price, it’s the ‘winter price’ as that’s what’s generally referred to, and people sell ahead.
This means the price rises we’ve had so far aren’t enough!
As you can see the rise has been huge, and even our painful 50%ish rise in consumer prices is actually smaller than the doubling of the wholesale rate. Though some of this rise was factored in to earlier consumer price rises.
As the energy companies have said they want to “maintain margins” this means it’s possible we’ve more price rises to come so consumer prices can catch up.
Unless there’s a drop in the price of a gas therm, i.e. it goes back to 80p, then we are likely to see our energy bills increase in January. It’s unlikely to be sooner as we’ve just had a price round, and they don’t put prices up pre-Christmas for fear of being called a Scrooge.
Of course political pressure could be brought to bear, or even the threat of introducing a windfall tax, which may make the utility companies a little more fearful of further price hikes. In which case they’ll analyse whether it’s more cost effective to raise the prices and pay tax, or just take the hit themselves and not raise prices.
You may be wondering why I’m focusing on Gas prices and not electricity. The reason’s simple, the electricity price is more complex and depends on the price of oil (which has also gone up) and the price of gas, so the wholesale gas price tends to be the lead indicator here.
What about further in the future?
Beyond next January we really are in uncertain territory. Currently the market predictions are for prices to dip slightly for winter 09, but only by a few percentage points, nothing that will change the landscape too dramatically.
Yet this could change one way or another. There’s been no real reason for the wholesale prices to be so high, no physical change, it’s just market conditions, and because of this some think they’ll drop again, while others simply say the days of cheap energy are over.
What no one seems to be predicting is yet more big hikes after next Janaury, which, if they’re right (and of course there’s no guarantee) means that paying a substantial premium for a long term cap doesn’t look to be as good value as paying a small premium for a short cap.
(Any gas & electricity industry experts or traders, your thoughts would be welcomed)
The nature of TV means clothes have a relatively short life span and I often need identical items, as if I’m filming long hours for a number of days in a row, I have to wear the same things. As I needed a couple of new pairs of jeans, that actually meant four.
Before shopping I nipped to the Shopping Vouchers section and grabbed the Gap 30% off voucher. For me Gap works for jeans as it allows you to get a pair matching the cut, waist and leg length you want. I grabbed that and a new jumper (yes, off air occasionally I am seen out of a stripy shirt) for £170, presented the voucher and with no hassle it was then £120. Perfect….
Thursdays are meant to be a slightly more relaxed day for me. On Tuesday I have my GMTV slots and the mammoth work behind the weekly e-mail on Wednesdays it’s full paced scripting, rehearsing then filming It Pays To Watch, and Thursday is meant to be catch up day.
Sadly my easy Thursdays are long gone. So I thought I would update my last what goes in a day blog. Forgive the bullet points, it makes it easier.
HOORAH! At 18:28 today, the 2,500,000 person joined this site’s weekly tips email. That’s 1,027,000 more than at the same time 365 days ago.
It feels like it should be a special number with its own name… like a quarter of a Tenmillion. This landmark means MoneySavingExpert.com’s now at a scale similar to the big boys of the publishing world, out-reaching a good few national newspapers.
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.
For my fellow MoneySaving stats nerds here’s the progress chart for the weekly e-mail (it includes links to the waybackmachine, sometimes some images will be missing from the old versions of the site… 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!
To turn what was a small home page into what perhaps can now be seen as an institution in just over five years is a phenomena. More importantly the size and strength means the information we can now provide is honed and updated. I thought this was an appropriate moment to give a couple of examples of what happens behind the scenes…
As I seem to spend more time delivering the info, it’s crucial to have a fantastic team who know their stuff to ensure the site is still correct and on the nose. Today as I whizzed from filming an urgent ITV programme to radio 2 on the back of a motorbike, I called up MSE Dan as he’d been examining the new savings safety institutional link between Lloyds and Halifax.
It’s funny for me to think that Dan was the first outside recruit (Brendan I knew from other jobs and Andrea was a site user) back in December 2004. He replied to an ad for an office junior at the local job centre, yet when he came with a CV noting a degree in maths from Imperial uni, I hired him on the spot.
Having worked with me for a long time and with a maths brain, he’s a great example of how the team’s maturing skills and experience has changed things, with each member having a solid and trusted expertise of their own.
Alongside MSE Archna (another originally raw graduate recruit now turned into senior team member with honed skills) he leads the site editorial team, and has responsibility for ensuring all the hardcore money stuff is up to date.
Every time I look at the prominent Daily Updated Vouchers, Codes and Deals block on the home page, I smile.
The site’s strength means that since June we’ve been able to afford a full time team member, MSE Deborah, to keep that area updated and it’s been a fantastic revelation to see its popularity.
For me this is a joy. To know I can turn something like that into a professional task, used by millions, and knowing it helps people to maintain a good lifestyle at low cost in these tough times.
As this shows, the growth of the site has meant it’s now a team not a one-man band job. I could write a glowing report about every element of the site and its team; each of whom shows dedication & speciality, and is deserving of praise…
… from my hard put-upon but creative techies and designers, to the dependability of and organization of the admin team and the talented editorial team each of whom is developing niches and specialities.
As I’ve said before when I started the site on my own, as a place to support my broadcast work (read about the site’s history) little could I perceive that around 6,000,000 people in the UK would access it each month and a team of people would be supporting them; let alone the fact the site would be able to support its own charity (see MSE Charity Fund)
Well done Tesco credit card. A MoneySaver, Simon, has just forwarded an e-mail he got from it about the XL holiday firm collapse.
Rather surprisingly, the company is actually informing its customers they can claim from it under Section 75 of the consumer credit act (see Consumer Rights guide) that says the card issuer is jointly liable if things go wrong on purchases over £100. Normally card companies try to manipulate around these claims, and make it difficult. So plaudits to Tesco for being so consumer friendly…
Here’s a copy of its e-mail:
“Recommendations to Tesco Credit Card customers who purchased XL Airlines tickets
Dear Customer,
As you may be aware, XL Leisure Group today announced it had been placed in administration.
If you have purchased a package deal or flights with XL Leisure Group using your Tesco Credit Card we recommend you take the following steps:-
1) If you have booked a flight or package deal with XL Leisure Group* in the UK via ATOL Tour operators
- You should make a claim through ATOL who can be contacted on 0207 637 24 44 or via their website at www.atol.org.uk
2) If you have booked a holiday through Medlife Hotels
- You should check your travel insurance policy as it may provide cover for accommodation failure.
3) If your flight is not covered by the ATOL arrangements and you paid for it using your Tesco Credit Card- You may be entitled to a refund. Customers are advised to send a covering letter and a copy of all documents, including tickets if available to:
Tesco Credit Cards - Chargebacks & Disputes Department
Credit Card Centre
Thanet Grange
Westcliff on Sea
SS0 0EJ
Whilst we hope you have not been affected by this issue we hope by following the above advice we can help you through this uncertain time.”
Have you had similar from any other cards?
I’m currently bussing into the office, as with my broken ribs, cycling is out of the question. This morning, I sat in the ‘give priority to disabled/elderly passengers’ seat and at the first stop an elderly lady got on, so I stood up for her and went to the front.
At the stop after, an elderly chap with walking sticks in each hand struggled to get on the bus. Then, as there were no seats he stood next to me, but found it tough to stay upright. Everyone was looking down, and I had one of those moments where I knew I should try and help, but on a bus full of strangers in this day and age, simply speaking out feels like an act of bravery.
In the end, big gob that I am, I politely said “excuse me, does anyone have a spare seat for this chap?” At which point two people looked up and smiled and offered their seats; one woman who’d been in the other disabled seat was most embarrassed, and apologised for reading the paper and not noticing. The chap with the sticks said thanks to me and her and sat down.
Feeling brave for asking now feels stupid.
There are some perks to my job. This morning, while doing my GMTV cash clinic, I saw the Pussycat Dolls, who were there to perform. In fact they were on right after my first sofa slot. As they were about to start, I thought it’d be rude to leave, so I sat with Ben and we watched them perform. For some puzzling reason Fiona wasn’t as interested; she mustn’t like the music…
Afterwards, I did something I’ve never done before at GMTV: ask for a picture! Sadly, the chap from their entourage who took it pressed the video button on my phone instead, and it all went a bit wrong, so all I got was this furry pic:
Then again, having had quite a day, what with the Lehmans collapse and the massive stress of needing to rapidly change subject from reclaim clinic to ‘is your money safe?’ clinic, this was certainly a perk.
For those that don’t know what they look like in focus… here you go…
The new series of It Pays To Watch starts next week, and one of the first few programmes is about credit cards. As part of it, I’ve been racking my brains to come up with a new way to describe the Credit Card Shuffle; one of the most powerful but tough-to-explain systems for saving money on cards.
Then I had a Eureka moment: turn it into a visual science experiment, moving the money across using liquids that don’t mix. I’ve just come back from filming it in a giant lab at London Metropolitan University.
When did you last use a Bunsen burner?
This lab was nothing like those I remember from school. A vast labyrinth of desks, each with computers, monitors and all the lab kit. At one point I had to light a Bunsen burner.
Now unless you’re a scientist, like me you probably haven’t done that since you were at school. Strange isn’t it: a piece of equipment that was once so familiar, but then disappeared.
Being there rekindled my love of science at school. And it wasn’t just me either; Guy, the assistant producer who mixed the honey, washing-up liquid, blackcurrant juice and coloured honey for the tubes was loving it. Before It Pays To Watch he worked on the Daily Mail money desk and I think he was relishing working with the visuals.
Emily, the producer/director wasn’t quite as impressed, but then again she was more into arts than sciences at school. She still thought the visuals were fab though!
I watched the government’s gas and electricity press conference on Sky news yesterday. It’s a massively important subject that’s blighting the lives of many across the UK, so the prime minister and cabinet ministers were there to answer for their strategy. As I listened to the announcement, I was met by a raft of good and bad, with many serious issues that needed addressing (for an example see my last blog, ‘Does the PM understand Direct Debits?’).
The first reporter to ask a question was the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson who asked “how quickly will these measures take effect and will there be a windfall tax?” Perfectly reasonable stuff…
Then the next two said:
“Do you regret not calling an election last year?”
“On the anniversary of 9-11 what do you think of terrorist measures?”
While I know these are valid questions in the right context, there were potentially more holes in the Govt’s energy policy than swiss cheese, and this was the chance to tackle an issue affecting millions of homes across the UK. Surely a little more research into the actual issues of energy rather than sticking within the navel-gazing Westminster agenda would’ve been better?
The government’s just announced a massive, billion-pound push towards energy efficiency. A key tenet of its plan’s a massive advertising campaign to get people to switch to Direct Debit repayments as it’ll save them money.
Now while I agree with this, after all it’s a top point in my Compare Gas & Elecriticity guide, since it’ll cut your costs by 10%; I never say it without warning people to do a meter reading first, thus ensuring they’re getting accurate bills, something I hope the government will do too. Yet even if they do, one problem’s still being overlooked…
There’s no right to a fair Direct Debit
The rate you pay and the Direct Debit amount you’re charged are completely separate things. So you can be charged less for energy because you shift to DD, but see the monthly amount you pay increase because the energy supplier sets it at a high rate.
If you’re overpaying, then at the end of the year you’ll get a rebate, but in these economic climes, that loss of cash flow is a big hit to many people. This is one of the most regular complaints on the forum’s Energy board, and something top of my list at my recent feedback meeting with the regulator Ofgem.
To launch a massive push for Direct Debit that doesn’t address this issue is a real shame and could leave Mr. Brown out in the cold when people feel their bills have gone up rather than down.
Where are all the TV property pundits these days?
House prices are plummeting. Whether it’s a heavy correction or a crash depends on perspective, yet either way the bubble is over. While most newspapers report this as a nightmare with shock “HOUSE PRICE CRASH 10% IN A YEAR” type headlines, I don’t believe it’s a wholesale negative.
While those who’ve bought property in the last couple of years are going to find it tough, for others, falling prices mean they’re going to be able to get on the housing ladder at some stage in the future. In fact, when polled just a few months ago more people wanted prices to drop than to rise (see House prices, should they rise or fall? poll results).
I once took part in a debate in front of a group of economists; when the issue of house price rises came up, one reported that when he’d told people in Germany about it, many said “oh dear, that’s awful for them”. After all, this is price rises we’re talking about; they mean things get more expensive.
It’s interesting that to help people get on the housing ladder Messrs Brown and Darling have chosen to get rid of stamp duty (albeit for a small group) to try and ‘boost the market’. Surely if you want people to get on the housing ladder the best thing to do is let house prices fall to a realistic level.
It was all predictable, so why wasn’t it predicted?
The price drops aren’t unexpected, only the timing was difficult to pick. I remember causing a stir on Vine (BBC Radio 2) about a year ago, saying “there’s going to be a house price crash”, but then explaining “these things are cyclical, there’ll definitely be a crash, I just don’t know whether it’ll be in one year, two, five, ten or twenty.”
Yet house price decline was a dirty phrase on most TV property programmes. I call them property porn as so many people were lustfully encouraged into the idea of bricks and mortar as an unloseable investment.
As I wrote back in 2006 (see my a nation hypnotised by property porn blog), many of the basic tenets about property that many took as home truths were simply not correct.
It’s interesting to note that those property experts don’t seem to be around now. Is this because those programmes aren’t as sexy now, or just that its tough to work out what to say…
On holiday about ten days ago, I met up one day with my Uncle (Tax Tony) and his family who were staying nearby in Spain. Then Tony, my 18 year old cousin and I went Go-Karting.
The problem being, young Boff (as he bizarrely likes to be known) is a bit of a petrol head; he loves to drive and even studies racing lines. And I, well, am a naff driver but far too competitive. Worse still, having only really raced on computer games, I’d forgotten that in real life you can get hurt.
Instinctively, when I got to the first hairpin I was so intent on catching up, I braked too late, leading to one of those slow motion moments: I was heading into the tyre wall and nothing I could do was going to make a blind bit of difference.
I hit the tyres at somewhere between 20 and 30 mph, which doesn’t sound much, but it was a massive jolt which left me winded and a bit dazed. Like most blokes, stupidly I carried on and finished the race, in quite a deal of pain around my ribs both front and back. Luckily my breathing wasn’t affected.
My ribs got better then worse…
After a few days soaking in the sun, I got home and things started to feel better, but over the last few days it’s got much worse. Over the weekend I woke up trying to stretch out the discomfort and suddenly received a staggering jolt. The pain was excruciating, so I went for some medical treatment.
The diagnosis was simple, it’s very likely I’ve one or two broken ribs, (though they won’t do X-rays as whether they’re broken or not doesn’t impact the treatment, and so there’s no need to go through the radioactivity). There’s little that can be done, just strong painkillers and anti-inflammatories.
Then the cold started…
If that wasn’t bad enough, I started coughing, and as you can imagine, that hurts a lot with bad ribs. Yet it’s nothing compared to sneezing. I can honestly say it feels how I imagine being stabbed feels. After sneezing the pain in my side was so intense, it threw me to the floor, and I was unable to move for three or four minutes afterwards, with my eyes streaming (or at least that’s how I’m going to describe it…) and a very worried MSF standing by my side.
I’m writing this dosed up on the doctor’s prescriptions and heavy decongestants in a bid to curb the sneezing.
The timing couldn’t have been worse; the new series of It Pays to Watch, which tends to be an energetic show, starts soon, add that to the usual GMTV and radio programmes, and current heavy demand due to the economic climate, and I could really do without the limited movement. So if you see me grimacing on the telly at any point, now you’ll know the real reason why.
PS Just incase anyone reading this knows my grandmother, please don’t mention it. I haven’t told her, she would be upset and very worried. It’s the reason Im trying hard to disguise any obvious problems on any media appearances. Luckily she isn’t on the internet.
MoneySaving’s getting mainstream … Fresh from being a weakest link question, thanks to the eagle eyed forumites (see mention in Mock The Week ) who spotted comedian Michael McIntyre taking the mick on the BBC2 show.
To use forum speak, I ROTFL with it. It’s a brilliant clip, you can watch it here: BBC Iplayer (watch from 20mins).
And Michael, just in case this pops up in your Google Alerts …
I think this is the guide you’re referring to: batter down your annual mobile contract. Just to draw your attention to the third step:
Step 3: What if they say no?
Don’t feel forced into disconnecting
If you’re pushing and your bluff is called, with a “sorry, we can’t do that, I’ll arrange cancellation”, just back off. A quick “I need to think about it and I’ll call you back” is an easy way out.
At this point if there are better packages elsewhere consider taking on the hassle and changing package but do it on your terms not theirs. See Mobile Cost Cutting Plan for details of how to find the right tariff. Though it’s always possible that you call again, speak to someone else and get a quite different response!”
Many wee websites claim 100,000s hits, even though a hit means nothing. If you really want to see how big a website is, the rather clever Google Trends will now allow you to map the popularity of sites against each other.
What Google Trends usually does
Google Trends is a free tool for people with websites to see which terms are searched more.
For example when writing an article on breakdown cover, we check which more people search for: breakdown cover or roadside recovery. This then helps decide what we call it (as you want people to find what they’re looking for).
It’s fascinating and lets you see such arcane triviality as who’s searched more: Jade Goody or Paris Hilton (both worldwide and UK only).
The new website popularity measure
Now once you put in an initial term search (use commas to separate values), the next pages allow you to search websites for traffic. Here, by comma separating web addresses, you can see what’s more popular in any given country.
Here’s an example: I’ve pitted this site against Lastminute.com and Friendsreunited.com in the UK and it maps Google’s data on visitor numbers.
While you can have fun with this, it is also a good indicator (though not foolproof) of a website’s legitimacy. If it’s got big traiffic it’s more likely to be legit. I’ve previously suggested other tools to search for web accuracy (see my journalists stop quoting hits past blog) but this new Google tool’s likely to be much more accurate.
This week there are more ineffective attempts to tinker with the train fare system. The entire price network is a mass of anomalies and bad logic; what a mess. Of course, if you’re prepared to do the work you can beat it (see the Cheap Train Tickets guide), yet sadly the lack of coherent structure means this has to be by trial and error.
Why the system makes no sense.
There are more problems with the ticket pricing system than there are spam e-mails about Viagra. Yet to illustrate what I’m talking about, here are a couple of examples:
A fair fare proposal
What I’m about to suggest has more holes than a golf course. It doesn’t take into account the privatisation and multi-company nature of the industry.
Yet what I want to do is see what ideas people have for solutions to this problem, so I thought I should put something up to be shot down to start with (please suggest your own ideas in the discussion link at the end).
The following are some made up figures, to give an indication of how the system would work, rather than exact prices.
First ten miles… 60p/mile
Ten to 20 miles… 40p/mile
20 to 30 miles… 30p/mile
30 to 100 miles 20p/mile
100 and above 15p/mile.
Thus a ten mile journey would have a base cost of £6.
A 30 mile jouney £13.
A 100 mile journey £27
A 200 mile journey £42
Again the following are some made up figures, to give an indication of how the system would work rather than exact prices.
Book over six weeks ahead: Pay 1/3 of BASE COST
Book over four weeks ahead: Pay ½ of BASE COST
Book a week ahead: Pay base of BASE COST
Book on the day/late: Pay 2 times of BASE COST
Book a flexible ticket on any train: Pay 3 times whatever the cost depending on when you booked it (above)
Book a first class ticket. Pay 3 times the cost depending on when you booked it and flexibility (or 1.5 times at weekends when there’s no restaurant menu)
There would then be a 50% premium for peak travel.
There are ways to vary this system depending on the route’s competitiveness. The regulator could allow companies a discretionary multiple of base; but this way at least there’d be some consistency and legitimate expectation.
What do you think, what’s your solution?
I’ve got to share a moment from my summer hols in Southern Spain last week.
The MSF and I, along with a couple of friends were walking back along the beach.
In front was a bleached blond, seriously tanned girl with large boobs, a tiny bikini, red leggings on her left leg and green on the right. She was with three well built guys. All four were English. The guys were discussing the luminous pink nail varnish on her toes.
She then turned around, and said…
“Can you believe it girls, I’ve spent four effing grand on these tits and all these guys do is talk about my toes!”
For me, I go on holiday or take a break. Yet more and more people’s email auto-replies over the summer state “I’m on annual leave, will be returning on…”. I’ve never understood the use of what to me is a rather stodgy old-fashioned phrase. If you “go on annual leave”, why?
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