Martin's Blog...

Nice to see a politician listening

I wrote in my ‘getting political’ blog a few weeks ago about how I’d had a half hour phone chat with Nick Clegg, the leader of the Lib Dems, about debt policy. I’ve often berated politicians for knee-jerk unpractical solutions that bear little resemblance to the realities people face. So I was rather pleased today [...]

Don’t send letters without adding your details!

To many readers of this blog, I suspect the note above will be a bit like stating the bleedin’ obvious. Yet recently I’ve heard from a number of different sources at banks, that when using this site’s template letters, that’s exactly what a small, but significant number of people do. The letters are contained in a [...]

Is Westfield going to be a white elephant?

A mammoth new shopping centre has opened near MSE Towers in Shepherds Bush. You’ll have probably seen the furore about Westfield’s opening on the news, it’s apparently the third biggest in Europe and had the bad luck of opening just after all the nasty financial news hit. Inside it’s enormous, with high ceilings, huge shops and [...]

The Greater Fool Theory: Does it apply to house purchases in the last couple of years?

There’s a stock market theory I remember talking about during the 2000-1 dot com boom, (I can’t remember who first told me a version of it) when I was on Simply Money TV. Over the last couple of years or so I’ve mentioned it when chatting about house prices to various friends, so I thought [...]

The Lord Mayor, PM, Financial Literacy & Men In Breeches.

Last night, I was lucky enough to be invited to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall. Filled with the political and financial elite, dressed up to the tens, it was a fascinating evening, and like slipping back into history at points. It’s a very formal do to celebrate the appointment of the new Lord [...]

Lord Mayor’s Dinner…

I’ve been invited to the Lord Mayor’s dinner on Monday night. It’s about financial literacy, and the PM’s making a speech. All good except I just found out it is WHITE tie. Now black tie I can cope with, but WHITE tie, tops and tails… oh dear! Comment and Discuss

Poised to throw Knickers… (incriminating pics)

I had one of those surreal moments on Wednesday night: a cross-over between my day job and my telly job. During the MoneySaving News on It Pays To Watch, towards the end I like to throw in something a bit lighter. So we did a line on Knickerbox’s 70% off weekly online sale, repeating my [...]

Beverley Knight: Star sings Singstar

At dinner on Saturday night I sat next to soul star Beverley Knight MBE. The MSF and I were at the Cancer Research UK Charity Halloween Ball, a great and at times very moving event, and something with personal resonance for both of us. Beverley’s a fascinating woman, and I really enjoyed chatting with her. [...]

Atlantic Energy: Ofgem too slow to fight the backdated price rise.

I’m in a bind. Atlantic Energy has written to its customers telling them it’s doing a big price hike, yet most importantly this hike is backdated to August. Sadly it has a right to do this as it can backdate up to 65 days under the rules. Yet as many MoneySavers have emailed to tell [...]

Thank goodness IPTW isn’t live… Crucial edit

We record It Pays To Watch about two hours before it’s transmitted. This is for a mix of technical and legal reasons. This week however, it saved my skin. As regular blog readers will know, I’m a big X-factor fan. During my chat with Jonathan Ansell, I responded saying “I remember when my girlfriend and [...]

Getting political…

In the last few weeks I’ve been contacted by a couple of politicians/advisors wanting to talk policy issues. While in the past the site has been cited as a model for web based info (see my the power of info blog) it’s interesting to see things are starting to push on. What I’m pleased about [...]

Should I do more ‘fun telly’ on top?

Times are tough at the moment, and people are looking for MoneySaving info. Throughout my career, especially over the last few years, I’ve turned down any job offers outside this strict agenda. There’ve been other ‘non moneysaving’ money show offers, as well as general presenting work. I’ve been asked whether I wanted to be on the [...]

ICICI: Is it safe?

IMPORTANT: Updates & further stories on ICICI will be added to the end of this blog Since the Icelandic collapse, many are questioning other foreign banks with lots of UK savers’ money. One of the big subjects in the Forum and in my mailbag is the Indian Bank ICICI. So I thought it would be [...]

Is Santa hit by the Credit Crunch?

I was on Newsround today doing some clips about the credit crunch, as children are reporting drops in pocket money. The most important message I did was “This Christmas may be a little different, the price of food, petrol, gas & electricity and travel has gone up, so your parents may have a little less [...]

X-factor: Go JLS - 100% effort

After a horrible week, for all of us, it was a relief to turn on X-factor and veg out in front of it. As I’ve written before, the MSF and I are massive fans of the show…. and I would like to say at this point… GO JLS! This isn’t due to the musical prowess, though the [...]

Mortgage Lenders sadly absorbing the rate cuts…

This week interest rates were dropped by 0.5%, which you’d hope would give some reprieve to hard-pushed mortgage repayers. While we have seen some banks drop their standard variable rates, meaning some customers will be helped, I just received this e-mail from a mortgage broker (who has given me permission to publish it): “We are [...]

Safe Savings beats Pizza Express

The breadth of main site (as opposed to Forum) content has grown a lot over the last year. One of the major new innovations is the Codes, Deals and Vouchers section on the front page. This has become hugely popular and each Wednesday when the weekly e-mail is sent out, normally just about pips everything [...]

Icesave… angry, frustrated and upset…

IMPORTANT UPDATE. This blog is now out of date…. The are your savings safe guide, has a special section, updated three times a day on all the issues impacting Icelandic bank custsomers. All Updates: All latest info in the full Icesave, Kaupthing, Heritable section _________________________________________________ The site is burning with confused Icesave savers today, [...]

Hai-Ya! Breaking a tile with my fist.

This Wednesday we’ve changed the It Pays To Watch schedule to focus on Financial Self Defence. As well as savings, loans & mortgages, we’ll be looking at Section 75 credit card protection (and we’re about to publish a major new guide to it on the site too). Now you can’t do a programme [...]

The UK’s only Bradford & Bingley Branch: Kensington High Street

It’s the first chance I’ve had to blog this. Last Tue, I nipped out of MSE Towers, which is in Shepherds Bush (West London) on weekly e-mail day to do a quick interview for the ITN evening news on Bradford & Bingley. As telly requires this to be near a branch, and the nearest [...]