
AARRGGHH. Sitting in the airport waiting for 8 hours. Its bad. Then they make it worse!
I’m sitting at the airport, having finally managed to find a plug for my laptop. Our flight time was meant to be around 1pm; but like many it was delayed. Now I’m relatively sanguine about this, after all there is fog and it’s being done for our safety. Yet what I find truly annoying is we knew...

The UK’s worst tax… stamp duty
UPDATE: In March 2012 Martin ran a competition to redesign Stamp Duty. A journalist recently asked me what I thought the UK’s most bizarre tax was. My answer, without any hesitation was stamp duty. Now I know inheritance tax haters may disagree, but for me, it’s not so much ‘what’s being taxed’, but ‘how we’re taxed’ that’s...

Having to forcibly remove MSE Andrea from the office
The wonderful MSE Andrea is pregnant and soon to go off on maternity leave. Yet she’s become a trouble maker. You see, sadly our Andrea loves her job a wee bit too much (not surprising really, she was a regular site user before becoming the first non-techie to come and help me with the site). Amongst many...

Now Thrifty Ways Is a Bestseller Too! Hoorah!
Thrifty Ways for Modern Days has joined the Money Diet as a bestseller debuting at number 11 in the Bookseller non-fiction paperback charts. Sadly it could’ve gone in at number 4, but for technical reasons it didn’t. The only sales that were in the chart were the pre-order sales from Play, but as Amazon was selling the...

TV stars have successfully reclaimed bank charges via this site!
On Sat night, I was lucky enough to be invited to ITV1’s an ‘Audience with Lionel Richie”. More about that in a moment; the serious stuff first. While I was there, a well known TV face came up to me and said, “I want to shake you by the hand, your site is brilliant and thanks to...

“Is it tough to appear on programmes with 0870/71 or Premium Rate Numbers?”
I’ve been a huge supporter of the crackdown on 0870 numbers for a long time. I wrote one of the first main newspaper articles about it (in the Sunday Express) a number of years ago and my current article (Say No To 0870 ) is a stalwart of the site. So as I’ve been appearing on the...

Why is it an LA fitness loophole not a LA fitness loophole?
As regular MoneySavers will know, my spelling and grammar is sadly appalling. So I was rather pleased today that I knew that it should be “an LA Fitness loophole” rather than “a LA Fitness loophole” (article coming very soon). This started debate here in MSE Towers as to why, after all LA starts with a consonant not...

Flying and buying trees
The MSG and I have just booked a holiday over the Christmas break. I’ve flown less this year than any recent year, as I took a decision that when travelling for work I now request that they get me a train ticket rather than a plane (e.g. if I’m going to Manchester or Edinburgh). Yet don’t think...

The Pope, Istanbul and MoneySaving…..
One of my best friends, Barbara, is currently covering the Pope’s trip to Istanbul for Al Jazeera International (she used to be the news reader at Five news, now she’s European correspondent and weekend anchor for AJ… but anyway I digress). She tells me she was in the specially set up Vatican newsroom, which is jammed with...

Show must go on. Isn’t it wonderful how make-up can cover up green?
I’ve just (stupidly) returned to the office after doing the Wright Stuff (on Five TV). Last night at about 11 I started to feel a little queasy, by 1am I was in bed shivering with cold, even though the house was warm; by 3am I was having to camp out with my duvet on the floor of...
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Recent Blogs
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Martin Lewis VIDEO: Should you pay off your Plan 1 student loan?
22 October 2019If you started university between 1998 and 2012, or since then in Scotland and Northern Ireland, you'll have a Plan 1 student loan. While much is written about whether those with savings should overpay the current English Plan 2 student loans, there's little out there about Plan 1. I wanted to change that, so here's a video explaining how to decide... -
Martin Lewis: Debt desperation to happy homeowner in 8 years
21 October 2019No matter how dire your money situation seems, there is always hope. Things may never be perfect, but they can improve and taking action is the best way to make that happen. The team recently forwarded me an email from Jay, which exemplifies that in beautiful technicolour detail. And Jay has now kindly given me permission to reproduce it