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 me, if...

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 I first...

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 is the...

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 shortlist...

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 worth jotting...

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 money. That...

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 a small...

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 else as...

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 like this without a...