My MoneySaving Mistake
I’m having one of those days that we all get, where everything feels a struggle and the world seems blue. So instead of staying in MoneySaving Towers, I nipped across to the Westfield shopping centre opposite to treat myself to a tasty, healthy salad for lunch in the foodcourt. When paying for it the chap serving asked...
MoneySaving Christmas Quiz… Where the real knowledge lies…
Over Christmas we launched a quick quiz to test and train people’s MoneySaving knowledge. Now the full MoneySaving IQ test has replaced it, I thought it’d be interesting to review what people got right and wrong. When I wrote the questions, I wanted them to be difficult as I don’t believe people would see a benefit if...
Ponzis and pyramids… what’s the difference?
The Madoff scam in the USA is thought to have cost people up to £50 billion, and there’s talk of similar schemes having been operated in the UK. Yet I’ve read a lot of confusion about what’s happened. Sometimes it’s called a pyramid scheme; other times a Ponzi. So I thought I’d do a quick blog to...
More searched than Obama… how do you react?
I’ve just been contacted by a newspaper running a story based on Hitwise’s (the web monitoring specialists) press release, which says in Q4 2008, I was the most searched personality in the UK, unbelievably beating Barack Obama by 11%! The story is here – Hitwise blogs. It’s a bit of a challenge to know how to comment...
Is this site a Coronation Street Star?
Thanks to eagle-eyed and eared forumite ‘Nile’ for this. Apparently, Coronation Street’s Kirk is a MoneySaver. According to Nile (who kindly watched the repeat so it could be transcribed) this was in the dialogue, and it’s referring to MoneySavingExpert.com Rovers Return scene Kirk: It’s great this website. All these tips about how to save money. I was...
Milk Teeth Sprouting at Consumer Focus
I wonder if Consumer Focus read my blog a few weeks ago when British Gas cut prices (Is Consumer Focus in British Gas’ pocket?). Essentially they applauded British Gas’ palty 10% gas price cut; quite ridiculous for a Consumer organisation. Yet, I’ve just received the following from it. “Responding to news that EON is to cut electricity...
Just been to see the Queen.
I’ve just arrived back at MSE Towers from the Buckingham Palace relaunch of www.royal.gov.uk. While not much of a Royalist generally, I couldn’t resist the chance to glimpse inside and see what it was all about. Though it did involve having to put a suit on, not something I do often, or with relish. It’s a little...
Wayne Rooney you’re my hero
Ok, a little bit of an exaggeration, but when reading this story in the News of the World about how Wayne & Colleen had been to a restaurant and paid with a voucher I thought “HOORAH”. Over the last year or so it’s wonderful to see the stigma of using voucher has faded into nothingness. The daily...
Monster Slippers In a Bar… Stress Down Day
As you’ll have read in the weekly e-mail, last Friday was Samaritans Stress Down day, and we were giving away 50 pairs of Samaritans green monster stress-free slippers to celebrate. As such, and because I was one of the campaign’s supporters, I thought I’d better support the cause, so on Friday afternoon, I put and kept them...
I’m looking forward to watching… Savers in trouble: ITV1 Tonight 8pm.
It may sound strange to say that about a programme I’m presenting, but the truth is I haven’t seen it yet. It’s been done on a tight deadline, and the producer Bob and his team have done well to get so much material out in time. As part of the speedy process, quite a few chunks are...
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Recent Blogs
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Martin Lewis VIDEO: Should you pay off your Plan 1 student loan?
7 January 2020
If 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... -
How much the Govt expects you to give your children for university
16 December 2019
Update Note 25 May 2017: The ready reckoners below have been updated with the new 2017/2018 living loan amounts. Also since first writing this blog, and seeing the strength of feeling it attracted, I have written an open letter to the Uni Minister asking him to start telling people about this. Yet sadly received his no we won’t...
