Which is better, the Help to Buy ISA (H2B ISA) or the Lifetime ISA (LISA)? I'm asked this all the time. No wonder, as they both offer an unbeatable, no-brainer 25% bonus for first-time buyers saving in them – yet there are some big differences, so I've bashed out an answer...

Update Tue 23 Mar: This blog was originally written in July 2020. The regulator has said there are no more planned extensions to payment holidays. So, if you NEED one, in most cases you have just one week left, until the 31 March to apply.  I've updated the blog below with the latest information.

The new university term is starting for many, and millions of supposedly independent students will be heading off. In fact, though the system doesn't say students are independent, the system incorporates an expected 'parental contribution' to their finances. 

In June 2012 MSE joined the MSM Group and I pledged £10m to go to charity. As that was a public pledge and I believe I've a duty of transparency, every couple of years I bash out a blog report (the last was in January 2019) to explain where I'm up to, and who gets the money. And 2020 was a year like no other.

As is now pretty well documented, I'm obsessed with statistics tracking my fitness. Each year I knock out an annual steps report. This is the one for 2020. According to my tracker, I did 8,889,800 steps – a ridiculous, hopefully healthy obsession.

In March, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the Chancellor was rightly lauded for putting together decades' worth of financial support measures in days. Millions of people, then and since, have had their incomes covered in a desperate time. Yet that has created a society of the helped and helped-nots. Up to three million people have been excluded from specific support schemes.

Behavioural economics is a powerful science. Some retailers are undoubtedly using it to make us pay more to get less. One element is the 'decoy effect' – where a higher-priced item is sold, to make items next to it look like bargains. So I wanted to do a little experiment to test it.

In 2016, I founded the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute charity. It very quickly established itself as the go-to institute for trying to divorce the marriage made in hell that is debt and mental health issues.  

We've just agreed the final payments for my Coronavirus Poverty Emergency Fund. The total distributed is £3,414,143 to 415 small local charities (or organisations with charitable status). That's an average of over £8,000 per charity. For transparency, I want to run through how we organised, selected the charities, and where the money has gone. I hope this may also help others planning similar things in future.