This week the energy select committee took evidence from five comparison sites about energy switching, and in plain parlance, they gave them a kicking. While it made interesting watching on the BBC Parliament channel, I’m slightly concerned that it may unwittingly end up doing more harm than good – as you’ll see explained in my letter below....

No spiel, no chatter – just in true nerd style a list. Here are my top 10 blogs by numbers of readers from 2014.  1. Does the Santander 123 3% interest beat the top cash ISA? 2. Buy Zara clothes at a fraction of the cost, and get a flight thrown in 3. The trick to access...

Rushing between filming and meetings last week, I got into a cab to be greeted by a driver who’d got both PPI and bank charges back after reading guides on this site. He told me he had a very simple question to ask: "Can you believe what the bank tells you?" In light of the number of...

We’ve had some good news in MSE Towers this week – again we’ve been voted one of the UK’s top 10 ‘brands’ in the YouGov Brand Buzz Index. We’ve actually been in the top 10 a couple of times before (see MoneySavingExpert: a stronger brand than iTunes) but not for one or two years, (bouncing around the...

In the last six months Peppa Pig has become an important part of my life. Baby MSE is only allowed to watch TV (max 15 mins a day) when we watch it with her, so it’s a social activity – and its Daddy’s job to do so. That means as she loves the little pink girl, I’m...

On Tuesday I published the questions I put to the MSE Towers team at our annual Christmas party quiz. If you’ve not read it, then try your luck there before reading the answers below. Round 1: What year did it happen in the 90s There is one answer for each year 1990-1999, no year is duplicated. The...

I’m aware this is a bit of an off-the-wall idea, but I want to play with it and test the water. It’s all about the confusion over energy bills, which is one of the things that makes the market less competitive and leaves many – especially older people – overpaying.  I wonder if even just tweaking the...

Each year at the MSE Christmas party the team are forced to love to play my Christmas quiz. So this year, ably aided by MSE’s Yasin and Catherine, I donned my sequined jacket (seriously), slicked back my hair (not seriously, I’ve not got enough) and turned Quizmaster. Now it’s your turn to have a go (no googling),...

Last year at the end of the second week of December, Morrisons ran a litre of Baileys for £9 promotion. And a cracking deal it was too. This year and last year we’ve published the Christmas Deals Predictor on the site and I do a similar ‘Festive Forecaster’ on my TV show too (watch it here). This...

I think this email conversation with Golley Slater, the ad agency for Nationwide, pretty much explains itself. Email from it to me: (via our press contacts, which are only for press, even though they are not press) “Good afternoon, I am working on a Direct Mail pack for home insurance for Nationwide and we have come across...