Question Time: What money mistakes do married couples make? Can we afford to upsize? How do you repay two student loans?

In our Question Time podcast, Martin Lewis gives you answers on anything and everything, including: what are the financial benefits of marriage? We want to upsize to a bigger house; how do we know if we can we afford the bills? How do I deal with unfairness when investing for my children of different ages? We have a success, where our caller switched bank but was able to keep their linked regular saver. There’s also an update to the “which student loan do I pay back first?” question from last week, and Martin’s discovered a real problem with the answer! Plus, if Martin could go back in time, what event would he choose to go to, and why? If you want to ask Martin a question, you now can! His Question Time podcast lets you ask Martin absolutely anything and everything (within reason!). So, if you’ve always wanted to know if he’s green-fingered, how many books he’s read this year, or have a very complicated question about your finances, email it to [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Welcome to The Haunted Library.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Join me, Colin Morgan, as I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. A story of science and ambition, loneliness and longing, and what it truly means to be human.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Listen to The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube.

• 0:39Martin Lewis?

  Stunned and shocked, and it's due to your behaviour.

• 0:42Speaker 03

  Are they able to take any of that switching reward back?

• 0:45Martin Lewis?

  Can I have a safety bubble in my time travel? A good recipe for a happy marriage, I think, is every three months you sit down, you have a tabletop meeting about the finances.

• 0:53Speaker 04

  Sometimes the suppliers can sort of like double or triple your bills for a settling in period.

• 0:57Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our Question Time episode, where you are asquires, extremely savvy questioners, get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. This week, you asked me, what are the financial benefits of marriage? And that's from a couple who are just about to do it. We want to upsize to a bigger house. How do we know if we can afford the bills? How do I deal with unfairness when investing for my children of different ages? Then a success, someone who's switched bank account but was able to keep open their linked regular saver. Plus, an update on last week's student loan question.

• 1:40Martin Lewis?

  If you've got two student loans, which do you pay back first? And I'm afraid I've discovered a real problem in the system that I might start to campaign on. And finally, you asked me, if I could go back in time, what event would I want to go back to and why? Play the theme tune.

• 2:10Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to this episode of the Question Time podcast, where you get to ask me questions on anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. And of course, I am delighted to be joined by the curator of questions himself, Professor

• 2:29Martin Lewis?

  Matthew Burnham, a squire.

• 2:31Speaker 05

  No doctor.

• 2:33Martin Lewis?

  And no sir.

• 2:34Speaker 05

  And no sir. Why? What have I done this time?

• 2:37Martin Lewis?

  It's Martin Mitchell. Martin Mitchell did a post on my Facebook.

• 2:42Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:43Martin Lewis?

  And I was left stunned.

• 2:45Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:46Martin Lewis?

  Stunned and shocked. And it's due to your behaviour.

• 2:50Speaker 05

  Oh no, what have I done?

• 2:53Martin Lewis?

  Martin Mitchell wrote on the back of the Last Question Time podcast, "We got to hear GDPR at the end." Now, for those of you who don't know, GDPR is Google Docs professional Rosie. Rosie is the beer moth who sits astride this podcast. The enigma. She is always here. She works with me. She's live fact checking the questions to make sure that we get things right. She is, though, never heard. She's too big to be heard. Some people say that her audio waves are so powerful, they go below the listening frequency that's available. And that the entire BBC broadcasting house that I sit in when I do this is shaking with reverberations, that when she does speak,

• 3:38Martin Lewis?

  it actually measures on the Richter scale. Nobody, within the canon of the podcast, is meant to ever hear Rosie. And yet, Matt, you, and I remember the conversation quite distinctly when we have our Friday Conversation about the Question Time podcast. You said, "I've added something extra on the end. Take a listen." Now, you know that when I listen to the podcast back, I listen to it in double speed.

• 4:01Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 4:01Martin Lewis?

  And I listened and it sounded great. And I think I remembered some muffled sound, but I don't think I heard that Rosie was in it. Did you, as an Easter egg at the end of the Last Question Time podcast, actually put GDPR's voice in the podcast?

• 4:19Speaker 05

  If you listen very, very closely, yes, I did. I put Rosie's voice in because it was too good a clip to miss. And I also think it's nice to know that someone has listened to the very, very, very end of the podcast. Very end of the podcast.

• 4:33Martin Lewis?

  I'm worried this is like Ravens at the Tower of London. I'm worried that if people hear Rosie's voice, that the entire Question Time podcast is going to start diminishing. We were doing very well in the podcast charts. I hope you haven't just ruined it.

• 4:46Speaker 05

  No, if anything, that's the reason why we're doing so well in the podcast.

• 4:49Martin Lewis?

  You think it's like, now, of course, of course. Okay, so let's be honest. Now, Matt, you're not allowed to listen to this, but I'm just talking to the listeners. Put your fingers in your ears. Are they in your ears? Good, he didn't answer because his fingers are in his ears. That was very clever, well done. So, the point is, of course, I'm doing this because, A, it's always fun to tell Matt off at the beginning of the podcast, and B, because now I know some of you are going to go back to the Last Question Time podcast, and we are doing well in the charts, and if you're listening on certain platforms, that counts as an extra listen, and you're going to go back to the Extra Question Time podcast, even though you've already heard it, and you're going to listen to the end bit just so you can hear Rosie's voice.

• 5:31Martin Lewis?

  And if you think, you know, it's on the Richter scale and you did that, do let us know. We should probably do some questions, shouldn't we?

• 5:38Speaker 05

  Yes, shall we?

• 5:39Martin Lewis?

  What is the first question for me?

• 5:41Speaker 05

  A question from Jack. He's emailed in to [email protected]. He says, "Dear Martin, Matt, Simon, Rosie or Claire?"

• 5:52Martin Lewis?

  Oh, Claire gets some mention. Claire gets some mention too.

• 5:55Speaker 05

  Everyone.

• 5:55Martin Lewis?

  Very good, I'm glad. See, I like the... Not only is it nice, but we all know what they're subtly saying. What Jack's subtly saying here is, "I am a regular listener to this podcast."

• 6:06Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 6:06Martin Lewis?

  "I am a member, I'm an absolutely nesquah, I'm a member of the club, I know what's going on because I know who to address my emails to."

• 6:12Speaker 05

  Well, he also says this in his email. He says, "Thank you so much for all the advice in the podcasts. I'm a fairly new listener, but since I found the pod late last year, I've listened to every single episode and I love it."

• 6:22Martin Lewis?

  Oh, wonderful.

• 6:23Speaker 05

  Thanks very much. "I have a question, which I'm very willing to come on the podcast and ask Martin, or if you'd prefer to read it, that's fine too. My fiance and I are getting married this August, and I've heard you talk about how it can be hugely beneficial financially for people in long-term relationships to be married or in a civil partnership. Of course, we're marrying because we love each other and the financial benefits are just a nice bonus."

• 6:44Martin Lewis?

  How lovely.

• 6:44Speaker 05

  "But, hearing you talk about this has got me wondering, what are the most common things that people don't do or forget to do after getting married, which has led to them losing out on money or not financially benefiting themselves in the best ways possible? I'm thinking things like updating insurance or other documents, getting a will, et cetera, or any other financial perks to being married."

• 7:05Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, there are lots of things and you rightly mention them. Making sure the documentation is right and everything is being transferred across is really important. I don't know whether your fiance is a man or a woman. If it's a woman and she may well be changing her name, or you could be changing her name if you're both men as well, then you want to update HMRC, banks, pensions, insurers, passports, driving licence and payroll. They're all really important because otherwise you can have ID issues coming on the back of it. But I'm going to concentrate on the bigger picture. You mentioned wills. Wills is actually really important because many people don't realise that when you get married, in most UK nations, your will is then invalid. What you had before, unless the will was expressly written with the knowledge that

• 7:49Martin Lewis?

  you're getting married and factored that in, then your will is invalid and you no longer have a will. In Scotland, it isn't invalid, but everything I get from our brilliant Scottish solicitor, Austin, who comes on the programme when we talk about wills, he always says, "Do I do his accent or not?"

• 8:05Speaker 05

  I suggest you don't.

• 8:06Martin Lewis?

  Then I'm definitely going to. I'd like to say it's not a Scottish accent, it's an Austin accent, and that's allowed. He says, "It may not be invalid, but it absolutely is worth getting a new will and effectively you should consider like it's invalid." That wasn't too bad.

• 8:23Speaker 05

  It sounds like you're chewing on all the consonants.

• 8:25Martin Lewis?

  I quite like that. I was just trying to channel Austin, he's very good.

• 8:29Speaker 05

  He's very good.

• 8:30Martin Lewis?

  Anyway, so you sort of want a new will and if you don't have one anyway, you definitely want a new will. Also, the other thing that I would go in with that is your expression of wishes on your pension. You will probably have workplace pension schemes. It's important to understand when you sign up for a pension, you'll fill out an expression of wishes. It can also be called a nomination form. Many people forget that they've done this and that's because your pension is not included in your will. And the expression of wishes tells the trustees of the pension or the pension firm who you would like your pension to go to in the event that you died. Sorry for being so morbid, you're getting married. I hope both of these, complete waste of time because you're going to live another 120 years and the rules will have all changed by then, but just as a precaution in case they haven't. So you need to go and check your expression of wishes are up to date when you're getting

• 9:15Martin Lewis?

  married too, because I presume that your new spouse will be the person you want it to go to. Next. Lasting power of attorney. Marriage does not automatically let your spouse manage your finances if you lose capacity. And again, you sound like a young couple in love. I hate the morbid stuff I'm doing, but you know what? I get enough cases where it goes wrong to say, let's just... Part of loving each other is making sure you're looking after each other if the worst happens. And that's what this is all about. So I've had a power of attorney since my mid 30s, since I got married. What it does is it says, in the event that you were to lose capacity,

• 9:57Martin Lewis?

  the other person could look after your financial decisions for you and access your finances, more importantly, and can make your health and wellbeing decisions for you. Heaven forbid a health decision had to be made for you when you were incapable of making it for yourself. It gives them permission to do so. Without that, it is very difficult and you have to go to the very complicated and difficult court of protection, which can take time and money and hassle. And I've seen families locked out of being able to pay their mortgage because the mortgage is locked away in the event of the person loses capacity. So we've done big programmes on this, but it's why I often say, power of attorney, lasting power of attorney is in most cases more important than a will. Because once you're dead, you're dead and there are intestacy laws and it won't mean your money goes to the right place, but it'll mean it'll go somewhere.

• 10:39Martin Lewis?

  But if you're incapacitated and you can't make decisions for yourself, then the finances can be locked away.

• 10:48Martin Lewis?

  Marriage tax allowance, next one, just to check. If one of you is a basic rate taxpayer and the other is a non-taxpayer, then the non-taxpayer can apply to transfer 10% of their personal allowance, the amount that you can earn before paying tax each year, tax-free to the taxpayer. So they have an extra 1,200 quid a year that they won't be taxed at 20% on. That's worth checking out too, if you fulfil that. Inheritance tax planning, you mentioned the benefits of marriage. The big ones are the following two. Well, the big ones are marriage tax allowance and the next two. Inheritance tax planning. In a nutshell, I've got Rosie sitting next to me.

• 11:31Martin Lewis?

  Rosie's not going to speak, but she's with me. Rosie, I'm going to, I'm going to marry you now. Don't worry. And Freddie, just to say, it's not really. Please, you know, I know Freddie, it's, it's not an issue. Rosie's laughing. I got a laugh out of Rosie for that, man.

• 11:47Speaker 05

  Good.

• 11:48Martin Lewis?

  I think she's slightly uncomfortable. I'm glad there's a couple of metres between us in the studio. I'm only doing it as an example, and we're not even marrying within the canon of the podcast. Right? It's not like, it's not, it's just an example. So.

• 12:01Speaker 05

  Digging yourself a hole here.

• 12:02Martin Lewis?

  I was just trying to, I, I, listen, I was on This Morning the other day, and in a conversation, just to give examples, I married both Kat and Ben. So Rosie's just joining in.

• 12:14Speaker 05

  Martin Lewis is marrying everyone.

• 12:15Martin Lewis?

  Everybody, everybody. And hey, think of the inheritance tax benefits. I'm not sure it works if you marry more than one, but anyway. So this is the point. And that when you die, the first £325,000 of your estate is not subject to inheritance tax. Then if you also leave your primary property to your direct descendant, child, grandchild, stepchild, stepgrandchild, there's another £175,000 that you can leave tax-free. So that's a total of £500,000, up to £500,000, including your property that you can leave tax-free.

• 12:52Martin Lewis?

  If you're not married and you leave everything to your partner, which many people do, well, you've just used up that £500,000 and anything over will be taxed. And then your partner, if they then left it to your children, only has £500,000 that they can leave tax-free. Now imagine Rosie and I were a couple. Here we are, we've got married. Here's what happens. I leave everything to Rosie, because I'm a lot older, I'm going first. I think there's very little doubt about that one. Right? So I leave everything to Rosie. That's all tax-free, because we're spouses, which means married or civil partnership. So if you don't like the baggage of marriage, you can do a civil partnership. It comes with exactly the same legal rights. Everything I leave to Rosie is not subject to inheritance tax, because there is no inheritance tax on stuff you leave a spouse.

• 13:38Martin Lewis?

  But not only that, she also gets my unused inheritance tax allowance, so that up to £500,000. And because I left everything to her, I haven't used any of it. So Rosie now has a million pounds inheritance tax allowance, that when she dies, she can pass on a million pounds, including property, on to her, her children, and they won't pay any tax on it. That is a monumental benefit. I mean, you're talking hundreds of thousands of pounds reduction in inheritance tax for certain people because of being married. Other things, you can pass savings and investments between spouses without it being taxed. So is that you both get a savings allowance each year, as long as it's a trusting relationship,

• 14:21Martin Lewis?

  and this is quite important to remember. Unfortunately, financial abuse is a part of domestic abuse, and it does happen. So make sure everybody's comfortable with it, and it's a properly trusting relationship. If, for example, if you're selling shares, let's take the capital gains tax allowance. That capital gains is a tax on profits you make, but there is no allowance made within that for how long you've held shares. So if you bought shares 10 years ago for £10,000, and they're now worth £20,000, even though some of that gain has been eroded by inflation, that doesn't count. Now, you're allowed under the capital gains tax allowance to make £3,000 of profits tax-free a year. So if I bought for £10,000, selling at £20,000, that means there's £10,000 of profit, so I would pay

• 15:02Martin Lewis?

  tax on £7,000 of it. But if I'm married, I could transfer half those shares to my spouse. So it would count as I bought them for £5,000 and sold for £5,000, and my spouse bought them for £5,000 and sold them for £5,000. And that means both of us could use our capital gains tax allowance, so it's £2,000 that's taxable on each. So we're only going to pay tax on £4,000 of total gains, as opposed to £7,000 of total gains. And the same is true on savings, because you both, if your basic rate taxpayers get £1,000 of interest you can earn each year, are on savings tax-free. So moving your money to your spouse, if they're not going to use it theirs, can use up those allowances. All of that is important. What else is there? Marriage doesn't merge your credit files,

• 15:46Martin Lewis?

  but if you've got a joint account or borrowing, that can financially link you. So just be careful of that if one of you has a poor credit score. And then the final thing that people forget to do, and one of the most important things people forget to do.

• 16:00Martin Lewis?

  Is have a proper discussion about how you're going to manage the finances and who is going to manage the finances and never have one person who does everything with the other in ignorance. I meet too many older marriage couples where one of them is in charge of the finances and they think they're being generous by looking after it all. And oh, my partner, they don't understand anything. I just do it all. And they forget the three Ds, death, divorce and dementia. Not too jolly, but you should always make sure even if one person is doing all the money work, the other has access. I like a financial fact sheet where you list all the different products you've got, all the money products, your insurances, who the travel insurance cover with, who your gas and electricity provider is with.

• 16:43Martin Lewis?

  Maybe if you're printing it out, you're careful not to have security details on it. But just so that if the other person had to take over, there's a simple list that lets them take over. And then a good recipe for a happy marriage, I think, is every three months or six months up to you, you sit down, you have a tabletop meeting about the finances, who's spending what, where the money's going, how you're doing it, what your financial priorities are in the decisions that you're going to make. And if you do that, hopefully you will avoid some of the financial frictions that there are in marriage, which leads finances in marriage to be one of the biggest reasons that people get divorced. And I don't want you to do that, Jack. I hope that you and your partner and soon to be spouse have a wonderful, happy, married life together. You love each other, the love stays there,

• 17:28Martin Lewis?

  the finances don't get in the way. All the information about wills and power of returning I gave you turns out to be completely futile because your ghost is going to be happy for that 120 years without any problems. But just in case it's not, a bit of planning is worthwhile.

• 17:43Martin Lewis?

  Now, after last week's debacle, the second question in question time.

• 17:49Martin Lewis?

  You have a caller. It is a question. I'm saying that as a statement because I don't believe we'll have the issue twice.

• 17:56Speaker 05

  Is debacle the right word? I think that's a bit extreme.

• 17:59Martin Lewis?

  Debarcler?

• 18:00Speaker 05

  I do have a caller. I have.

• 18:03Martin Lewis?

  You've been deba- deba-cled. I don't know. So are you saying you're bar-cled?

• 18:07Speaker 05

  Just, just bar-cled, yes.

• 18:09Martin Lewis?

  You're bar-cled.

• 18:10Speaker 05

  Obviously. It's interesting because you've literally just done a question about big life events and now I've got a caller for you on moving house, which is another big life event.

• 18:18Martin Lewis?

  Indeed, and some say it's probably even more stressful, although they're both pretty stressful, though hopefully they deliver well in the long run.

• 18:24Speaker 05

  Lexi in Bristol. Hi, Lexi.

• 18:26Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 18:28Martin Lewis?

  Hello, Lexi. What can I do for you?

• 18:30Speaker 04

  Hi, Martin. I just wondered, my partner and I are in the process of buying our first home.

• 18:37Martin Lewis?

  Congratulations.

• 18:38Speaker 04

  And thank you very much. We're currently in a small flat. We've got one bedroom, three rooms in total, and we're going up to a three-bedroom house that's across three floors. We've realised that we have no idea how to estimate what our bills are going to change to be, and we've heard from people that sometimes the suppliers can sort of like double or triple your bills for a settling in period if you move, if you upsize this much. So we just wanted some advice on how to budget for this, really.

• 19:08Martin Lewis?

  And which, which suppliers do you think would double or triple your bills in the settling in period?

• 19:12Speaker 04

  I've heard things about electricity and gas.

• 19:16Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, I think that's probably the only one possible, and I'm not sure you, I'm not sure that's necessary. So let, let's just try and go through this in a sort of logical way. I'm just thinking of all the different bills. Start with the obvious one. Rental mortgage, you'll know. Mortgage, you'll know what that is. So we got rid of that one. Next, energy. What you can do is you can go to an energy comparison site. If you don't know your details, you can ask it generally. You can put in, you know, the size of the property and it will give you an estimate. You're in a one-bed flat, you're moving to three, four, three-bed property. The current typical usage is about £1,600 a year. Off

• 19:58Martin Lewis?

  the top of my head, my entirely pure, you know, pulling a number out of mid-air estimate for you is I would think you'd be talking somewhere between £2,000 and £2,400 a year.

• 20:10Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 20:10Martin Lewis?

  But that, I mean, you'd be far better to go to a comparison site and put in accurate details. That's me just doing some very, very rough calculations. But I think it would be in that order. Of course, it depends on the insulation in your house, how energy efficiency it is, what you're using and exactly how you use it. So ignore change. What's your current energy bill? Do you know?

• 20:29Speaker 04

  Yes, it's ninety six pounds a month.

• 20:31Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so I would suggest that an easy form of budgeting is let's double that and add a bit and call it two hundred pounds a month.

• 20:39Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 20:40Martin Lewis?

  And let's hope I'm wrong and it's less, but better to provision higher than lower.

• 20:45Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 20:46Martin Lewis?

  Council tax, do you know what your new council tax ban will be?

• 20:52Speaker 04

  Uh, no.

• 20:53Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so are you in England?

• 20:56Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 20:57Martin Lewis?

  So you can go onto gov.uk and you can do a council tax check on the new property. The ban will be public and then you take that ban to the local council authority's website and then you find out what that ban pays in that authority and you will know what you're going to pay in council tax. And it's important, check. But now I have a flashing alarm going off in my head, which I'm going to try and turn into podcast flashing alarm. Woo, woo, warning, warning, woo, woo, warning, warning. This is really important, Lexi. Four hundred thousand homes in the UK are in the wrong council tax band. Some of them are in too high a council tax band. You can challenge that, but it is very difficult

• 21:39Martin Lewis?

  to challenge that once you have lived in a property for more than six months. So, once you get into this property, one of your must-do jobs is to go and check whether it looks like you're in the right council tax band. If you are, great, move on. If you're not, you need to start this within the first six months because it's just so much easier to challenge within six months of moving into a property. I've done it before on podcasts, so you can look at past podcasts with it in. There are also, the way I will say this, there are free guides online on reputable sites that will take you through how to check and challenge your council tax band step by step, if you know what I'm saying. So, but that's really important for you to do once you move in and to do relatively quickly.

• 22:25Martin Lewis?

  Broadband will be similar, but you might need more routers. Water. Are you on a water meter at the moment?

• 22:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 22:34Martin Lewis?

  Do you know if the new property has a water meter?

• 22:37Speaker 04

  Um, I don't for sure, but it's a fairly new property. Um, and they've done a lot of work in terms of, uh, I know they've got smart meters and things, so I imagine they would be.

• 22:48Martin Lewis?

  Okay, well, I mean, you could, if you're not on a water meter, it's just worth noting, how many of you will be living in the property?

• 22:56Speaker 04

  Just the two of us.

• 22:57Martin Lewis?

  So you're two in a three-bed, three-bed house. Well, my rule of thumb is if you've got the same number as people, you've got, sorry, you've got the same or less people in the house than bedrooms, you're generally better off on a water meter. So this is three bedrooms, there's two of you, you will probably be better off on a water meter. So if you're not, that's something you should look into. The Consumer Council for Waters website has a good estimator there. If you are on a meter, well, one would argue it might be a little bit more uh, than it is right now, but it'll probably be roughly similar because it's more about how many people are using water uh, in a household rather than the property itself. Buildings insurance, um, will be bigger, uh, the, because you need to ensure the rebuild value of the property. So that's something that you will need to look at. Content insurance may be bigger

• 23:42Martin Lewis?

  because more space means you accumulate more stuff and the postcode can change that. But I don't think that will change that much. But you know what the biggest one, is this your first owned property?

• 23:51Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 23:52Martin Lewis?

  The big one, and it's very difficult for me to help you, but the one thing I would throw at you, maintenance and repairs. You've got a three-bed, three, four-floor property. There are going to be maintenance and repair costs. It's difficult to factor in what they are, but uh, my general rule of thumb is they'll always be about twice as much as you expect them to be.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 24:15Martin Lewis?

  Okay. I think that's it. I can't think of anything else that I've missed. Does that, does that help you a bit?

• 24:21Speaker 04

  It does, thank you.

• 24:22Martin Lewis?

  On energy, when you say they, they, they set it high till they don't know that, on a monthly direct debit, they may do that with limited data. But pretty soon you can get in touch with them. I mean, you're not actually paying extra money. It's just a cash flow. They might be taking more off and then you, you would build up a credit and you would be able to get that credit back. So I wouldn't worry about it too much.

• 24:41Speaker 04

  With the council tax, I don't know if I remember correctly, but I think I remember you saying that this is, that that tends to be on older properties from when they first introduced the system. Is that correct?

• 24:52Martin Lewis?

  It is, yes, yes, you're right. You said yours was a new build, yeah. So.

• 24:55Speaker 04

  It is, yes, 2009.

• 24:57Martin Lewis?

  It is less likely to be wrong.

• 25:01Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 25:01Martin Lewis?

  Is what I would say. It is less likely to be wrong and it is a bit more difficult to check. I would still take the time anyway, just in case.

• 25:09Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 25:10Martin Lewis?

  Just because if you, after six months, if you find out then, the, the, the process goes from being a, you know, a, it's relatively tough to do to being, you're really going to have to work hard and put a lot of time and effort in if you want to have a cha- a chance of challenging it after six months.

• 25:28Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 25:29Martin Lewis?

  Cool. I think we got there. I think it's a comprehensive list. Yeah. So if I just go through what I said, I think the ones to watch, energy, obviously, council tax, water's probably going to be similar, buildings insurance, and, and remember when you insure, if you're first time opening a house, when you're insuring your buildings, not your contents, it's how much it would cost to knock down the house and rebuild it that you insure. That is not the same as the purchase price of the property. And often people over insure because of the purchase price of the property. And then it's just worth thinking about maintenance and repair. It's a new build, so hopefully it'll be good. You might have some guarantees in there depending on how new, new build it is, but that is worth thinking about and how you're going to do that. But you might be really good at DIY yourself, which could help.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  Great. Thank you very much.

• 26:14Martin Lewis?

  My pleasure. Thank you so much for getting in touch. And you could, what you could do for decoration is you could buy, you know, those big art boards? You know where I'm going with this?

• 26:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:22Martin Lewis?

  You know, the bit, you could buy a massive, what I would do is I'd buy a massive canvas. I'm thinking, I'm thinking a, a black canvas, probably two meters by one meter. And I'd have it painted all black. And then you take the badge that you're going to be sent and you just pin it in the center and it'll be like a work of art with this huge black canvas and this little white badge with my face and Matt's face in the middle. I mean, people probably put the value of, I mean, I can say this as a money saver, it's, I reckon maybe a hundred and fifty thousand added to the value of your property instantly if you do that.

• 26:52Speaker 05

  If not more.

• 26:53Martin Lewis?

  More, possibly more, possibly more. I'm glad you knew where I was going with that. Thank you for calling, Lexi.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  Thank you very much for having me.

• 27:01Speaker 05

  Cheers.

• 27:02Martin Lewis?

  We maybe need to work that map.

• 27:04Speaker 05

  Need to what, what, what?

• 27:06Martin Lewis?

  Well, I'm just thinking, if we are, by giving people badges and they're going to put it as installation art in their homes, and it's going to massively increase their house value, we might need some form of rider that says that, you know, 10% of the uplift should be sent to us.

• 27:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:21Martin Lewis?

  What do you think?

• 27:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:22Martin Lewis?

  And then, and then we'll do that in a roughly equal split between you, so 99.9% to me and 0.1% to you.

• 27:27Speaker 05

  Of course, not the person who designed the badges.

• 27:28Martin Lewis?

  No, not the person who designed the badges, no, it's the, it's the person who provides the big face.

• 27:32Speaker 05

  Too late, I've already copyrighted it. I own the images.

• 27:36Martin Lewis?

  I'm not sure you can, because I actually have a copyright on my image.

• 27:40Speaker 05

  Well, what I've done is, I've just copyrighted everything apart from your face.

• 27:44Martin Lewis?

  Okay, good.

• 27:46Speaker 05

  It's pixelated.

• 27:47Martin Lewis?

  Okay, just to say, as I always say, we will only be charging you 10% of the uplift in the canon of the podcast where it is law, outside the canon of the podcast, IRL, it isn't law, you don't need to worry. I don't think they were really worried, do you?

• 28:01Speaker 05

  Uh, maybe a little bit, but now you've, you've made it very clear, very clear.

• 28:08Martin Lewis?

  What question are you going to read out for me now?

• 28:11Speaker 05

  Well, as it's question three, I will read one from Tom. He says, dear all, as I don't have favourites.

• 28:19Martin Lewis?

  Do you know what? It does make either of us happy.

• 28:21Speaker 05

  No, I kind of like it. I'm really now, I don't care who they address the email to, because it goes to so many different names now. I am the only one who sees the emails, but I don't mind if it says dear Rosie, or dear Claire.

• 28:35Martin Lewis?

  Or maybe even dear Martin?

• 28:37Speaker 05

  Or maybe dear Martin.

• 28:38Martin Lewis?

  On the Martin Lewis podcast, just saying.

• 28:40Speaker 05

  Uh, sometimes I'll just delete them if it says dear Martin.

• 28:42Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 28:43Speaker 05

  No, I don't. He says, while it's a long way away, if I invest equally on a monthly basis for my two children from birth, as well as birthdays and Christmases, the differences in market performance will lead to differing amounts when they turn 18. So what's the best way to deal with this? And due to inflation, if you invest equal amounts, will the younger child be worse off in real terms?

• 29:04Martin Lewis?

  I'm, I'm not sure I understand the premise of Tom's question. So. If it's about the point that they are 18 and you put the money in from birth till 18 for both of them, well, things will be much of a muchness unless one of those was a better investment period than the other was a better investment period. The impact of inflation over 18 years would be roughly similar, again, depending on the inflation rates. Now, if you're saying to me, I invest them both and one is older than the other, so one starts earlier and when they both take the money out, one is 21 and the other is 18, so the one in 21 has had more time in the market, more time to grow, well, that's sort of an acceptable disequality. I think, honestly, Tom, my answer is, I wouldn't deal with it at all.

• 29:49Martin Lewis?

  I would just put the money away. You're putting it in investments at different points. They might perform slightly differently, but that is the nature of investing. They won't be hitting at 18 at the same time, so the situation will be different. I mean, the only way that you could do this fairly would be to invest in your name and then equally proportionate to them at the end. But then, that could mean in, you know, you using up your ISA allowance for them, rather than using up their ISA allowance, because they both have a junior ISA allowance of nine thousand pounds a year each. Or if you're not using your ISA allowance, you could end up paying tax on it, which would reduce the total amount that they get. I don't, I would hope this would be a relatively small issue, because I suspect you'll be

• 30:33Martin Lewis?

  putting roughly the same investments away for each of them, both be over 18 years. It's a long period. The market should smooth itself out over that time. I mean, your only issue would be if, let's say, your oldest turned 18, took the money out and there was a nice pot, and then your youngest, I don't know if it's two years later, took the money out and there'd been a big market dip in that time, so at the moment they were taking the money out, the market dropped. Well, in which case, unless they, maybe they don't need the money, maybe they should hold it in for another couple of years, I wouldn't worry, is my honest answer. But you might disagree if you're listening and you have the similar situation. I mean, The only thing you could do is you could top up the difference, but then that's coming from your funds. But what is the difference between giving money at 18, two

• 31:16Martin Lewis?

  years apart? Funds change all the time. I just think that's one of the lessons of life, and maybe it's worth just discussing it with them, discussing it with them early, you know, when they're in their early teens, and saying, we put the same amount of money away from you. How they do will depend on the vagaries of investing. I hope they'll be pretty similar. But if not, well, that's a lesson to be learnt.

• 31:37Speaker 05

  What if you, for example, when the first child turned 18, you took that money, split it, gave it to both of them, and then when the second child turned 18, you split that and give that equally?

• 31:49Martin Lewis?

  So, that is about investment vehicle. The only way you could legally do that is if you did it, and it was your money that you then gave them. And therefore, the investment was in your name. So it'd have to be in your ISA and use up your ISA allowance. Or you would have to have it outside an ISA, and then it could pay tax, as I mentioned earlier. If you're putting the money away in your children's name, in a junior ISA, the money belongs to those children. And on their 18th birthday, it is that now 18-year-old adult's money. So if you think about it, what you're saying is, you need to give, you would then, as a parent, say, you need to give your brother and sister a proportion of your money. It's

• 32:31Martin Lewis?

  not quite as simple necessarily. They might not agree, and they have a perfect legal right not to agree. And I think in some ways, I would just accept it's the way it goes. And if there is a difference, you might be able to make it up to them later. But I suspect the difference won't be that big. And once you start talking about factoring inflation in, I think we're just overcomplicating the situation. For me, you're going to invest for your children in money that you don't need, and you're putting it away for 18 years. It should, if you've got a broad spread of investments, outperform saving, they should both do well from it. Congratulations, well done. Don't create extra problems for yourself, would be my view. But others might disagree, and I would love to hear from you if you disagree, or how you've chosen to do it. Martin Lewis podcast at bbc.co.uk.

• 33:16Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so Matt, now you delivered on our first even number question. Second even number question, have you got two callers? Is it a caller question for me?

• 33:29Speaker 05

  I wish I could say yes, because I can. We've got Joe in Newcastle. Hi, Joe.

• 33:35Martin Lewis?

  Hello, Joe.

• 33:36Speaker 03

  Hi, Martin. Hi, Matt.

• 33:37Martin Lewis?

  Hello. What can we do for you?

• 33:40Speaker 03

  Well, firstly, it was a bit of kind of help and success and then a question to follow up.

• 33:45Martin Lewis?

  Perfect.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  The help and success was that one of your callers or emailers, I believe, asked about switching current account with the attached regular saver.

• 33:56Martin Lewis?

  Yes.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  And I had a bit of experience from that. So it was in November and I wanted to take advantage of the Barclays Premier £400 switching offer they had.

• 34:05Martin Lewis?

  Okay, yeah.

• 34:06Speaker 03

  And I was currently with First Direct. Called First Direct, the woman on the phone was extremely helpful. She managed to set me up with a second current account, which then she could attach the regular saver to, which meant I was able to move my primary current account away to Barclays and claim the switching bonus.

• 34:22Martin Lewis?

  Well, there's a reason First Direct get the plaudits for customer service, isn't it? That's really impressive. Well done them.

• 34:29Speaker 03

  I didn't even know that you could have two current accounts with the same provider. So I mean, it was worth asking. It was fantastic. Yeah.

• 34:35Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, and it's really interesting because generally people always worry when they move bank accounts that they're going to lose their other products with the same bank. Because I've often talked about that. In the vast majority of cases, that isn't true because they're not linked. You know, your credit card is very rarely linked to your bank account. But there are, one of the sweeties that many banks offer you for getting their current account is a linked regular saver, where you can put a small amount of money away each month and get a very high interest rate on it. I think First Direct is 7% off the top of my head. Santander is actually 8%. So yes, that is one of the few things that are linked to your current account. And you seem to have got through it very well. I'm delighted to hear it. And that's good feedback for our caller last week. Now, you said, I think you had a question as well?

• 35:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was just attached to that. So it was regarding the Premier account at Barclays. So for that, you had to earn or you have to earn a minimum of £75,000. Now, my income fluctuates slightly and based on kind of overtime and shift premiums and things, I'm confident that I'll just about hit that threshold. But if I wasn't to, say I was a few thousand pounds short, my question was kind of, how would Barclays know? What would they do? And are they able to take any of that switching reward back?

• 35:46Martin Lewis?

  First of all, you have to, one of the key criteria is you have to have four thousand pounds into the account within the first thirty days. So make sure you've hit that. I presume you already have.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  Yes, this was back in November. So I've definitely hit that.

• 35:57Martin Lewis?

  Right. I wouldn't worry too much about month by month fluctuations. They are looking to get higher earners who've got a decent amount in. You're having your salary paid in, you're going to be seventy five thousand pounds over the year. Now, the way that other accounts work it, which aren't the premier accounts, the higher earner accounts, they tend to do it via a minimum pay in method. So they say you must pay in a minimum one thousand pounds a month, two thousand pounds a month. The premier accounts do it via a salary method, so that you must, you know, they're telling, saying you must earn a certain amount, you must sign that up when you signed up, you earn over that amount. They don't have a minimum pay in. And I think, even though you have fluctuating income, so, you know, you, it could be worked out, some months you're slightly below the equivalent of seventy

• 36:42Martin Lewis?

  five thousand pounds, some months you're slightly above. I think they would also have to factor in, you might be making pension contributions as part of that, that would bring it lower, and lots of other things. I would think, it sounds to me, if you earn over seventy five thousand pounds, I wouldn't worry. The worst that will happen is they might query it and you can simply say, I have variable income for the following reasons, but my total is over seventy five thousand pounds in a year. So I wouldn't see it as being a problem. I think if you earned fifty thousand pounds, and you were trying to gemme it by manipulating extra payments to go in, well, then first of all, you would have probably fraudulently signed up in the first place to the fact you had over the income. And secondly, they would detect it. But I think if you're just going to have the odd month or two where you're below the equivalent for the month, but overall, you're going to

• 37:25Martin Lewis?

  be roughly about the right ballpark, I can't see it being a problem.

• 37:29Speaker 06

  That's a, that's great help.

• 37:30Martin Lewis?

  And I can't guarantee it, I should say.

• 37:32Speaker 06

  No, no, of course.

• 37:33Martin Lewis?

  It's not, they're not trying to catch you out, right? What they're trying to do is put off someone who's earning thirty thousand pounds, getting the benefit that they're trying to pay out to attract higher earners to get their, their current account. And you are in the sweet spot of what they want. So, and you're earning over seventy five thousand pounds. That's what you signed up for and that's what the account criteria are. So I can't see any reason it would be a problem.

• 37:55Speaker 06

  Yep, excellent. That's great.

• 37:56Martin Lewis?

  And thank you so much for getting that really interesting about that first direct regular saver. I've not heard of that happening before. And it just shows it's the golden rule of finance. So many people ask me questions, you know, what would happen if? And, and my answer is, well, ask them, just call them up and ask. And you did it and it shows the result of that. Brilliant. Thanks, Joe.

• 38:14Speaker 06

  Not a problem. Thank you for your help.

• 38:15Martin Lewis?

  Cheers, mate. Badger will be flinging its way to you, flinging its way to you.

• 38:20Speaker 05

  Cheers, Joe.

• 38:21Martin Lewis?

  Cheers, Joe.

• 38:23Martin Lewis?

  Before we finish the programme, last week, we had a question, a complex question about student loans that I said I wanted to catch up on, and I've done a little bit of work on it. Matt, hopefully you've got the question there and we can read it out again so people can understand what's going on. And then I'm going to give a much fuller and more detailed answer.

• 38:38Speaker 05

  Okay, perfect. So it was from Ben. He emailed, he emailed it in. He said, um, he had just finished training to be a maths teacher and had an undergraduate degree from the University of Bath in accounting and finance. Then he decided he wanted to be a maths teacher. He started university in twenty twenty two, so he had a plan two student loan. And then he started his teacher training at Reading in twenty twenty five, which gave him a plan five student loan. And he wanted to know which one would he pay back first and in which way would it work?

• 39:10Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so I was very complimentary to, to Ben last week. He's into money, he's listening at twenty two, he's doing account, did accounting and finance at university and now wants to be a maths teacher and I think he'd be great at financial education. So I wanted to give him a full answer. Now, my cursory answer last week was actually correct. But I've been doing some more thinking about the implications of that, which I think is really interesting. And it will commonly be people who've done teacher training who this, this happens to. Because if you take a postgraduate loan, that is a very separate situation. If you have a postgraduate loan and an undergraduate loan, you pay nine percent back above your undergraduate threshold and six percent back above the twenty one thousand in England anyway, repayment threshold on your postgrad loan.

• 39:54Martin Lewis?

  So your total repayments are fifteen percent. If you have two undergraduate loans, you will only repay back a maximum of nine percent above thresholds of what your earnings. And the way it works is this, whichever loan has the lowest threshold, as soon as you go above that threshold, you start paying back nine percent of that until you get to the higher threshold. And then anything you earn above that goes towards paying off the higher threshold. Sounds like gobbledegook, I know, so let me do this as a practical explanation in Ben's case. He has a Plan Two loan, which is the standard undergraduate loan for people who started university 2022 to, people who started university 2012 to 2022 in England.

• 40:39Martin Lewis?

  And he has a Plan Five loan, which is for people who started university after 2023 in England. The Plan Five loan, you repay nine percent of everything you earn above £25,000. The Plan Two loan, you repay nine percent of everything you earn above around £29,400 a year, roughly. So if you earned £35,000 and you have both those loans, and they're both in the point where you repay them, so it's beyond the April after you leave university. Your earnings from £25,000 to £29,400, nine percent of that would go towards repaying the Plan Five loan.

• 41:21Martin Lewis?

  Any earnings above that, so in this case we're saying £35,000, so that's the £5,600 you earn a year above that, would go towards paying the Plan Two student loan.

• 41:35Martin Lewis?

  Now, the reason I found this quite bizarre and wanted to double check was because if we take an example of a very high earner, somebody earning £125,000.

• 41:50Martin Lewis?

  It means they're still only repaying

• 41:55Martin Lewis?

  nine per cent of £4,400 a year off their Plan Five loan. And all the rest of their repayments, you know, over eight grand of repayments, is going towards clearing their Plan Two loan. Now, in that particular circumstances, it wouldn't be too big a deal. But it did occur to me, there is a big problem here. And the problem is, your Plan Five loan repayments are effectively trapped in. Because you cannot, unless you voluntarily overpay, which often might not be worth it, you cannot direct more of your payments to clear the Plan Five loan. But in this case, because the Plan Five loan is the one-year loan of teacher training, you would be quite likely to clear the Plan Five loan if you only had a Plan Five loan

• 42:40Martin Lewis?

  within the 40 years before it wiped. In fact, you'd be quite likely to clear it substantially before, because it's only a one-year loan, and you'd have much less borrowing on the Plan Five. But because you've also got Plan Two, and the borrowing would be bigger on that, and it's also accruing interest at a faster rate, then you're going to take a long time to be paying off your Plan Two loan. And therefore, as long as you're paying off your Plan Two loan, you've only got low repayments going to your Plan Five loan. Now, if you could manage what you were doing in this case, many people would be better off to get rid of their Plan Five loan and then keep their Plan Two loan. The reason being, and I'm sorry this is so complicated, but it is. The reason being, if you've got the full borrowing on Plan Two,

• 43:24Martin Lewis?

  unless you're a higher earner, you're unlikely to pay Plan Two off within the 30 years before it wipes. So therefore, it's going to be 30 years before most of your repayments going towards the Plan Five loan. And the Plan Five loan only wipes after 40 years. So you'd have that for even longer. So in a nutshell, because you haven't got that much borrowing on Plan Five, you would have wanted to pay more of your repayments towards Plan Five, to got rid of Plan Five, and then you're just going to keep repaying what you repay on Plan Two for the 30 years before it wipes. But you can't do that. Now, it occurs to me... I was actually involved in the campaign, I think it was around 2008, 2009, the dates I could

• 44:06Martin Lewis?

  definitely have wrong, what I'm about to say I don't have wrong. I was involved in the campaign that on consumer credit cards, when you had minimum repayments, it used to be the case that the card companies would pay off your lowest interest rate debt first and your highest interest rate debt last to keep the highest interest rate debt on longer. And we got it turned around, so they had to pay off the highest interest rate debt first. Now, while it does actually work like that, in this case, it's the highest interest rate added debt you're paying first. It may not be the highest interest rate accrued, because you might not repay all the interest accrued on a plan two loan before it wipes. And therefore, it would seem to me there should be some argument that people, there should be some flexibility,

• 44:51Martin Lewis?

  if you have both loans, for the individual to be able to decide which loan they want most of their finances to be directed towards repaying off. Should be, but isn't. I have Rosie sitting next to me, and with a serious voice on this time, please can you add that to my campaigns list and in our document on student loan problems? Because it seems to me one I hadn't thought about too much in the past, but it is something, while it's quite niche, that should be fixed. Not the jolliest way to end the podcast. Matt, was it too complicated that? Or did you sort of get it?

• 45:22Speaker 05

  I, I, I followed it. Rosie gets it because she's incredibly intelligent. I...

• 45:26Martin Lewis?

  You're intelligent too, but this is her specialty, so she is different. And I think, I do think you're intelligent, Matt. You have a good EQ, you're a great presenter, you put things together very well. Don't do yourself down. So mathematical and financial and money intelligence is only one type. There are many other types out there. And I know you, and you are a talented, intelligent chap.

• 45:44Speaker 05

  That's very nice. So I'm gonna cut that out of the podcast.

• 45:46Martin Lewis?

  You're gonna cut that out or keep it in?

• 45:48Speaker 05

  Absolutely, cut it out.

• 45:49Martin Lewis?

  Cut it out? No, it has to stay in?

• 45:50Speaker 05

  No.

• 45:51Martin Lewis?

  No, it stays in, Matt. The listeners, listeners will like to know that. It stays in. Sorry. End of this discussion. We're moving on to the funny bit. Play your swoosh.

• 46:02Martin Lewis?

  And now, after my big call out, my peroration a couple of weeks ago to get a scan some funny questions in that we like to end the pod with, you've had a decent flurry of them. So have you got one for me?

• 46:13Speaker 05

  I do. I've got one from Steph. She's emailed in to [email protected]. She says, hi, Martin, Matt and Rosie, in brackets, or Simon and Claire. If you could go back in time to experience and be part of an event in history, what would it be? And why? She also says, PS, thank you for everything you do for people. Your podcast has truly given me hope for my future.

• 46:33Martin Lewis?

  Oh, what a lovely thing to say. Thank you so much. Thanks, Steph. Oh, it's an interesting question. I mean, people that want me to say, I'll go back to the birth of Bitcoin and then I'll buy loads of them, which is certainly true from a financial basis. I'm fascinated by a couple of bits of history. The first one that I really love, but I definitely would not want to be a part of, is I'm fascinated by Genghis Khan. You know, there they were. Genghis Khan, it was the end of the 12th century. They were these nomadic, highly skilled horse riding warriors that could shoot hugely accurately their bows from the while they

• 47:17Martin Lewis?

  were riding at full gallop, controlling the horses with just their knees. But politically, these tribes had always been kept at each other's throats by sort of some interference from the Chinese who were worried about the hordes coming over to overtake China. But Genghis Khan united the Mongol hordes, as they've called, and brought them together. And then these, you know, ill educated nomadic horsemen took a chunk of the world, the largest ever contiguous empire in the world, eventually running all the way from China, right through southern Russia and across through the Middle East and right up to Poland. I mean, it was just incredible and built lines of communication and transport right across that vast territory.

• 48:00Martin Lewis?

  And I'm fascinated by it. But they were also some of the most despotic and dangerous and murderous and, you know, forget civil liberties, I mean, torturous people to do it. It was incredibly brutal. So I wouldn't like to take part in it. And I'm not sure what I am going to pick is that much better, but I think it is a little bit better. I'm also fascinated by Roman history, as I think many people are. And there's something about the Romans, there's something about the fact that we had Actually, some relatively civilised democratic process 2000 years ago. And then technology moved backwards after the Romans. And it moved backwards in the early Middle Ages and until, you know, perhaps the 17th century,

• 48:44Martin Lewis?

  the Romans were still more progressive in the technology that they had and in some of the ways they made decisions, not that there weren't horrible, brutal despots in the Roman era and it was a colonialist environment. But I would like to go back, I think, to be sitting in the Senate at the time of Julius Caesar. I'd also need a chip so I could understand the Latin. And to actually go and feel and see what, you know, maybe to be a senator in that time for a year and to see and feel and see what the Roman Empire was actually like in the centre of Rome and how it differed from our daily life would be fascinating. And I'd love to do it. Can I have a safety bubble in my time travel?

• 49:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:23Martin Lewis?

  So that I can't actually be hurt because I'm a bit of a wimp.

• 49:25Speaker 05

  Go on then. It does remind me, do you remember that thing a few years ago where it was asking, people go up to their husbands or their boyfriends and say, how often do you think about the Roman Empire?

• 49:34Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 49:35Speaker 05

  Do you remember that?

• 49:36Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 49:37Speaker 05

  How often do you think about the Roman Empire?

• 49:39Martin Lewis?

  Well, I probably think about the Mongol Empire more.

• 49:41Speaker 05

  Do you?

• 49:42Martin Lewis?

  I'm not sure what that says about me. I think I'm saying it because I've just read, just read a series of books on it and I was absolutely fascinated and gripped and totally by the whole thing. So I'm quite into that period in history. I like my history and my historic novels as well at the same time. So, yeah, yeah, but Roman Empire is fascinating.

• 50:01Speaker 05

  It is. I need to study history. Imagine where we'd be if I studied history instead of television and radio.

• 50:06Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, you'd probably be doing.

• 50:08Speaker 05

  Different, different thing.

• 50:09Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 50:10Speaker 05

  Wouldn't be sat here right now.

• 50:11Martin Lewis?

  A history podcast.

• 50:12Speaker 05

  Maybe.

• 50:13Martin Lewis?

  Let's stop there. Oh, hold on, Matt?

• 50:16Speaker 05

  Yeah?

• 50:17Martin Lewis?

  I just got, and you can't play the actual sound because of the reverberations, you know, the rickety sound.

• 50:24Speaker 05

  Might break people's headphones.

• 50:25Martin Lewis?

  Rosie did history at Cambridge.

• 50:27Speaker 05

  Ooh, very posh.

• 50:29Martin Lewis?

  And then has a masters in history of international relations from the LSE.

• 50:33Speaker 05

  Oh, wow. Smart.

• 50:35Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, she's very smart, very, very smart. And I'm very glad she's here. I'm very glad you're here. And now we should end the podcast.

• 50:45Martin Lewis?

  That's it for this week's Question Time. Don't forget to subscribe so you know when we release a new episode. We put out a new Question Time episode each Monday alongside the Big Topic podcast with Adrian on Thursdays. Aren't you lucky? Two doses of money-saving tips and tricks a week. To ensure you send your questions in, just email [email protected] and address them to Dear Martin.

• 51:05Speaker 05

  Dear Matt.

• 51:06Martin Lewis?

  Dear Martin. And don't forget, if you come on the show, we'll send you an exclusive Money Can't Buy Martin Lewis Podcast Question Time ESQ badge. Who wouldn't want that? Who indeed? You don't need to write in. We already struggle to get through enough emails. If you all write in because you don't want a badge, we'll be stuck. See you next week.

• 51:42Speaker 06

  Martin Lewis is the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available. You can get in touch with Martin's podcast production team by emailing [email protected]. The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you are listening on demand, it's worth double checking as details can date. Remember to subscribe on BBC Sounds and leave us a review however you listen.

• 52:15Speaker 05

  Also, I saw your knees on that podcast that you did.

• 52:18Martin Lewis?

  Oh, you did?

• 52:18Speaker 05

  Well, your knee is very much the focal point of the video.

• 52:22Martin Lewis?

  But someone said I looked like a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu professor, which is apparently because I was a figure of a well-shaped, quietly powerful figure of authority. I was like, I'll take that. I'll take being a BJJ professor.

• 52:36Speaker 06

  Did you see Martin almost break a table this morning?

• 52:39Martin Lewis?

  That was very funny.

• 52:40Speaker 05

  I did not see that either.

• 52:42Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, I did. And I tried to say, I just leant on the side of a table and I didn't realise it wasn't a table meant for leaning on. It almost went. But this was after I had, did you see the bit where I looked into the monitor and I got distracted because I was looking very...

• 52:52Speaker 06

  He was like, I'm really wrinkled.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Welcome to The Haunted Library. Join me, Colin Morgan, as I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. A story of science and ambition, loneliness and longing, and what it truly means to be human.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Listen to The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube.