A wallet workout to gain pounds! Earn £100s in minutes perusing your purse or (digital) wallet

Martin Lewis tells you how to speedily spot the best debit cards, credit cards, overdrafts, improve your driving licence, organ donor cards and more! Plus, new top savings, Martin’s meeting with the Chancellor, and success story on how to beat the O2 price-hike hike! If you’ve got a question for Martin on absolutely anything and everything, you can ask him in his Question Time podcast! Email your question 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.

• 0:00Martin Lewis?

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• 0:10Speaker 01

  Welcome to The Haunted Library.

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• 0:38Martin Lewis?

  Hello, I'm Martin Lewis, and this is the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. Now, usually, much of it comes from my BBC Radio 5 Live show with Adrian Charles, but there's also bonus money-saving tips just for you, lucky, lucky podcast listeners. In today's pod, the big topic, my wallet workout. Can you save hundreds of pounds in just a few minutes looking through your wallet, or purse, or digital wallet? The wallet is a gateway to your finances: debit cards, credit cards, driving licence, loyalty cards, donor cards, free cash for bank switching, overdrafts, and more. I'll be going through them. It's the workout that gains you pounds.

• 1:20Martin Lewis?

  Then, state-backed NSNI has boosted savings rates. It's good for bigger savers, I'll be talking you through it. I don't say bigger savers, I mean money, not weight, obviously. We have a great success story showing how much you can save by escaping O2's price hike on a price hike. And my mastermind question this week is all about credit scores. Play the theme tune.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Do you know what I've just found in my wallet, you're not going to believe this. I totally forgot about it, it's that flipping £10 note.

• 2:03Martin Lewis?

  The ripped one, the one we had, you never did anything, did you try sell taking it back together?

• 2:07Speaker 02

  We talked, I tried and then I thought this will never be accepted, I went into a couple of banks and they turned me away.

• 2:14Martin Lewis?

  I did tell you there is an official process to do it at the Bank of England. And we had this discussion, you utilised your, you abused your position on the radio to ask me that question. I gave you an answer and yet you have sat on that £10. Adrian?

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:30Martin Lewis?

  I am fining you £10 to a charity of your choice as the cost for not using the information you were given, is that agreed?

• 2:37Speaker 02

  It's agreed and I'll pay to sort of that £10 note out. So you've been cited outside number 11, what have you been, what you been doing?

• 2:46Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, I was, I was, I went into number 11 yesterday for a meeting with the Chancellor. I tend to often get a meeting before the budget, a few weeks before, both with this Chancellor and with prior Chancellors of the other side. This isn't a party political thing. It was basically to go through my discussion list. Now, the way these meetings work, because you've asked me, I need to be careful, it's a closed meeting. And the reason it's a closed meeting and the reason I agree to that is as a campaigning journalist, if you're campaigning on stuff, if you're going to blurt it all out afterwards, you can't have a free and frank discussion. And that means you don't, you're not able to do the help that you want to help. So I can tell you some of the things I talked about, you know, the potential cutting cash ISAs, which I think looks like it's on the cards, that's not from my meeting yesterday, that's from other leaks that are out there with various other things.

• 3:31Martin Lewis?

  I think they're going to drop the cash ISA amount. One of the things I was suggesting is because they're suggesting they do that to try and encourage young people to invest rather than save, that perhaps there should be a carve out for older people who shouldn't be investing because you want to move out of investment and into some form of cash when you're older. So you never know, that might have been heard, I taught lifetime ISAs, I taught fiscal drag, no change is going to happen there. They aren't going to put the thresholds up. I talked about car finance, I think the car finance firms are trying to water down the FCA solution and I think there are some problems in there. I talked about investment encouragement, what could happen with energy bills, banning mid-contract price hikes, that O2 issue, we've discussed a number of times on the show, council tax, carers allowance, cliff edge, student living loans and lots more things.

• 4:17Martin Lewis?

  Whether anything will happen on all of those? Is another matter, but I tried to get some of the important points across that many people get in touch with me all the time.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  You say you get a meeting before the budget. I mean, it just begs the question, is there a companion meeting for after the budget, where you go storming in and say, what on earth have you gone and done?

• 4:34Martin Lewis?

  Well, uh.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Or maybe, well done, that was great.

• 4:36Martin Lewis?

  Well, this year I've got a budget special on my ITV show, and I hope the Chancellor's going to come on that, so I shall be doing that one publicly. You know, I normally have a meeting with the Chancellor at some point in the year that's not related to the budget anyway, which is when I'll come back. If there were anything that were important, then I would write a letter, which is, and just before you think, who's here to do that? You know, the Chancellor meets with consumer groups, with businesses, with economists, with all different types of people. This isn't about Martin Lewis goes in and nobody else does. This is about listening to all different voices that are out there. And obviously, you know, with my other hat on, I run the UK's biggest consumer help site. I'm also Chair of a money and mental health charity, a major policy charity, so all of those things, I'm one of the type of people that the Chancellor would meet.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Okay, before we get you into your wallet workout, we need to talk about.

• 5:21Martin Lewis?

  Your wallet workout.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Or my wallet workout.

• 5:23Martin Lewis?

  Your wallet will be working out.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  NS and, uh, NS and I, who we normally associate with premium bonds.

• 5:29Martin Lewis?

  Well, yeah, I mean, you'll know I'm not the biggest fan of premium bonds. I don't think they're particularly good for anyone other than those who are high earners who are paying tax on their savings and have used up all their cash ISA allowance and are putting near the maximum in. But NS and I, the key thing to NS and I is it is state owned. Now, normally when you put money in a UK regulated savings account, you're protected up to £85,000 per person, per financial institution, by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which is effectively state backed. So when you're putting money in NS and I, as that has the same status, but for everything you put in, you're effectively protected up to a higher level, and the only default would be the UK government not dealing, but you'd have that same risk with any savings account.

• 6:12Martin Lewis?

  So it tends to be quite useful for those who want to save larger amounts in one place. Let's say you sold your house and normally you sell your house, you have a thing called a life event rule that mean you're protected for up to a million pounds for six months in any financial institution. It's a slight side rule to that financial services compensation scheme, but after six months you're not. So you'd have to spread into 85,000 pound chunks if you, you know, sold your house for 700 grand and you were thinking of buying somewhere in a year or so's time. Or you could put it all in NSNI. What NSNI has just done is it's just increased the rate on its British savings bonds. Irrelevant name. I hate it when, I hate the use of bonds in savings because bonds can mean so many different things in investment and other things. This is a fixed rate savings account.

• 6:55Martin Lewis?

  I mean, that's what I would call it. It's the NSNI fixed rate savings account. You lock your money away for a set period. You get a guaranteed interest rate for doing so. They've upped their interest rates. The top, the one year bond is 4.2% now. The top elsewhere is 4.47%. It's not a big rate sacrifice. Two year bond is 4.1%. Top elsewhere is 4.41%. Three year bond is 4.16%, top elsewhere is 4.4%. Five year bond is 4.15%, top elsewhere is 4.41%. So-

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Could you say that again, please? Not a money joke.

• 7:24Martin Lewis?

  I can if you need.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  No, no, no, go on.

• 7:26Martin Lewis?

  So the only, so one of the, my main point here is if you were looking for a larger amount or you wanted a big name, because all those top rates elsewhere, and that's with Monument Bank, DF Capital, Secure Trust Bank, you know, they're not names people have heard, which makes people nervous with savings, even though you have the same protection up to 85 grand in them. Then NSNI is actually a pretty decent buy right now, over 4% for all of its British savings bonds, fixed rate savings accounts. And you can put in up to a million quid and it's all state backed. So I thought that was worthy of a mention because I don't often mention NSNI, but I think at the moment they're actually relatively good value. You're only sacrificing 0.2 or 0.3 percentage points compared to the very top challenger bank payer.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Let's get into this wallet workout. What we need is some kind of workout themed music. What, what, what do we come up with? Let's, let's, let's, let's put that into the hopper and see what comes out the bottom. Go on, fire up the music.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Ah, yes.

• 8:35Martin Lewis?

  Oh, the good old Arthur Tiger. We could have had Olivia Newton-John, "Let's Get Physical", but we'll go with Arthur Tiger as well, even though none of this is physical at all. It's all mental and computational and calculational.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Let's get Olivia Newton-John for the second half of the show, just to mix things up a bit. But, go on then, fire away.

• 8:54Martin Lewis?

  Well, no, I had hoped we would be in the same studio, Adrian. I don't want to break the fourth wall here, but the truth is, you're in Cardiff, I'm in London, which means that I was going to go through your wallet. It's going to make it slightly more difficult because you're going to have to... I want you to get your wallet out for me now.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:09Martin Lewis?

  Right.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Hang on. Just to confuse matters, I've actually got two. I couldn't tell you why I've got two, if only to make my life more complicated.

• 9:16Martin Lewis?

  Well, but could you tell you why you've got two? Why do you have two wallets?

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Because I've got one that I... The one that I keep, that I can just keep in my pocket, with just got my cards in. And then another one in which you can actually carry notes in, but because, you know...

• 9:33Martin Lewis?

  So you've got your quick wallet and your big wallet. You've got your quick wallet you take out with you when you're not planning to go to the shops and do stuff, and then you've got your big wallet, which is when you're actually going to go out and transact. Is that right?

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Yes, that is basically right. But then, often I need a particular card for something.

• 9:49Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  And it's not in my takeout wallet, it's in the other wallet. And sometimes vice versa.

• 9:56Martin Lewis?

  Let's open up that wallet.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Which one do you want?

• 9:59Martin Lewis?

  Let's go for the cards wallet.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yes, okay.

• 10:01Martin Lewis?

  Right. And what is your primary spending card?

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Well, again, I was going to ask you about this because the fact is, the fact is, I don't use the actual physical card anymore like a lot of people. I will end up using, you know, Apple Pay or something and just tapping on the phone. So the... And tellingly, when I need to remember my PIN very, very rarely for one of the cards, I haven't got a clue anymore because you never use it because you're tapping away most of the time.

• 10:32Martin Lewis?

  So let's start with a big rule here. I am not interested in the physical method of transaction, whether it's contactless, whether it is chip and PIN, whether you're doing it through Apple Pay, whether you're doing it through your Fitbit. None of that matters to me because in all of those, there is an underlying product that you are using to spend, which is either usually a debit or a credit card or sometimes a prepaid card. That's the bit where we're going to be able to save you money. So it doesn't matter to me that it's digital. What is your primary spending product?

• 11:03Speaker 02

  My primary spending product would be a credit card. There's my own one and then a joint one with my wife.

• 11:12Martin Lewis?

  Can you tell me the brand, Adrian, or you don't have to if you don't want to?

• 11:15Speaker 02

  I can, if you say it's fine and safe to do so, I can tell you I've got a Halifax Mastercard and a Barclaycard Visa.

• 11:27Martin Lewis?

  And why do you have those? Why are they your credit cards? What do you get from them?

• 11:37Martin Lewis?

  We're starting to see where the wallet workout comes in now, aren't we?

• 11:40Speaker 02

  I've also got, I've also got an American Express, which, which, I don't know, I don't know why I've got that, but I use that for some things.

• 11:49Martin Lewis?

  Why do you use it for some things? Just willy-nilly?

• 11:51Speaker 02

  Well, because it's, it's like a British Airways loyalty card and somewhere in my befuddled naive mind, I've got a, I think them one day they might, they might send me a free flight somewhere. You get a certain number of points, but I don't know.

• 12:09Martin Lewis?

  I'm going to stop you because this is exactly the type of higgledy-piggledy, not realising that this makes a difference, thinking that we are here to change in this wallet personal training session.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  Most presenters don't subject themselves to this and I'd only do it for you, Martin.

• 12:26Martin Lewis?

  Which is why your initials are AC because you're the coolest man in radio, okay?

• 12:35Martin Lewis?

  I don't know where that came from, but I liked it. I like it too. Yeah, we'll do that again. Can we make a sting of that? Put a trail on Adrian's show when he says that. Right, okay. So you've just told me you've got three cards. You've got a Halifax card, you've got a Barclay card, these are your credit cards. And you have your British Airways rewards loyalty scheme. Of those three cards, it's first thing to remember is when you pay on a credit card, there's a transaction fee that the retailers have to pay. So there is a little cost there. And that little cost, we want to try and get that back in our pockets. And the way that we get back that little bit of extra that the card company is making is via reward schemes or cash back schemes. So for me, if you're spending on a card, and I presume you're always paying these all off in full, Adrian, right? Yes.

• 13:20Martin Lewis?

  So what we've done, we have neutered the credit card's ability to be a debt card. As long as you don't withdraw cash on it, that credit card is no longer a debt card. It's just a spending card. And the advantage of credit cards for spending is twofold. The first one, and you have been getting this, is section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. Yeah. Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act says if you buy something costing between £100 and £30,000 on a credit card, even if you only pay a penny on the credit card, the credit card company is jointly liable with the retailer. That is valuable consumer voodoo extra protection on your spending. So you get a bing from me for the fact that it's a credit card and you're getting the protection. What you're not doing though, is maximizing the gain that's available out there.

• 14:05Martin Lewis?

  Now, your British Airways card is the only one of those three that is giving you a reward. Okay, but I'm also paying for that as well. That is an annual fee for that. So you've got the one with the annual fee? Yeah. Right, well, well then, and only, look, British Airways cards, if you fly on British Airways a lot and you utilise the points and you get your companion voucher, which depending on which card you've got is over £10,000 or £15,000, where you can effectively have a matching flight where you only pay the taxes on the matching flight. And you're to use that on business class because that only is really good value if you're using it on business class. That can be incredibly lucrative. Okay. Well, I'd never go anywhere anymore and if I did, I probably wouldn't go.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  Business class, so.

• 14:44Martin Lewis?

  So it's probably worth getting rid of it. Let's go, let's go, and I know you've got questions on this. So what we need to focus on is what do you use for spending? And there are generally three choices. And I think we'll probably go to some of the listener questions after this because I will answer for them and for you at the same time. The three choices, first of all, do you need to borrow? If you have to borrow and actually borrowing on a credit card, even at zero percent is always something that worries me. You should only use a credit card for borrowing if it is for a one-off budgeted for planned transaction. In which case, a credit card at zero percent for up to two years is by far the cheapest way to borrow as long as you're then paying it off on time. So you could have a spending card that was zero percent.

• 15:26Martin Lewis?

  You could have a cash back or rewards card, or you could have an overseas card. And with the latter two, the cash back or rewards cards, the key to both of these is that you pay it off in full at the end of every month so that there is no interest.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  And I've got the over, they're both overseas friendly.

• 15:42Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so you've got the Halifax Clarity card, you said the Halifax card. You've got the Halifax Clarity and you've got the Barclaycard Rewards card in that case. Okay, so they are both good and they do give you, Barclaycard Reward does give you a quarter of a percent cash back. So you're slightly better than we first thought because you didn't tell me the exact card brand. Slightly better, but we can still do a lot better. Let's get into questions and I shall give you and them the answer at the same time.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Ron Bennett, I'd like to know the best cash back credit card.

• 16:06Martin Lewis?

  There we are, you see.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  I don't care about interest rates as I pay mine off every month. And me, Ron, unless I forget.

• 16:12Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so let's just go through the best cash back credit card on the market. There is one outstanding one. We actually started to see the cash back rates drop quite a lot. There was, the one that was top for the long time was the Chase debit card, not a credit card that was paying one percent flat cash back. It's changed it now so that you only get that cash back on grocery spending and travel spending. It doesn't give it you universally, but there is a new one that's launched in the last month, which is the best credit card cash back non Amex, because you do get more on an Amex card. But Amex isn't as universally acceptable, which is the Lloyds Ultra Card. It gives you one percent cash back on most UK and overseas. Overseas spending for the first year and then it will drop to a quarter of a percent.

• 16:57Martin Lewis?

  So you'll probably look for some another one there. There's no fees on spending, there's no annual fee, there's no fees on withdrawals abroad up to £500 a day. If you fail to pay it off in full, it's 12.9% interest, but you don't want to do that. You want to pay it off in full. So there's a flat 1% and perfect exchange rates, which means for all your UK spending, you can use this. And you can use it abroad where you get perfect exchange rates plus 1% cash back. So effectively, if you factor that 1% cash back as an exchange rate discount, you get better than the spot rate, better than the market rate. Now, not 1% cash back, I'm not saying it's huge, but if you were to spend, let's say, £833 a month on the card, sounds a random figure, but funnily enough, times it by 12 over a year and it's £1,000.

• 17:39Martin Lewis?

  If you're to spend £1,000 on the card over the year, 1% cash back is £100 in your pocket just for changing your plastic and you may spend a lot more. And now the key to this with cash back cards, it is not an excuse to spend more. But you may as well get a small reduction on everything you spend on the card. As long as you're paying it off in full, as long as you're not overspending. In fact, you could give, if you're in a trusting relationship and you have a partner, then you could give your partner that card if you're both spending and then you're maximizing the cash back even more so. So a nice, simple, flat cash back rate, 1% is available on with a Lloyds card. You can get more in the first few months with an American Express card. The American Express Platinum will give you

• 18:23Martin Lewis?

  5% cash back up to £100 for the first three months and then it's tiered rates. But you only get that cash back if you spend a total of over £3,000 a year. So for bigger spenders, I'd be looking at Amex, although it's not universally accepted. For a sort of standard benchmark, what is the standard cash back card on the market? It's now Lloyds Ultra.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  Okay, so are you suggesting I should swap to that or just have that as an extra one? Because is that, is that good for? Is that good for when you're abroad?

• 18:49Martin Lewis?

  Well, I mean, for you who's told me that you actually, your BA stuff is useless. Yeah, well, get rid of the BA card and stop paying an annual fee. I mean, I don't know what you're paying, probably paying one hundred and twenty five quid a year or something. In which case, there's one hundred and twenty five quid a year saved, very simply. Right, and then I would get the Lloyds card and I would just use it for everything because it's it's better abroad than you've got because you get the cash back. But it's only going to last a year and then you, you know, you don't necessarily have to cancel your other two cards. The the question about cancelling other cards is is really interesting. Um, whether it how it affects your credit score because it's a mix between some lenders like longevity and some lenders like it to have less available credit. I don't think it will make that much difference.

• 19:30Martin Lewis?

  And because the Lloyds card is only good for a year and we don't a hundred percent know where it'll be in a year. I might keep my Halifax clarity, which has been long term for at least a decade, a top overseas spending card, just in case. But yeah, I would get the Lloyds card, I'd cancel your BA card and I would use the Lloyds card for all your spending paid off in full at the end of the month.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  James Bailey pays his credit card off every month without fail. He says he travels on a professional level and was wondering which would be the best credit card for travel perks, preferably a lounge access.

• 20:01Martin Lewis?

  Well, I can do lounge access to an extent. Look, let me be blunt, flight rewards is incredibly complicated and the key is whom you fly with. Because many of the individual major airlines have their own linked uh flight reward card like the BA card that you've just been talking about. And the general rule is you want the credit card with the airline that you fly with most commonly. Uh, because that because it interlinks with its own reward scheme. So that's more difficult to do. As a general answer, there's a card called the American Express Gold Credit Card. Now, currently, on the Gold Credit Card, if you sign up to it, you need to spend five thousand pounds on it in the first six months.

• 20:42Martin Lewis?

  So that's spending of, you know, just under a thousand pounds a month. So family spending all put on that card should easily do it. Then you get forty thousand introductory points worth two hundred and twenty five pounds at Amazon M and S or can be converted into Avios points for British Airways. This card also gives you 5% cash back on two £5 plus delivery orders a month. So as you use the card to pay for on your Deliveroo, then you get the cash back on that as well. And it gives you four free airport lounge visits a year. Now, the card is fee free in the first year and then it's £195 a year after that. So you may not want it after the first year, you may just want it for your four airport lounge passes.

• 21:26Martin Lewis?

  Again, you may also get airport lounge passes in linked to a specific airline card. But for those who are going to spend a reasonable amount, then the Amex Gold is a good alternative, especially if you're interested in those airport passes. Again, though, credit card, make sure you pay it off in full at the end of the month.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Floyd Dillon says best advice to give is don't get a credit card. It's okay for Ossie says to say pay it off at the end of the month, but circumstances do change which could cause you to go further into debt.

• 21:56Martin Lewis?

  Look, I half agree and I half fundamentally disagree with that. So I am always come from the point of view that if you do not trust yourself with a credit card, if you won't just do your normal spending, if it will get you into trouble, if you won't pay it off in full, then you are far better off not to get a credit card and not to use a credit card. So I have sympathy with that element. But the idea that something may change so you don't pay it off in full is what I would dispute slightly as being a problem. If we think of the mechanics of this, all we're doing here is we're saying, shift your normal spending from what will for many people be their debit card or another credit card to a rewards credit card.

• 22:41Martin Lewis?

  Set up a direct debit to pay it off in full every month and they all allow you to do that. So never withdraw cash on it, never bust your credit limit. That's the recipe. So you spend within your credit limit, you do your normal spending on it, you have a direct debit to pay it off in full and you don't bust your credit limit. In those circumstances. If something were to happen to you that meant you couldn't pay off in full, remember you're only doing your normal spending on it, you would have been putting this on your debit card anyway. Well, in this circumstance, you would owe the credit card company, which would be somewhere around 20% APR. In the circumstance you had it on the debit card, well, you would be overdrawn and overdrafts of 40% APR,

• 23:23Martin Lewis?

  typical high street overdrafts, they are double the cost of the credit card. So you would be even more expensive. And if you wouldn't be overdrawn on your debit card, then that means you have the money in your bank account in which you could pay off the card in full. So, so I, I agree with the idea that people who don't trust themselves shouldn't have it. But utilizing the payoff in full methodology, that something would happen so you can't pay off in full, I don't believe you are any worse off for the fact you're using a credit card than you would be if you're using a debit card. In fact, you're better off because the classic fallacy here is people go, credit cards are bad because credit cards are debt cards. I'm going to use my debit card. No. If you're overdrawn, your debit card is a debt card and typical overdraft rates are nearly double that

• 24:08Martin Lewis?

  of typical credit, high street credit card rates. The big danger debt is your overdraft. And I think that's something that changed a few years ago, but I don't think that's seeped into the public consciousness. Debit cards are not automatically better than credit cards. If you're in debt, if you're overdrawn, debit cards are worse than credit cards because the rate is higher. So, quick tip on overdrafts. If you're looking at your wallet and you realise that your bank card has an overdraft, there are a few things you can do. If it's a relatively small overdraft, First Direct currently pays accepted new customers £175 quid to switch to it and it gives many an ongoing £250 quid 0% overdraft. Like all other overdrafts, it's 40% AER above that.

• 24:51Martin Lewis?

  So, for example, if you had £375 overdrawn, you'd get £175 of free cash. That would leave you £200 overdrawn, that overdraft would be 0%. Now, I have to be honest, this can get slightly complicated because when you switch bank account and you have to switch to get the £175, they don't move your overdraft for you. Your old account stays. Is open, you have to clear that overdraft, but you would then have the facility on First Direct. So you'd have two bank accounts and you could take the money from First Direct and use that to pay off your old bank account and then close your old bank account. If your overdrafts are bigger, well, Starling is probably the cheapest standard overdraft, but it still isn't that cheap. You could look at what's called a 0% money transfer credit card, which is a special card. Do some reading on that. It is, most cards don't allow this, don't pay this in cash.

• 25:35Martin Lewis?

  But a 0% money transfer credit card is where you get a new credit card and you can ask it to pay money into your bank account for you. So you now owe the credit card at 0% and the money is in your bank account that you can use to pay off your overdraft. There'll normally be a fee of three or four percent and you could use that as effectively a way to shift a bigger overdraft onto 0% credit. And also the other thing, if you've got overdrafts, treat it as a debt, it is a debt. It, it, and often it's more expensive than the credit card. So, you know, try and reduce it by 50 quid a month. Like you're repaying 50 quid a month on it and other things like moving your payment tapes to, um, just before you get paid. So that you're in overdraft for the minimum amount of time will cost you less too. That's the quick overdraft tip.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Shall we do a couple of tell us?

• 26:22Martin Lewis?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Go on then. I'll, uh, can I start us off then?

• 26:26Martin Lewis?

  Yes, please.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  Someone says, at Rope No Doc says, I've got a blockbuster card from 2003, still waiting for the comeback.

• 26:35Martin Lewis?

  Uh, I've got Wendy Macaroni. I carry a snippet from my mum's very old Barrow cooking book, which says, I love you on it. And learn the art of fabulous Victoria sponges. It's daft really, but to me it's pricey.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  It's not remotely daft and I sort of get a bit just choked reading it. Um, Timbo Tiptoe says, my paper driving licence, as Rick Astley might sing, I'm never going to give it up.

• 27:02Martin Lewis?

  Oh, can we just do, have you, have you got a driving licence in your wallet, Adrian?

• 27:05Speaker 02

  I've got a, I've got a.

• 27:07Martin Lewis?

  Not a paper one?

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Not a paper one. Yes, I have. Yes.

• 27:10Martin Lewis?

  All right. Get your driving licence, Ian. Okay. What's, tell us about the picture for a second.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  Uh, well, it's not bad for me, considering it is me on the picture.

• 27:19Martin Lewis?

  Okay, what I'm really interested is, is your 4B. Can you look at your 4B and everybody else who isn't driving, if you're listening to this right now? Get your driving licence out, look at your 4B on your normal driving licence, please. What does yours say, Adrian?

• 27:33Speaker 02

  14, 05, 2031.

• 27:38Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so you're good. That means your driving licence, because our photo driving licences, while we are valid to drive for decades, they only, they have a limited shelf life and they need renewing because the photo has to be up to date. Now, ultimately, you could risk a fine of up to a thousand pounds. I mean, you'd have to do quite a lot for it to get a thousand pound fine. If you don't, if your driving licence is not up to date. And there are 2 million people out there whose photo driving licence has expired. Now, look, if it's expired, don't panic, you're not going to be fined because you haven't been stopped. But just go and get it renewed now. You won't get in trouble for renewing it if you were driving with it out of date. But you need to go and get it updated.

• 28:19Martin Lewis?

  Someone listening out there now will have checked their 4B and found that it's out of date. Do get in touch if you have done. So that's, and while we're doing a wallet workout, 4B on your driving licence, just check you're still in date. And it's worth having a look. You're 2031, that's plenty of time, Adrian. What's mine, I'm mine, I'm also 2031. Oh, we're driving licence date twins.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Oh, let's, let's make a date.

• 28:40Martin Lewis?

  And so we're both renewing 2031.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  Okay, look forward to it. Dave Healy says, I buy a lot from the US and European companies. Is there a card I can use that won't drain my pocket due to currency conversion fees? I see there are cards you can use when you're abroad that don't have currency conversion fees. But does it work the same if you're in the UK and purchasing abroad?

• 29:03Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, it works exactly the same. It isn't, it isn't your location, it's the currency that you're paying in that matters. So, look, the reason you have a specialist card is there are normally two choices when you buy anything. Whether in the UK, if it's not in pounds, or whether you're abroad, if it's not in pounds. And that is... You can do the conversion and get your card company to do the conversion, or the overseas store or the transaction method you're doing will do the conversion. So what you want, the problem when you're abroad, in most places, times when you go into a shop abroad or you buy on an overseas website and they often do the conversion for you, they add a load to the exchange rate. They could take the spot rate, which is the perfect exchange rate on the day, and they could add 3%, 4%, 5%, 6% to it. They often do that without telling you

• 29:48Martin Lewis?

  or you're unaware because that spot rate is moving. And that's typically what will happen if you say, this is why I always say when you're abroad, you know, if you're in Europe, paying euros. If you're in America, paying dollars. Because that way, it isn't the place you're spending at that is doing the conversion, it's your plastic. Even the worst UK plastic only has a foreign exchange rate load of 3%. So, and generally, it's worse if you're doing the transaction abroad. The best plastic, we've already mentioned some, you've got two, Halifax Clarity, Barclaycard Reward, or by topic at the moment, the Lloyds Ultra Card. They give you the spot rate. They give you the same near-perfect rate that the banks get. And in Lloyds' case, you get cash back.

• 30:29Martin Lewis?

  So you want it to do the conversion because it's giving you a perfect exchange rate. That applies whether you're spending abroad, but it equally applies if you are buying in dollars or euros or whatever other currency in the world from the UK. As long as your card is doing the conversion, which means you're paying in dollars, you're paying in euros, you're not paying in pounds, you're not letting the site do the conversion, then it gives you the same, the perfect exchange rate and could easily save you 5% or 6% per transaction.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 31:00Martin Lewis?

  Just make sure you pay it off. In full!

• 31:02Speaker 02

  In full. Since this is a workout, we had workout-themed music. We had Eye of the Tiger. You mentioned Olivia Newton-John, and I'm just here to make your dreams come true, Martin. Take it away, Olivia.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Oh, beautiful.

• 31:24Martin Lewis?

  It is beautiful. It does move us away from the wallet theme though, doesn't it really?

• 31:28Speaker 02

  It does.

• 31:28Martin Lewis?

  I mean, you could take your wallet. I mean, this is in the old days before digital wallets, you could have taken your wallet, you could have done a bicep curl with it. But these days, they're lighter. Well, that's why you have two wallets.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  But they're getting less physical.

• 31:38Martin Lewis?

  One for each hand.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  They're getting less physical wallets.

• 31:40Martin Lewis?

  They are. They are indeed.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  So that's our tenuous link back to a living.

• 31:44Martin Lewis?

  Let's get digital.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  That's right. We could do that together, couldn't we? Um, where were we? Yes. I mean, there's a question, interesting, interest me, Bronwyn Taylor. So I try to pay cash in small shops so that they don't have to pay a percentage to the bank or card companies. Now, that's an interesting one that. I was always dimly at the, at the back of my mind when I pay for something in a small shop. Am I helping them if I pay in cash?

• 32:12Martin Lewis?

  I don't know, because it depends. This is a really interesting one. Bronwyn, you're trying to do something nice for your local stores and that I'm sure is appreciated, but it may not actually be nice. I did some polls recently, some social media polls on whether shops should be forced to, to take cash payments. And I also did a poll on forced to be take card payments. And what a lot of small business owners said to me is, don't assume that cash is cheaper for us. In some places, and especially in some more rural environments, you have to pay a charge for depositing cash at the bank. And the charge for depositing cash in for some stores is more expensive than the card fee that they pay for taking your payment on a card. So it isn't as simple as cash is much better

• 32:56Martin Lewis?

  for them. It doesn't, because there's a fee either way. Now, that isn't me saying cash is worse for them. It's me saying it depends. And I'm sure there are probably some retailers and small shop owners who are listening now. Tell us, not what you prefer, but which is cheaper for you to take payments in cash or to take payment in card? I'd love to hear from you.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Okay. I just gonna do a couple of telluses.

• 33:22Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, go on.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Okay. The, um.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Uh, Tim in Tim Calder in Dalidale says, I'll decide on my wallet is a business card from our honeyman in nineteen ninety seven. Uh, the honeyman, that presumably is somebody who supplies you with honey. From the Sierra View Motel in Mariposa, California, visited on our way to Yosemite National Park. This was at the end of the last century. And Martin in Bristol says, I have a nineteen thirty one John Player cigarette card for poultry that I found a few years ago. It's number thirty five, Black Plymouth Rocks. I found it in the gutter one day, thought it strange it had just turned off after all that time. Image shows a hen and a cockerel. Bit grubby, been around a bit, but I like it. I like the sound of it too, Martin.

• 34:07Martin Lewis?

  Daniel Clark.

• 34:10Martin Lewis?

  A handwritten note from my mum before she passed away when I was twenty two. I'm sixty three now.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:18Martin Lewis?

  I think we all get that one, don't we?

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, yes, absolutely.

• 34:22Martin Lewis?

  Shall I tell you what? I've got my wallet, the only possible thing. I have a toothpick, Adrian, that's hidden in the note slap in my wallet because I have a, I have a food trap in one of my, so I have a little toothpick in. And that is the only possibly interesting thing I have in my wallet. And it's not that interesting.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  You were talking my language then, and I thought it was a, it was one with particular sentimental value for you.

• 34:41Martin Lewis?

  No, I mean, and when I use it, I have to remember to replace it, which I sometimes don't do. And I also, even as someone who is a, a digital native and spends in cards all the time, I ha, I, I carry cash with me, which is generally for homeless people. Because if I, and just if someone's in desperate need, I, I hate the idea that you can't help.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  When you say you don't replace it, when is it used? You just use it once and throw it away?

• 35:03Martin Lewis?

  No, no. I use it once and throw it away. It's, it's a, you know, it's a, one of the plastic with the string across ones. It's not something that you're going to reuse. But the problem is, I'll use it and go, oh, I'm so glad I got that in there. And then I, then I tend to spend because as a slightly obsessive person, I spend most of the rest of the day going, I must remember to put toothpick back in. I must remember to put toothpick back in. Must remember to put too big. And my whole day is basically lost to repeating a mantra.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  And then you forget anyway.

• 35:26Martin Lewis?

  Then send myself an email, which I do a lot. About over fifty percent of the emails in my stored in my inbox right now are from me.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. Okay.

• 35:33Martin Lewis?

  And can I just ask a question?

• 35:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:35Martin Lewis?

  If you send yourself an email.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:38Martin Lewis?

  What is the etiquette over politeness? Do I have to say please if I'm asking myself to do something?

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Oh, don't have that down.

• 35:44Martin Lewis?

  Can I just be blunt with myself because it's me?

• 35:45Speaker 02

  No.

• 35:46Martin Lewis?

  And sometimes when I read it and I've been blunt, I go, that's a bit rude.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  I'm blunt with, I'm, I'm, I'm blunt with myself. And also ask AI something. I mean, my daughter's always very polite to AI because she thinks it will count in her favor when the robot apocalypse lands that they'll be a bit nicer to.

• 36:01Martin Lewis?

  Oh, I have to say, I, so Chat, Chat GPT is used a lot in my household. Mrs. Emerson, of course, is a tech journalist. And I sometimes get slightly jealous of her conversations with Arbor, who's her favorite voice on there. But I, I don't like, it's all jolly. I mean, and I had something the other day. I asked it and it was a really morbid, quite a serious answer. And it went, "Oh, yeah. Oh, yes, you're right. I did get that wrong." And it was like about death duties and just something like that. I was just asking some phrasing. I was like, tonally, stop being, this is, we need an English, I mean, they have an English accent, but we need an actual English attitude.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Sensibility.

• 36:37Martin Lewis?

  AI that isn't always, "Hey, let's leave, oh, your parents have died. Oh, that does happen. I'm so sorry. Hey." And we actually want, you know, we want someone who goes, and when you say to it, when you say to it, that was the most ridiculous answer I've ever heard. You've totally misunderstood me. Oh, I have, haven't I? No, I want you to go, "Yeah, all right. Okay, I'll do another answer."

• 36:56Speaker 02

  I've never used the audio.

• 36:57Martin Lewis?

  British AI. Anyway, we're doing what it worked out.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Okay. Um, let's just speak to Dane in Eastbourne, who's called in. Dane, tell us what you have in your wallet.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Hello. How, how are you both today?

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Hi, all good, thanks. Go on.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Hi, so, so what I have, yes, so what I have in my wallet, I mean, I generally use digital payments my day to day. So I've got lots of space in my wallet for a collection of unusual foreign banknotes. Um, I, I like going on charity shops, things for shops, that sort of thing. Um, and I just.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Go on, talk us through what you've got there.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  So I started a collection and every time I come, so I've got, uh, Lira, I've got some from countries that don't exist anymore, like Yugoslavia. Um, but probably the most interesting one I have is one where the denomination is five billion dollars.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  So I often like to joke to my friends and say that I'm a billionaire and I can just whip that out and say, I'm not lying.

• 38:02Martin Lewis?

  What was that, the Liberian dollar or something? Wha- what is it?

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Zimbabwe, isn't it, Dan?

• 38:08Speaker 03

  Um, it, it was from, yeah, Zimbabwe when they were going through a period of awful hyperinflation, I believe.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Wow. You're carrying five billion dollars with you. That's so cool.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  Even more crazy denomination.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Can you imagine if you got, if you got pick, if you got pickpocketed, the excitement of the pickpocketer when they found a five billion note and then the crushing disappointment when they realised it was, you know, it was basically not, well, I assume what you've got in there isn't worth much. I wouldn't wish this upon you, by the way, Dan.

• 38:44Martin Lewis?

  Whereas the scenario I was looking at, Adrian, is getting in a London black taxi cab and saying, I've only got five billion dollars to have change.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Yes, you should try that. So, I mean, how thick's your wallet? I mean, you've got to, you've got to limit what you've got in there, Dan.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  Uh, well, five billion, I mean, yeah, I'm, I'm going up to London on Sunday, so I may, I may well just try that, actually.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Okay, give it a try, Dane. Thank you very much for, uh, for getting in touch. Um, we've got a question from, cheers, Dane. Thank you.

• 39:19Martin Lewis?

  Cheers, Dane, mate. Don't spend it all at once.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  No, we've got a question from Sonia. Uh, spends a lot grocery shopping. What's the best way to pay for it at the till so I'll get some money back?

• 39:29Martin Lewis?

  Well, it's generally the same cash back cards as I was mentioning earlier. The only difference is if you're always shopping at the same supermarket. Many supermarkets have their own credit cards that gives you a higher percentage of reward for specific in-store spending at their store. So if you have, not all of them do this, but if, so if you're very loyal to the same supermarket each time, check out its credit card. I should note, I'm talking credit cards, not store cards. The difference, a credit card is a card that can be spent anywhere. A store card is a card that can only be spent at the store. They tend not to be that usable. They tend to have higher interest rates. You generally don't want a store card unless you're manipulating its introductory offer just to get yourself a discount. But many of the supermarkets have credit cards. So check out what your supermarket is offering.

• 40:12Martin Lewis?

  And if it's offering you more than 1% effective equivalent in reward points on your spending in that supermarket and you spend all the time, then that can be a good option. Of course, paid off info each month. Now, a quick interruption on loyalty cards. You may well spot the loyalty cards in your wallet. Though almost all of them these days allow you to do it digitally, that is much easier. My view on loyalty cards is very simple. You should never choose where you shop due to a loyalty card. All it is is an effective afterwards discount if you choose to use it. So people often used to say to me in the old days, you know, Superdrug was giving one point per pound of spending, but Boots is giving four points per pound of spending. Therefore, the Boots loyalty scheme is better and you should go in Boots. Nonsense.

• 40:54Martin Lewis?

  I mean, if we think of it as a discount, if Superdrug was selling something for one pound and 10 p and you get one p off because you're just over one p, 1.1 p off because you're using your loyalty points, that's costing you a pound and nine. If the same item was in Boots and it's charging one pound 20, well, it's still more expensive in Boots even after your effective 4% discount. So don't let them seduce you in to that entire loyalty scheme that means you build up your loyalty points and because you've got loyalty points to redeem your loyalty points, you have to go into that same store to redeem your loyalty points. What do you do when you're redeeming your loyalty points? You spend more in that same store, so they get another bite at your custom and you build up more loyalty points, meaning you have to, that's why it's called loyalty. And loyalty doesn't necessarily pay. Having said all that, especially in the digital world that we now live in.

• 41:39Martin Lewis?

  If you're shopping somewhere that has a loyalty scheme, you may as well use it. Just don't let it dictate where you shop.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  Sharon says I'm a small business and was able to pay in free cash per month up to a limit each month. So cash was always better for me to take rather than credit card payments or debit card. However, as the bankers now closed, I have to drive a 16 mile round trip to pay cash in. So now it's actually cheaper for her to take card payments.

• 42:06Martin Lewis?

  And that that was the point I was making earlier. It is not as simple as cash is always better for retailers. And my my advice, if you want to be a considerate to your local shops, which is important if you want them to stay open, then say to them, which is better for you, I pay in cash or I pay on card and let them decide.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Hayley, best joint account for a couple. There's actually no such thing as a joint account, is there?

• 42:29Martin Lewis?

  Yes, there is.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  Well, okay, but it's not. Okay, all right, go on.

• 42:34Martin Lewis?

  Well, there is, there is. What there isn't is it doesn't make any difference whether it's a joint account or a single account for your choice. Right, but there is absolutely under. There's no joint credit card. There's no such thing as a joint.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  That's what I meant. Sorry, that's what I meant.

• 42:45Martin Lewis?

  But there are joint bank accounts.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:47Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, it's only a second card holder and a credit card. And so, look, at the moment, we are in a luxurious period where there are a lot of banks that are trying to pay you to switch to them and most of that will get you cash in time for Christmas. I'm just going to tell you the free cash. I'm going to run through it super quick. We did a full program on this about six weeks ago. And most of these allow you to open a joint account. If you're a high earner earning over 75 grand, Barclays Premier is giving you 400 quid for switches. All of these, unless I mention a fee free, there's the Santander Edge, which is probably the winner for joint accounts. Because if you're getting a joint account that's for bills, which many people do, that your joint account is to pay your joint bills from. Santander Edge pays.

• 43:29Martin Lewis?

  £200 free for you switching and it also gives you 1% bills cash back on all the bills you pay from it by direct debit up to £10 a month. There's a £3 a month fee but for most people with typical bills, the cash back will easily wipe the backside of the £3 a month fee and give you more on top. It's also got a good overseas debit card. Other free cash at the moment, Barclays switchers get £200, Club Lloyds get £200, First Direct top customer service gets £175 and there are more out there too. So it is a very good time for switching bank. But if you're looking for a joint account, they all work. It's worth remembering of course, if you had two individual accounts, you would

• 44:12Martin Lewis?

  get, and you switched both of them, you would get, if it's a £200 account, you'd get £200 each. If you're switching a joint account, you only get one lot of joint account because it's only one lot of switching. So that's the only issue in terms of the financials, but many people like a joint account. And my top pick for bills is Santander Edge because you get the cash back, you get the £200 and that easily covers the £3 a month fee.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Okay, and Jackie says best current account to have savings pockets for all my planned spending, please.

• 44:42Martin Lewis?

  Well, I talked about that on the Question Time podcast the other day, how to budget. I call it, I call it piggy banking, some call it jam jarring, some call it savings pockets. This is where you have, you siphon off money into different pots so your bank account no longer lies for you. You might have a bills account, you might have a holidays account, you might have a Christmas account. These days, a lot of banks do it. The, the original starter tend to be the challenger digital only app type banks like Monzo and Starling that are very good, but actually it's becoming far, far more widespread a way of working it. And I would probably check whether you're, the bank that you want has it and I would focus on getting the best financials from the bank because so many of them are doing it now, just as I've talked about.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  Here's a long question, hopefully with a shorter answer. Mitch, I use a cash back site called Jam Donut, other ones are available. Do I have any protection when paying with a gift card or would it be better on big purchases to pay the majority via gift card than pay £1 via credit card to get section 75?

• 45:38Martin Lewis?

  Short answer, you have absolutely zero protection on a gift card. And generally, if the company that's offering the gift card has gone bust, you lose all your money. And some gift cards have dates on them that you need to use them by jam jar. I believe you buy your gift cards on there and you get some cash back for doing so, or you get a discounted gift card. It can be very good, but I would be spending very quickly. I wouldn't be holding the gift card. You should only be doing it for things you're about to spend. Yes, if you were to do for a transaction over a hundred quid, one pound on the credit card, the rest on the gift card, then the credit card company is liable for the entire amount. It will probably fight you, tell you it's not, and you'll have to go to the financial ombudsman. But the ombudsman has ruled many times that it's liable for the entire amount. So that would be a good strategy in those circumstances.

• 46:23Martin Lewis?

  And it's another one of Martin interrupting Martin here. Just to ask, do you have a digital donor card? In England, Scotland, Wales, and more recently changed in Northern Ireland, you are automatically considered willing to be an organ donor now unless you opt out. Yet it is worth letting loved ones know your wishes. So a donor card in your personal wallet or digitally registering your decision is useful. Better still, discuss it with them because, I mean, in the terrible event that something happens to you and your loved ones are working out what the right or wrong thing to do is, letting them know, yeah, I would like to be a donor, often takes a lot of pressure, stress, emotion and grief away. So that conversation's worth it. And while I'm at it, there are many ways to help while living too. You can be a blood and plasma donor.

• 47:08Martin Lewis?

  I'm literally, purely by coincidence, going to give blood straight after I do the podcast because apparently they're short of people giving blood at the moment. And I got an email, so I'm going in to do it. Bone marrow donation, stem cell donation if you're aged between 16 to 30, and also hair donation for young cancer patients.

• 47:33Martin Lewis?

  Now, in our Money Mastermind, the current score is Adrian has got 13 wrong, and 13 right and 25 wrong. You got the last one straight wrong and you are sniffling ever closer to not beating random chance, N B R C.

• 47:50Speaker 02

  Very sweetly, you know, I turn over to a fresh page in my notebook. It makes no difference whatsoever. If I write anything down, it'll just be wrong anyway. I'll just do it.

• 48:00Martin Lewis?

  And can I just make just a slight point here? I always talk about random chance. You'll hear it's 13 to 25. And there is someone who regularly writes in to say that I have this wrong because random chance would mean only getting a third right, not 50% right. I have to say my maths here is right. If you have got 13, you've got 13 right and 25 wrong. Yes, while 13 is around 50, just under 50% of 25, of the total, which is 38 questions, 13 is just over a third. The maths is right. It's one in three. You're getting just over one. It is one in three, which means you would get one right and two wrong every three questions.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  I'm not having anybody telling you you're wrong, even if you are, which you never are.

• 48:43Martin Lewis?

  I'm 100% right on this probability.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:45Martin Lewis?

  Okay. So now, Adrian, the question. Adrian, often I do my impression of you with a Westminster accent. Today, Adrian, you get a chance to do an impression of me.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:56Martin Lewis?

  Because this question is one I was asked by a caller called Matt on the Question Time podcast, which you are not involved in, that we also put out and goes out on a Monday and you should subscribe, a fortnight ago. So I'm going to ask you exactly the question I was asked and see how you do. Except you get three multiple choice options.

• 49:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 49:17Martin Lewis?

  "I was told by a dad on the school run a tip to add my eight-year-old daughter to my credit card as a cardholder to help start build her credit score to get credit of her own. Does it work? Which of these was my answer?" Which is also the correct answer.

• 49:33Speaker 02

  Oh, naturally.

• 49:34Martin Lewis?

  A, yes, it will start to go on a foul and be a useful builder for when she's 18 and able to help her get credit. B, no, it doesn't work. C, no, it doesn't work because she's under 18. If she was over 18, it would work.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  I think it is C on the assumption that, I mean, what you do at the age of eight surely can't can't be held against you or even for you on your credit records. So I'll go, I'll go C.

• 50:07Martin Lewis?

  Final answer?

• 50:08Speaker 02

  Hmm?

• 50:10Martin Lewis?

  Play the uh-uh.

• 50:12Speaker 02

  Oh, not again.

• 50:13Martin Lewis?

  Adrian, I'm so disappointed. You're actually slightly angry here. About, about three minutes ago, we had a conversation where you mistakenly said that you can't have a joint current account. And I said, no, you're thinking of a credit card. You can't have a joint credit card. You can only have a second card holder. It isn't joint. And, and I was just, as I was asking that question, in my head, I'm going, oh, shoot, I've just given the answer away three minutes ago. This is a default now and you still got it wrong.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  You know, I quite enjoy being berated by you. I find it, I don't know, I find it comforting. It takes me back to school and relationships. So just carry on, berate me a bit more. We've got another hour.

• 50:57Martin Lewis?

  No, no, I need to get, I need to explain. Look, so to everybody listening, although most of you will have got it because you were probably listening to the programme.

• 51:05Martin Lewis?

  The answer is you can't have a joint credit card. Now, the fact is no under 18. You're not going to get a credit file anyway because you can't have credit products. But you can't have a joint credit card. All that you can do is you can give someone else your card and they're spending on your account. It doesn't count as their card. It's not their card. It's not their credit. If they spend loads and don't pay it, it's still your debt.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  If it was a joint bank account then?

• 51:25Martin Lewis?

  Well, on a joint, on a joint bank account, yes, if it had an overdraft, still because there's no credit products under 18, it would be a struggle to get the overdraft and to work it in that particular way. But theoretically, you would be getting closer if we did it that way. But on a credit card system, the answer is a blunt, no, it doesn't work, no way, no how. And it wouldn't work if she were 104 either because it's just a second card holder. So I'm afraid it was dad's on the schoolroom. Is Adrian Childs on your schoolroom, Matt? Because, you know, I was told by dad on the schoolroom, a tip to have my eight-year-old daughter. That tip does not work at all. At all. A bit like Adrian does not work at all on the Mastermind.

• 52:03Speaker 02

  All right, okay.

• 52:04Martin Lewis?

  But he's still AC, the coolest man on the radio.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  If only that were true. I apologize to you for not listening. I apologize for getting it wrong. I apologize to myself for revealing what a chomp I am, AC or not, but always a pleasure, Martin.

• 52:19Martin Lewis?

  Thank you, thank you, mate.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  A dark pleasure, admittedly, a masochistic pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.

• 52:27Martin Lewis?

  Okay, I'll calm down after my tirade at Adrian for not listening. Matt, did you get the answer right? Were you listening?

• 52:32Speaker 04

  Well, the answer for the Mastermind.

• 52:34Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 52:34Speaker 04

  Yep. So you normally send over the question to me and you highlight the correct answer. And you hadn't done it, but because of the podcast a couple of weeks ago, I was like, no, I know. See, I'm learning, I'm learning.

• 52:47Martin Lewis?

  Listening is a good skill in broadcasting. Okay, so we had quite a lot more to do. I know we've got some questions in. There's a few points I'd like to make, so let's do some of the questions first. What else has come in?

• 52:57Speaker 04

  Okay, so at the start of the podcast, you mentioned the NSNI account.

• 53:00Martin Lewis?

  Yes.

• 53:01Speaker 04

  And a message came in while we were on air with Adrian from Mike. And he said, can you ask Martin if any interest accrued from savings within an NSNI are subject to tax in the same way they would be in a standard savings account?

• 53:14Martin Lewis?

  Really good question. Simple answer, NSNI savings or the British Savings Bonds specifically are taxable savings. So they would count towards your taxable interest. Now, of course, as we've said many times before, there are a number of tax-free allowances that allow you to earn interest without being taxed on them. You've got your normal earnings allowance up to £12,570 a year. And then if you're a basic rate taxpayer, you can earn £1,000 on the personal savings allowance. So of interest tax-free each year, £500 if you're a top rate taxpayer. So there are lots of different savings allowances, but it is taxable income. So it is subject to tax. I think the reason for this question is premium bonds, which are from NSNI, are not taxable. They are not subject to tax.

• 53:55Martin Lewis?

  And there's also the index-linked savings that you can't get anymore, but if you have them, you can continue to renew them, that are not taxable. That's because NSNI is the state-backed savings institute. It is the vehicle that the government uses for special products like. Premium bonds which can be tax free, but that doesn't mean all NSNI products are tax free. In other ways, it tends to operate more like a normal financial institution, more like a normal bank, if you want, in common parlance. And it's offering tax-free savings. It does also have some cash ISAs, but these bonds I'm talking about, no, they're taxable. Through the magic of podcasting, this is Martin, interrupting myself to give you a quick tip on rail cards. When you're looking through your wallet, do you have a rail card?

• 54:39Martin Lewis?

  Probably not, because most of these days are digital, but we're talking digital wallets too, so I'm just going to carry on regardless. If you travel by train, arguably even once a year, if it is a major journey, you may well save by having a rail card. They typically cost up to £35 for one year, though you can buy three-year versions too. And right now, there are some codes online, which I can't give you a link to, but hopefully you'll find for yourself, where you can get 25% off a rail card. Now, that means for most journeys, not maybe a few PEC are excluded, you save a third on your journey. And there are more rail cards than most people think. You've got the obvious ones, all the rail cards for people aged under 31 or aged over 60. You've got the family and friends rail

• 55:22Martin Lewis?

  card, which means an adult travelling with up to three more adults, as long as you're with one child but up to four child, all the adults get a third off and all the children gets two thirds off the family and friend rail card. There's the disabled rail card, there's some network rail cards. One people often don't know about, there's the two-together rail card. That literally means two named people travelling together can get a third off. Now, I say named people, you would think he means couples, but I don't necessarily mean couple. Let's imagine you have a mate that you go to the football with every Saturday, and you're always going on the train. Well, you two could get a two-together card. You could also have one with your spouse. It doesn't matter, you can have as many two-together cards with different people. You can, you know, yes, I am saying it, you can couple up with as many different people as you like, but only in a rail card sense.

• 56:07Speaker 04

  Okay, another question that we didn't get to. Wendy Southgate on X. I've tried every bank to open a bank account, and I've been rejected due to my credit score. No other bank will take me or even open a new bank account. What do I do?

• 56:21Martin Lewis?

  Well, that should not be happening. There was a voluntary agreement between the government and the banks, it must have been 12, 15 years ago now, I was involved in it at the time, because there was a big problem and we still have a million unbanked in this country. And the voluntary agreement said that all major banks should offer a basic bank account, that is a non-overdraft bank account, that will give you banking facilities, but you won't be able to be overdrawn, and because you're not overdrawn, there is no need for a credit check on it. And therefore, it should be universally acceptable now, therefore, it should be universally available. Now, there are some problems with it. The first one, which I think is the one that is hitting you, is that what happens is,

• 57:01Martin Lewis?

  unless you ask for a specific, basic bank account, they give you their main, normal bank account, and they credit score you for it because it has an overdraft, and then you get rejected. Now, I've strongly said that when they reject you, they should be forced to tell you, but we do offer a basic bank account that you can get and you can open. So you need to go in Co-op and Barclays, anecdotally, not research-based, there's just no real way to research this, that I haven't got details of that number of people who don't have bank accounts, but Co-op and Barclays anecdotally are pretty good at this, and that they tend to be more forgiving for people who want basic bank accounts. So if you haven't got a bank account, Co-op and Barclays, and you're looking, you know, you could also try and apply on Chase online, but you might not be online in that way,

• 57:43Martin Lewis?

  then you could try Co-op and Barclays, but ask for their basic bank account. The second problem that happens, and this is a more difficult problem, is ID issues, and say for some people who are homeless, having ID issues and proofs of address and all of that can stop you getting a bank account, which is one of those things that needs to be fixed, because in our growing digital world, the disenfranchisement of not having a bank account is hideous, and it's just making people who are already in vulnerable situations even worse off. But I suspect that the question is, if they don't have a bank account, it's a basic bank account, and it could often happen to people moving from abroad, but most people should be able to get a basic bank account, no problem.

• 58:22Speaker 04

  And we've got a final question from Rachel. She is asking, "I had a credit card whilst I was working and in a relationship. Now I'm alone, I'm unable to work and struggling with credit card debt. But because of not working, I can't get a 0% balance transfer. So I find myself stuck in the circle of debt I never intended to be in. Are there any 0% balance transfer deals to those of us on benefits, please?"

• 58:45Martin Lewis?

  The benefits is a bit of a red herring here. This is about income. Yep, so the fact you're on benefits, clearly you're on a low income. And it's the fact you're on a low income which will tend to cause the issue, not that you're on benefits. So when we apply for credit, a number of different things are happening. There's fraud scoring to check that you're legitimate. There's credit scoring to check whether you've got a history of being a good credit citizen or not. And each lender scores you differently. And then there's also affordability scoring. So just to put this in perspective, everybody focuses on the credit score because the credit reference agencies sell them and make you think they're be all and end all, where they're just a loose illustration of how a typical lender would see you. And they miss the biggest single fact that lenders look at when you apply for credit. How much money do you earn? How much money do you have?

• 59:28Martin Lewis?

  And that is not on your credit score, which is one of the reasons people with perfect credit scores get rejected. To make this very simple, I'll give you two examples. And I'm going to come and answer the specifics, but just as a general point for everyone. If you've got the best credit history in the world and you've always paid off in time and it's always been perfect and you've never missed a payment and you were previously earning £50,000 and you have no savings and you've just lost your job and you have no earnings, your credit score will not have changed. But you'll still probably be rejected because you've got no way to repay and they want you to have a way to repay. I mean, it's all very logical. A second example that just portrays this is if you apply for a loan and with one lender for £3,000, you may be accepted.

• 1:00:12Martin Lewis?

  But you apply with the same lender for £10,000, you may be rejected. Your credit score has not changed. Your affordability score is what's knocking you out. They're going, well, you can't afford to repay the £10,000 loan, so we'll give you one at £3,000. That's what's going on. Now, in this case, you asked me about, aren't there any credit cards for people on benefits? No, but there are poor credit score as cards, some of which require just a minimum income of £5,000. And these are balance transfer cards. There's a big warning about poor credit balance transfer cards I'll come to in a moment. I'm saying that more for myself to remember to say it. So what I would do is you need to go onto an eligibility calculator. That is a tool and you need to go on on a comparison site. There are some good ones out there, but I can't name them.

• 1:00:54Martin Lewis?

  And hopefully you'll work out where you go. They include poor credit balance transfer deals. So then what you do is you put your details in, it does a soft search, and that's important. Because normally when we apply that adds a hard search to our file and too many hard searches, especially in a short space of time, can be negative for our credit worthiness and may mean we get rejected. So you need to protect yourself from unnecessary applications. With the soft search, that's one that you would see on your credit file, but lenders wouldn't be able to take into account. So it doesn't have any impact and therefore it's better for you. So you go into an eligibility calculator, they lose soft searches and they will indicate which cards you're most likely to be accepted for. Now, from what you've said, I suspect it will be one of the poorer credit cards for balance transfer deals.

• 1:01:39Martin Lewis?

  Some of them are up to 20 months, some of them are only nine months. You'll normally pay a fee of around 3%. My main warning with them is the go to rate on poor credit balance transfers is significantly higher than on normal balance transfers. The go to rate is the rate that you pay once your 0% ends. So you need to look at the go to rate. Let's imagine it's 34.9% on the card that you're most likely to be accepted for. Contrast that to your existing credit cards, which may well be at 24.9%. In which case, if your existing credit card standard APR is lower than the go to rate once the 0% ends, you should only move debt you are definitely going to be able to repay within the 0% period.

• 1:02:23Martin Lewis?

  So that you'll be able to clear that card before the 0% ends and when it shoots up to the go to rate. If. Your current credit card interest rate is roughly the same or higher than the go to rate, then just shift all you can and get the interest, the 0% on as much as possible in the meantime. But there are cards out there, it's still, still not everyone will be accepted for them, but there are cards out there for poor, poor balance transfers. A couple of other tips. If you have multiple debt, list all your debts, including overdrafts, in order of interest rate, highest to lowest. Focus all your spare cash on clearing the card with the highest interest rate. And just pay the minimums. I normally say don't pay minimums, but on multiple debts, it's a different thing. This is strategic. Just

• 1:03:08Martin Lewis?

  pay the minimums on everything else. That way you're throwing all your spare money on the card that's most expensive and the debt is growing most quickly. And that will help you clear it more quickly. The other thing that you could do is if you've got existing debts and you've got any room on your credit limit, they may allow you to shift debt from other cards at a cheap balance transfer rate. It's called an existing customer balance transfer rate. And that's possible too. My final thought. All these are solutions to stay within the system. If your debts are bigger than a year's after tax income, which in your cases benefits, or you can't make the minimum repayments, or you're not sleeping because of this, then I would draw a line under all this and I would go and

• 1:03:51Martin Lewis?

  get help from one of the brilliant nonprofit debt counselling agencies like National Debtline, Citizens Advice, or Step Change, or Christians Against Poverty. And go and talk to them and let them work through a debt management plan with you that should hopefully make things easier and can take some of the pressure off. So a big answer to a small question, but I hope it helps.

• 1:04:14Speaker 04

  Now, Martin, we have a success from the O2 story. Was it last week, a couple of weeks ago?

• 1:04:21Martin Lewis?

  Well, I've been doing it quite a lot. I've been on the warpath about O2. O2 increased its price hike. So it hiked its price hike. The rules that Ofcom brought in in January said that mobile phone companies and broadband firms should tell you in advance of your contract how much they will hike prices mid-contract in pounds and pence. O2 did that, but then notified customers that it was going to increase them by even more than it originally said. Now, the key message I'm getting out there, and just to put this in context, I've spoken to Liz Kendall, who's the Department of Science and Industry, who oversees this about this. I spoke to the Chancellor about this yesterday, and I had a meeting with the head of Ofcom on it, because I am properly on the warpath.

• 1:05:04Martin Lewis?

  O2 has hiked its hike, and the thing you have to understand is when it does that, the reason it's allowed to hike its hike is it has to allow you to leave penalty-free within 30 days of notification. Now, I have a problem with that, because most people notice the price hike once the price goes up, not once they're notified of it, and the letter, I don't think, was clear enough. And it's also telling people they still need to pay their handset in full, because this is an airtime price increase. But what pay in full means is you can keep paying it by the month, but it sort of feels like you have to pay it all upfront again. I believe Ofcom are going to intervene on that after we've pointed it out. So there's a lot going on here. Big key message, take home for any O2 customers, you're getting that notification now, you need to decide whether you will simply ditch O2, or you could ditch O2 and keep its signal

• 1:05:49Martin Lewis?

  by moving to GiftGaff or Tesco or Sky, who all piggyback on the O2 signal, or you could utilise it to haggle with O2, which I've had successes on. Normally, you haggle at the end of the contract, but this 30-day period when you can leave is effectively a bit like the end of the contract. Lots of successes on that, too. I will be honest, my aim is to increase the attrition rate at O2, so that so many people are leaving, that we have crowd regulation, and we stop it from ever thinking that this is a good idea again. But I'm also trying to put pressure on the regulator and politicians to stop this happening in the first place. And you have a success story.

• 1:06:24Speaker 04

  I got in touch with Jill after she sent in her success. We had a chat, and here's what she said.

• 1:06:28Speaker 05

  So I got that last Monday, the email, but I just, I kind of just skimmed through it. I didn't, well, I did read it properly, I just saw that the prices were going up, I just assumed that I couldn't do anything about it, because the phones were included in the deal. And then, obviously, days later, when my son mentioned it, we sort of started together to look into it with more detail, and then, obviously, heard the Martin Lewis podcast, and realised that, actually, yes, I could do something about it. I just rang O2, explained I wanted to keep the phone...

• 1:07:04Speaker 05

  Package going, so the device plan, keep that going. So basically I did that, they didn't even try and argue with me, they just said, yeah, that's fine. Gave me the pack codes I needed for the their phone numbers so that the kids get to keep their phone numbers. And then I just looked on other package deals and I actually ended up getting better deals for the airtime plan, as in more data with a lot less money, which was really easy to switch over. So now I've got a fairly reasonable device plan still with O2, but the airtime plan is a lot cheaper and I'm saving, I think altogether just short of forty pounds a month.

• 1:07:49Speaker 05

  I kind of thought it would be way past me, do you know what I mean? It would be, that would be way beyond me to be able to do something like this. But actually, it was very easy.

• 1:07:59Martin Lewis?

  Oh, that's really good to hear. I'm so glad it was so easy. And forty pounds a month lets macro it to the year. Four hundred and eighty quid a year, this is not a small issue. And sort of my point is, there are so, this this price hike on a price hike is a clarion call because many people are already paying too much anyway. So this is a perfect time to check whether you are paying far too much. Some may want to stay with O2 because it does have links with Virgin that can give you, you know, double time and this type of stuff. But equally use it as an opportunity to haggle and I am being swamped with successes on that. It's lovely to hear that. Thanks for putting that together, Matt. And thank you so much, Jill, for getting in touch. That seems a good place to end.

• 1:08:39Martin Lewis?

  And that is it for this week. If you've enjoyed it, do please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast and why not subscribe? Then your pockets will be pleased with you. We tend to put out a new episode every Thursday and on Mondays too, in the form of our Question Time podcast, where you can ask me absolutely anything and everything. And if you haven't enjoyed it, it's your own fault for listening this far, why should I care?

• 1:09:18Speaker 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 martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk. 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.

• 1:09:59Speaker 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. Listen to The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube.