Question Time: Can I refuse a Smart meter? Should I clear my student loan? Is a stoozer a loser?

In our Question Time podcast, Martin takes your questions on anything and everything within reason. Including: is it worth fixing energy for longer than a year?; are app-based savings accounts worth it?, plus the producer asks him for broadcasting tips! Send an email to [email protected] mailto:[email protected] to suggest your question.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:45Martin 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 Question Time, in which I answer your questions about absolutely anything and everything within reason. In this week's pod, you asked me, can I say no to a smart meter? Should a mature student try to clear that student loan? Is it best to fix energy for one or two years? Is being a stooser a loser when it comes to mortgages? And far more, including our producer asking for broadcasting tips just for themselves. Abuse of power, I say. Play the theme tune.

• 2:45Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to the Question Time podcast. I am delighted to welcome podcast producer Michael to the show this week. So it is he who gets to choose what questions are being thrown at me. Podcast producer Matt isn't very well, get well soon Matt, but I'm delighted to have Michael sitting in for him. You're going to give me lovely, sweet, nice and easy questions that I can just breathe through this podcast, aren't you, Michael? Yes, I am. Good. Right, what are we starting with?

• 3:13Speaker 04

  That did not sound like me at all.

• 3:17Martin Lewis?

  Yes, I can't vent through the Scouse.

• 3:19Speaker 04

  Do your best Scouse accent.

• 3:21Martin Lewis?

  Oh, no, I'm going to try, but I've got edit rights. Yeah, all right, Michael, what are you doing?

• 3:28Speaker 04

  That was very Paul McCartney-esque. That was like 1960s Scouse.

• 3:33Martin Lewis?

  I actually went to school in Liverpool. My junior school was in Liverpool. So for about four years, yeah.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  I thought you were going to do-

• 3:38Martin Lewis?

  Because I'm a North West boy, but I've lost it now. Can we just get on to the money questions, please, Michael?

• 3:42Speaker 04

  Okay, sorry, sorry. I thought, no, I thought you were going to say, oh, I went to school with John Lennon, which is what I've heard a million times.

• 3:48Martin Lewis?

  Thank you very much. I am not John Lennon's age or Paul McCartney's age.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  Okay, Martin, so first question we've got here is from June. And June says, "In the past, I have always declined the offer of a smart meter, primarily because of the poor reputation. I have been contacted twice by Octopus, which is my energy provider for both gas and electric, stating that my electricity meter has passed its certification date and that by law they are required to replace it. This is in connection with the Electricity Act 1989. I do not, under any circumstances, want a smart meter fitted. Can I legally and lawfully refuse? It appears to me that the softly-so softly approach of offering smart meters has now been replaced with a more pressurised tactic. I eagerly await your response."

• 4:32Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so let's tackle this in two. First of all, smart meters, are they worth having? I am generally relatively pro smart meters. If you have a smart meter, first of all, you don't need to do meter readings anymore. The amount of energy used is automatically passed through to the energy company. It means a whole range of special tariffs are available to you. And we're going to see more of these time of use tariffs coming later, where you may be offered much cheaper rates for using energy overnight. If you can shift your electricity usage overnight, it's good for charging an EV for the same reason that you're able to measure it in that way. And in future, I think one of the ways people are going to be able to save substantially is by having a smart meter and, you know, using most of the electricity

• 5:16Martin Lewis?

  and storage heaters and everything else that puts on their energy at night. So I'm not anti-smart meters on principle. I also think the in-home display that most people get with a smart meter that allows you to see exactly how much energy you're using, while it can be depressing, it's also a great way to manage your energy usage. And lots of people tell me, "Oh, I looked at the meter. I saw it was running at 19p. I know, that must have mean I left the lights on upstairs." And they can actually, they're so intuitively linked to what their display is telling them, that they can work out what's on where in the house and when it shouldn't be on, which is also useful and helps you bring down your energy usage. But I've also been campaigning about the problem with smart meters, that over 20% of them, on my stats, don't work.

• 5:58Martin Lewis?

  And that's why many people get annoyed about them and saying there are problems caused by them and we need to put more resources into fixing them rather than just installing them. But it is worth noting that energy firms are incentivized to install smart meters and find if they don't install enough. So you're right, many of them do push people to get smart meters. And I've seen many letters that have sort of seemed to subtly say that you have to have a smart meter without giving you any choice. But you do not. There is nothing that will require you, in most circumstances, to have a smart meter. And then we get to your question, June, which is that your old meter is no longer in date. And that is absolutely something that can happen.

• 6:44Martin Lewis?

  To understand expiry dates, some meters may have a sticker on which will say the month and year it was certified, which will give you an idea of how old it is. Although there's no guarantee the sticker is correct, as sometimes the Office for Product Safety and Standards, the OPSS, extends the certified life after carrying out a service and doesn't add an update sticker. Now, I'm not going to go into all the details of the MID certification scheme, it's complicated, though there is a great page on the Citizens Advice website if you want to go through and work out whether your electricity meter is no longer valid or not. In the event that your meter isn't valid and they are going to fit a new one, well, yes, they can enforce that you are going to have a smart meter.

• 7:26Martin Lewis?

  But you have a right, if you wanted to, to ask for it to be put in dumb mode, meaning it will do the same as an old school meter, you won't be sending the meter readings in and you will still continue to provide manual meter readings. So you could ask for it to be put in dumb mode, though in a view, if you're going to have a smart meter, and hopefully it's going to work, why would you want it in dumb mode? But you may have a reason and that's your option. So, no, they can't, unless your meter is out of date, they can't force you to have a smart meter, but if it is out of date, because they're not fitting old school meters anymore, you, in many cases, you can be forced to have a smart meter. Did that all make sense, Michael?

• 8:04Speaker 04

  It did indeed, thanks very much.

• 8:06Martin Lewis?

  So I'm not sure you're going to be that happy with my answer, June, but if you really want to go and check and be militant on this, go to the Citizens Advice website, have a look at the meter certification and when your meter dates information to see if your meter is actually out of date and they do have to fit a new meter. They probably do, the way it's written. If they were just saying, "Hey, we'd love to upgrade you to a meter and here's how you do it" without giving you an opt-out, then it's probably just a push, but if they're saying your certificate's gone, then I suspect that's true.

• 8:36Martin Lewis?

  Right, Michael, what's next?

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Right, next up, Martin, we have Diane from East London on the line, and she has a question.

• 8:42Martin Lewis?

  Hello, Diane. What's your question?

• 8:45Speaker 05

  Hi, Martin. I was just going to say I'm an avid fan. I've been following you for many years.

• 8:50Martin Lewis?

  You can come on whenever you like and say that every single time. Quite happy with that one.

• 8:54Speaker 05

  Okay, so I'll just start by giving you a bit of background. I am 54 and recently widowed. Next month I'll be graduating from a three-year degree course for which I took out a student loan for all the three years. My question is, should I consider repaying loan as soon as possible? My reasoning is that it would be a good idea to not have it hanging around when I retire, as I will most likely need as much money as I can get.

• 9:23Speaker 05

  I know this is contrary to what you would normally suggest, but you often refer to younger graduates.

• 9:28Martin Lewis?

  Well, okay, so let's just go through this. Where are you from in the UK? Are you an English student?

• 9:36Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 9:36Martin Lewis?

  And what year did you start university?

• 9:40Speaker 05

  It would be the Plan Two. I started in 2022.

• 9:44Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so you're on a Plan Two loan. That means you will repay 9% of everything you earn above just over £28,500. And you will repay it for 30 years, but there will be interest added of inflation. So currently this year, 3.2%, up to inflation plus 3%, depending on how much you earn. So those are the basics of the Plan Two loan. Now, the interesting thing about the Plan Two loan is most people will not repay in full before it wipes after 30 years. In fact, I think it's around 70% won't. So if you won't repay in full before it wipes, then unless you're going to clear it all,

• 10:28Martin Lewis?

  you don't want to make overpayments because they probably won't make any difference to how much you pay in future. So let's just go back into it. So just to establish the facts again, you're 54, so we've got about 13 years of work till you get the state pension and you should qualify for the state pension. Have you worked enough years for that?

• 10:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, so in the next seven years of working, I will qualify for the state pension.

• 10:52Martin Lewis?

  Okay, for the full state pension, all right. So we've got 13 years of work. Do you know roughly what type of income you're going to have over those years?

• 10:59Speaker 05

  So the profession I'm going into, I think average earning is around 35k. But in addition to that, I also have rental income from the property that I rent out.

• 11:12Martin Lewis?

  Okay, and roughly how much is that?

• 11:14Speaker 05

  So that would be around 15,000 pounds a year.

• 11:19Martin Lewis?

  So let's, let's just round it up and say you're on 50,000 pounds of income, which is above the threshold. So you're 22,000 pounds above the threshold. So you're going to be paying around 2,000 pounds a year. So 2,000 pounds a year for 13 years is almost, almost paying this off, but not including the interest. It is a very fine line. The maths is a very fine line in your case. Now, just let me ask, when you retire, you will have your state pension. So that's about 12 grand a year. You will also have, I presume you'll still have your rental income?

• 11:55Speaker 05

  That's the plan, yes.

• 11:56Martin Lewis?

  That's 27,000 pounds a year. Will you have any other income?

• 11:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I have a small private pension. I don't know what the income from that will be. It won't be huge.

• 12:06Martin Lewis?

  It's like a grand or two type thing a year?

• 12:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, something like that.

• 12:10Martin Lewis?

  So, wow, this is a very, very fine balance. Let me try and explain to everybody why I've been asking those questions. So, the key is you repay 9% of everything you earn above 28,500 pounds.

• 12:25Martin Lewis?

  Roughly. So you're going to be repaying until you retire, but once you retire, you're going to be, I mean, paying very, very little. It sounds to me like your income will be somewhere between 27 and 30,000 pounds, even if you earn 30,000 pounds a year, based on the fact that those thresholds are probably going to rise by then anyway. I think it is unlikely you would be repaying anything other than a few quid off your student loan then. So really, we have to focus on, is the amount, if we're doing this purely on the financial maths, is the amount that you will repay before you retire worth clearing the debt?

• 13:03Martin Lewis?

  Honestly, you're at the cusp. It looks like if we ignore the interest, you would probably repay just about the amount that you borrowed back by the time you hit state retirement. And then there would be interest to pay too. So if you paid that off now, then that would forestall you having any interest to pay, because no interest would be added if you paid the debt off. If you didn't pay it off, the advantage is if something goes wrong, right, so this is the biggest issue. If you pay that debt off now, let's keep it nice and binary, then you suddenly find you're not earning as much as you thought, or you're going to have to take time off work for a medical issue or something else like that, then you will have paid that money off, but in reality, you would never

• 13:47Martin Lewis?

  have needed to pay the money anyway, because your earnings were lower than we thought over the next 13 years or so. So the risk to paying it off now is that something happens that's unexpected, that means you wouldn't have to pay it in the future. The gain to paying it off now, in your particular maths, doing, and I'll be honest, I'm doing this on the back of an envelope, so you have to forgive me on that, looks to me like it won't be that great. It will just be, you know, some of the interest, but I doubt you're going to save that much, because you're only on the cusp of just covering what you'd be paid before you retired. Does that make sense?

• 14:22Speaker 05

  Yes, it does. Yeah, okay.

• 14:26Martin Lewis?

  So, I mean, the honest answer is it's a very, very fine line. If you were going into a much... If you're going into a much lower earning profession or you didn't have that extra rental income, then I would be saying I wouldn't touch this because you're hardly going to be getting close to paying it back before you get to retirement age and your income would be lower. If you had much higher, then you'd definitely be clearing it and you'd be paying some interest, so you may as well clear it now. But you seem to me to be exactly on the border. So it's a really tough one. My instinct would probably be, I would be putting as much money as you can in a high interest savings account, preferably a cash ISA so it's tax-free. The top ones of those at the moment pay about four and a half percent.

• 15:09Martin Lewis?

  On your earnings, interestingly, you're probably not going to be paying the full RPI plus three percent. I think you'll be paying about RPI plus one percent, which is about four percent interest. Yeah?

• 15:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, okay.

• 15:21Martin Lewis?

  So you're going to be paying four percent interest on your student loan and you can earn that much in a savings account. So you may as well put the money into a savings account, earn the interest that covers the interest you're being charged on your student loan, and that gives you the flexibility that you have the money ready in case something were to happen that you didn't need to pay off in future. Whereas once you voluntarily overpay a student loan, you can't get the money back. So on a safety basis, looking purely at your financial circumstances, I'd be tempted just to be saving any money I had in the highest interest rate savings I could get to try and offset the interest on the student loan, but give me the flexibility that I've got that money ready if I need in case something happens in future that maybe, you know, you take two or three years out of work for a reason or your salary isn't as high as you expected.

• 16:05Martin Lewis?

  But if you get a job and it pays much more than you've just said to me, then you may want to clear it off.

• 16:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, okay.

• 16:10Martin Lewis?

  Do you understand my logic? That's the most important thing, Diane. It's your decision, not mine.

• 16:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, I understand the logic and, yeah.

• 16:19Martin Lewis?

  You don't sound happy, though. And I'm interested to know why not. Be honest. It's, you know.

• 16:24Speaker 05

  Because I just, I don't know, I just feel that I'd be more comfortable just not having to worry about it and not having to think about it like when I retire. I'm just, because I'm going to be solely reliant on whatever income I get and...

• 16:41Martin Lewis?

  But you do understand how the repayments work, don't you?

• 16:46Martin Lewis?

  Let's be really plain on this. You will only repay nine percent of your income above twenty eight and a half grand.

• 16:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:57Martin Lewis?

  So in your retirement, it sounds to me pretty unlikely you will be earning substantially above twenty eight and a half grand, from what you've said to me. Is that correct?

• 17:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm imagining it will be around thirty K, something like that.

• 17:11Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so well, if we say that, that's nine percent of one and a half grand, that is one hundred and thirty five pounds a year.

• 17:18Speaker 05

  Okay, okay, that makes more sense. Sorry, I'm not great at maths, so it's a little bit difficult to take all of what you're saying in.

• 17:24Martin Lewis?

  I absolutely understand. That's why I wanted to check, because you didn't sound happy. So let's just remember that. You only repay if you earn above twenty eight and a half grand. You're telling me you'll be on thirty grand in your retirement. That's a hundred and thirty five pounds a year that you will be paying. And if at that point it bothers you, well, you could pay off what you owed at the time. That's the key thing. Don't think of it like a debt. It isn't a debt. Think of it more like it's nine percent extra tax above twenty eight and a half grand.

• 17:53Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 17:54Martin Lewis?

  Right. So if you don't earn above twenty eight and a half grand, you don't pay it. If you earn above twenty eight and a half grand, the more you earn over it, the more you pay. In your case, and I also suspect, because that is, that number is meant to rise with average earnings, although some of your money might rise with average earnings as well, that the threshold may even be higher by the time you get to state pension age on Plan Two loans. So I think the risk averse thing to do is to have the money put aside so that you could pay off the loan whenever you wanted, while we're still in the, we're not quite sure what's going to happen phase. And if ever you decide you do want to pay it off, well, you've got the money sitting there in that high interest savings account, you can just get rid of it and pay it off.

• 18:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That does make a lot more sense. Yeah.

• 18:34Martin Lewis?

  All right. I wish you the best with it, and congratulations on the degree.

• 18:39Martin Lewis?

  Good luck.

• 18:40Speaker 05

  Okay, thank you, Martin.

• 18:41Martin Lewis?

  Cheers.

• 18:44Martin Lewis?

  Oh, that was interesting, Michael. So what have you got next?

• 18:47Speaker 04

  Okay, so next up, Martin, we have a question from Anne Murray. And Anne asks, "I am currently with EDF Energy with a fix that ends at the end of October. I'm now looking to fix again, but I'm not sure whether to go for one or two-year fix. Can you help?"

• 19:01Martin Lewis?

  Oh, now, that's a much more difficult question of whether I should fix or not. Should you fix or not? Yes, absolute no-brainer. If you don't fix, you'll be on the energy price cap. The energy price cap is high. It's currently predicted to drop about 1% next January, then go up about 6% in April and up, and then stay roughly the same after that. But those predictions only last a year. So if we were to compare the energy price cap, which is what happens when your fix ends if you don't do anything, to fixing for one year, where currently the cheapest are around 13% cheaper than the current price cap, then if those predictions are right, and they're certainly strong until the end of the winter period anyway, it's a no-brainer you want to fix. It gets far more difficult once you start looking at longer fixes over two years. For a couple of reasons.

• 19:46Martin Lewis?

  First of all, you're locked in generally with much higher early exit penalties. So if you were to lock into a two-year fix and energy prices were to get cheaper, then you're going to have to pay a lot more to get out in order to switch to a cheaper tariff. One-year fixes penalties, they're around 50 quid a fuel, so 100 quid dual fuel. And also, because we have the predictions, we have a pretty good idea that they are unlikely

• 20:14Martin Lewis?

  to be better off going on to a price cap than you are right now. So this therefore comes down, rather than trying to take the look, and two-year fixes tend to be a little bit more expensive than one-year fixes as well right now. So ultimately, I think this comes down to your attitude to certainty. If what you want is to know that you can lock in an energy bill for a decent amount of time at a relatively, and it's only at a relatively, cheap rate, then a two-year fix gives you that peace of mind for longer. And you will get it and you just then forget about it and you carry on because you got it because you could afford it. If you're looking to ride the markets, then there is a chance that a one-year fix will be best for you. I tend to focus on one-year fixes because I have far more data and can say with much

• 20:58Martin Lewis?

  more certainty that getting a one-year cheap fix right now will save you money on the vast balance of probabilities. It is more difficult for me to say that over two years. So therefore, that no longer becomes a balance of probabilities question, it becomes a question of how much do you value certainty? So if what you really want is certainty of what you're going to pay, go for the two years. If you want certainty that you're going to save, go for the one year. What have you got next for me?

• 21:24Speaker 04

  Well, actually, I've got a question for you next, Martin, but it's not necessarily related to your finance knowledge and more-

• 21:31Martin Lewis?

  Is this like one of Matt's funny money ones?

• 21:33Speaker 04

  I think so, yeah. I've heard about this. I've heard that Matt does offer his own questions or offers funny questions from listeners, but since I'm only here for one week only, then I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask you a question myself. So it's more related to broadcasting more so than anything else. And I've done this a few times with you in the past and I often worry that you think I can't read because of the way I read our people, listener questions. And I've got to tell you, it's not that, it's just that this red light, as soon as this red light comes on in front of me, I don't know what happens to my ability to speak. But yeah, so have you got any advice on how to get over stage fright, I suppose?

• 22:12Martin Lewis?

  I think it's partly stage fright and it's partly being, I mean, you have the advantage that you can edit yourself, which is good because that's what you do afterwards. But I also think the truth that people don't understand is there is an art to sounding natural on television and radio and it is unnatural. I give a talk to the audience before I start my telly show and it goes something like this. I say, I go, and it's worth noting, television is a louder medium than radio. When you're doing radio, the way they teach you, when I went to broadcast journalism school, is imagine you're just talking to one person in a room, but that you're enthused. When you do television, it's more like talking to an audience. But what I say when I'm doing television is I start by saying, now, I want to give you

• 22:55Martin Lewis?

  the secret of talking on television. The secret to talking on television is when I am at home, talking to my wife, I do not talk to her like this, because she would think I was crackers. I talk like any normal person does. But as you can hear when I'm talking like a normal person, when you're on radio or television, because it is a broadcast medium, it sounds incredibly flat and low and doesn't really work. So the difference between broadcasting and normal life is about 20%. You basically need to turn your talking dial up 20% from what you would normally do, and that is what makes you sound normal bizarrely. And then they go through this whole thing with them and say, so normally, if you'd agree with me like this, and I just look straight, then I would like you to agree with me like

• 23:39Martin Lewis?

  this, and I nod my head very slightly, 20% more. And if you put your hand up like this, and I put my hand up to my shoulder, and I ask you to put your hand up, I want you to put your hand up like this, and you put your hand up straight. So I think the first thing that you have to do, and I think it's a thing that Americans do so much better than us Brits, is when you're in the studio, even if you don't feel confidence, Michael, you need to feign the confidence. You need to get all your neurons flashing, saying, I can do this, this is absolutely fine, and I've got edit control anyway, so I can always take out any of my ums and ahs and anything that I'm going to be doing. And then you go through it, but you've got to turn your dial up a little bit. And if you're struggling on the read, because you're reading people's words that you haven't seen before, then it's absolutely fine to take a little bit of a pause, not that I

• 24:24Martin Lewis?

  often do, but to take a little bit of a pause and a little bit of a moment and enunciate it through. People won't mind, they won't hear it. We, when we're broadcasting, I know sometimes when I'm doing a show, and I will, my brain would have just forgotten the next point or something, and I will feel like I paused for 17 seconds, and I watch it back afterwards, and it just meant, instead of taking a breath like this, yeah, I take a breath like this. Yeah, it's, you know, it's normally half a second. It's all just so much heightened sense. You're doing great, mate. I'm enjoying working with you. Do not worry. Does that help at all?

• 24:58Speaker 04

  It does. Let me just, so if I normally talk here, if I start talking up here.

• 25:03Martin Lewis?

  It's less up, it's more just projecting a little bit more and a little bit more confidence and taking the odd word and giving it a bit of oomph.

• 25:10Speaker 04

  All I want is me mates to stop telling me that I sound like I've got a phone voice, like I'm answering the phone. So every time I'm on air, I always, I think, oh, what is people got, what are people gonna say to me this week? But yeah, thanks very much. I've taken notes.

• 25:22Martin Lewis?

  The funny thing is, when you're just talking to me naturally, then you're doing it right. And that's what you've just got to remember. You've got to, you can factor that in. Well done, buddy. What we got, what have you got for me next?

• 25:31Speaker 04

  Okay, Martin, so we've got another caller on the line for you. We have Tamzin in Dover.

• 25:35Martin Lewis?

  Hello, Tamzin. How are you?

• 25:37Speaker 06

  Hello, Martin. Hiya, Michael. Um, I have a question about stewing.

• 25:42Martin Lewis?

  Hold on, hold on, hold on. I've already got producer Matt when he's here building the role. I mean, you don't need to say hello to Michael. Me, just me is absolutely fine.

• 25:49Speaker 04

  It's nice, it's nice to have someone say hello as well. Come on now.

• 25:52Martin Lewis?

  Oh, I love it. We've got a stewzer though. I love a stewzer. Go on, carry on.

• 25:56Speaker 06

  Uh, so I have a stew spot of around seven thousand pounds. Um, and in a couple of years' time, my mortgage will be due for a remortgage. And I just want to know if having a stew spot is going to affect the rates that the mortgage lenders may be able to offer me?

• 26:13Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so let's just define stewing for all those non-stewers out there. I almost said non-stewers are losers, but that would be very rude, so I won't say it. For all those non-stewers out there. Stewing is for financially sophisticated people who deliberately borrow debt at zero percent interest, usually on a credit card. They build up that zero percent debt while saving the same amount of money in as high an interest rate savings as you can get. So if you have seven thousand pounds of debt at zero percent on a credit card and you have the same seven thousand pounds in a bank account earning four percent interest, then you're gaining two hundred and eighty pounds a year on the interest on the money that the credit card company has lent you for nothing. So you're effectively making profit out of the financial system

• 26:58Martin Lewis?

  and it's a way of sticking your thumbs up to big finance and saying, I'm a bit smarter than you. So well done you, first of all.

• 27:06Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 27:07Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, I think you're right to ask the question. My initial instinct is not really. But if we're, I think, you know, ultimately, when you apply for a mortgage, they're going to do both an affordability check and a credit check. As long as your affordability is good, it should be fine and you've got, it's certainly got enough equity in your property, and I know that I'm talking to a Stuza, so I don't need to define that, then I think you would be fine. You probably, the credit score generally does not alter the rate that you would get. That's more the affordability check and how close you are to the, to the brink. It can do somewhat. I think, I mean, what it could do is if you didn't have a good affordability score and you were really pushing it to the brink, it could mean you were rejected.

• 27:52Martin Lewis?

  Now, if we were to assess what having that artificial seven thousand pounds of debt does, it, it's not that brilliant. If we take the two main criteria that it would affect, the first is your debt ratio, what percent of your annual income you have as debt. Well, obviously, you've built a false debt, so it's going to be relatively high. You've got seven thousand pounds of debt and I don't know if you have others. And then we look at your credit utilization, which is how much of your available credit you are using. Well, as a Stuza, you always want to maximize and use as much of your credit as you can because it's at zero percent and that's what makes you the profit. So you've probably got a high credit utilization as well, which would impact your credit score.

• 28:32Martin Lewis?

  So what I would probably say, the safe thing to do is to pay off your, is to use, pay off your Stu's pot, you know, pay off the credit card debt six months before you go to the remortgage. Because I'm not sure, and that is probably, my instinct tells me, because none of this is science, there's art in here, my instinct tells me that is probably overkill. But for the sake of 140 quid's interest over that six month period before you can start to stew's again.

• 29:03Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 29:03Martin Lewis?

  You might just say, hey, just on the on the slight risk that it's going to stop me remortgaging, I may as well just lose 140 quid interest to make sure that I get as better mortgage rate as I possibly can. So that the safer thing to do would be to pay it off six months beforehand, but I may have just unnecessarily cost you 140 quid by doing by telling you that. And I need to be honest. What's your what's your thought?

• 29:25Speaker 06

  That's absolutely fine. I was feeling the same. I, you know, I appreciate that. I think like I've got a good loan to value. There's certain things that in my favour, but equally I don't want it to then become difficult and and I am holding, you know, a slightly higher credit ratio and higher credit utilisation. And I don't want that to negatively impact my mortgage because actually the mortgage is the largest amount of debt that I'm borrowing. So I want that to be.

• 29:52Martin Lewis?

  Absolutely. And cutting cutting 0.05% off your mortgage will probably gain you more than you are gaining from stewing ultimately.

• 30:00Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 30:01Martin Lewis?

  And so that's that's my sort of summary. It's interesting. I happen to have sitting in the room me, I always have one of my team here who's who fax checks me do questions. I'm going to put his mic up, he's probably get scared now. Peter, Peter's a stewser as well, aren't you? I am, yeah. Yeah. How big's your stew's pot, if one could ask such a thing? I don't have one at the moment, and it's for this exact reason, because I was coming up to a remortgage and I just felt uneasy about would this affect my mortgage chances? So I did pay it off, I actually did it three months before. And Peter, I should say, on my site is is the person who focuses and looks at stewing. So it's quite interesting to get his viewers doing it as well. He's and he's gone for exactly the same scenario as you.

• 30:42Martin Lewis?

  Stewing is great, but mortgage getting the right mortgage is more important, it's not worth risking. So both of you need to temporarily suspend your stewing and then go back to being stewers later. Well done and thank you, Peter. And thank you so much for that call. Fascinating.

• 30:56Speaker 06

  Thank you very much. I really appreciate that.

• 30:58Martin Lewis?

  Pleasure.

• 30:59Speaker 06

  Okay, thank you. Take care.

• 31:00Martin Lewis?

  Bye bye.

• 31:04Martin Lewis?

  And Michael, I think there's time to squeeze in one more question before we finish. Do you have anything else for me?

• 31:08Speaker 04

  I have one more here for you, Martin. I'm going to apologise in advance because I don't want to butcher this person's name. So I'm going to call them Minol or Minol. Who says, "Many of the top bank accounts are app only. I have hesitated opening accounts at one of these banks as I am concerned about what happens if the app stops working or if I lose my phone or my phone stops working. Can you suggest how to manage this situation? I still want high interest, but without the risk that technology malfunctions can cause."

• 31:37Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so actually, most of the top bank current accounts aren't app only. You're able to operate them in many different ways. So I presume you're actually talking to me about some of the top savings accounts or cash ISAs. And therefore, I would say that the whole point of savings accounts or cash ISAs, they're generally long-term stores of your money that you do not need to access on a frequent basis. So the risk of an app breaking down or you losing your phone is actually much more manageable than it would be if we were saying it was an app-only current account, and there are some of those, where you have to manage your day-to-day banking through the app and therefore losing your phone would be disastrous or having a lack of access to the app would be disastrous.

• 32:20Martin Lewis?

  So when it comes to the savings accounts, if that's what you're talking, I'm far less bothered about it than you are. The most important thing to look at with savings accounts is are they UK regulated? So in the unlikely event that the bank were to go bust, you would be protected up to £85,000 per person, per financial institution.

• 32:39Martin Lewis?

  And I mean, certainly all of those I mentioned and most of them out there are, but you should always double check. So, I mean, ultimately, if you want high interest and the high interest is coming from an app-only bank, you're going to need to go for an app-only bank. But if it's a savings account, ask yourself the honest question. Is this just a place I'm going to be putting my money away and hardly taking it out more than two or three times a year? In which case, the risk of something going wrong with the app or you losing your phone at that exact moment is probably pretty limited. But if you're trying to ask me, how do I open a top paying app only savings account without using their app? You can't. You would have to scroll down the list of best buys and find one that isn't app based. And therefore, you would be sacrificing some interest rate to do so. And that's a perfectly legitimate choice to you make. And it depends on the time.

• 33:24Martin Lewis?

  Sometimes the top pairs aren't app only at all. And that seems to be a good way to finish. That's it for this week's question time. Don't forget to subscribe so you know when we release a new episode. We're going to be putting out a new question time each Monday alongside the regular, the Martin Lewis podcast, which will stay on Thursdays. Aren't you lucky? Two doses of money saving tips and tricks a week. Do make sure you send in any questions you've got to [email protected]. Ta ta. Martin Lewis is the founder of moneysavingexpert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available.

• 34:05Martin Lewis?

  You can get in touch with Martin's podcast team by emailing [email protected].

• 34:13Speaker 02

  The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you're listening on demand, it's worth double checking as the details can date.

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