Budget 2026: Instant reaction special!

What does today's Budget really mean for your finances? Martin Lewis breaks down the announcements and omissions that could affect your wallet, from frozen income tax thresholds and student loans to Cash ISAs, savings tax and pensions. He also explores energy bills, standing charges, Lifetime ISAs, support for carers, mileage allowances and Warm Home help. Expect clear explanations, consumer-focused analysis and no political point-scoring, just the money facts that matter.

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

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• 1:45Martin Lewis?

  A rise of 27% on your gas and electricity bills in January. I think the mechanism of the intervention is right.

• 1:52Speaker 04

  And a few questions in from listeners I want to put to you, if that's okay.

• 1:55Martin Lewis?

  One I was really pleased to see announced when this came out. How could your maths, Matt? I don't want to put you on the spot if it's not that good. It's something I've been campaigning on for a long time. Hello, welcome to this budget special podcast. The Chancellor has not long ago sat down and I want to try and talk you through all the consumer finance issues. I'm not interested in the politics, I'm just interested in the practicals. I'm going to be talking to you about energy bills, standing charges on this new £100 payment on council tax, homes and first time buyers, tax, savings, ISAs, investments, fuel duty, carers allowance, mileage and so much more. And the way that I'm going to do it is using a couple of interviews I've done during the day on Five Live

• 2:38Martin Lewis?

  to fill out the details so that you can hear that to different parts of the day and to get you through it as well as adding in some extra podcast only stuff. Quick safety warning before I begin. This is instant reaction. This is hearing what the Chancellor said and doing basic analysis at the first point. The thing to understand about a budget is actually a massive document. So don't assume ISAs dotted and Ks are crossed here. This is big picture what's happening. I will be digging into the minutiae over the next few days. Let's start with an interview I gave to Matt Chorley not long after the Chancellor had sat down.

• 3:33Speaker 05

  Let's get the analysis now of our very own Martin Lewis of Five Live's Martin Lewis podcast. Martin Lewis, afternoon Martin, what's leapt out for you?

• 3:42Martin Lewis?

  Well, I think it's always worth starting with the two things that weren't done that were very big in this. Fiscal drag, the biggest way that the government wrecks money has stayed. There's no change to income tax thresholds coming in, which means that as people earn more and inflation goes up, more people will pay tax and more people will pay tax at the higher and additional rate. And within this, the thing I was most disappointed about and I'm still very angry about is the double fiscal drag that it will go on top of those who have outstanding Plan Two student loans. That's new English and Welsh student starters from 2012 onwards up to 2023. Rachel Reeves last year froze the repayment threshold. That freeze will continue.

• 4:26Martin Lewis?

  And again, this effectively means as earnings go up with inflation and earnings go up with average earnings, as the threshold will be frozen from April 2027 to 2030, people will pay back more of the student loan each year. It will take more of their disposable income and many low and middle earners will pay more. I believe that's a breach of natural justice because these were contracts signed with 18 year olds that the government is now unilaterally, one sidedly changed. So those are the things that the second one I find is particularly wrong. The first one I know will be incredibly unpopular. Obviously, the big stuff this was all about today, though, was energy bills. I was in with the Chancellor at seven o'clock this morning to get the confirmation of standing charges, something I've campaigned on for six years.

• 5:11Martin Lewis?

  I am very pleased to see the gas standing charge is to be scrapped. My prediction is it'll either be on the first of October next year or on the first of January 2028. They said it'll happen next year and you could technically argue that it, the last day of standing charges being on the 31st of December, it's happening next year. And knowing I've already had discussions about the technical difficulty of them doing that. So I think it'll be later next year. Of course, the cost of scrapping that daily charge that you pay for having the facility of having gas will go on to the unit rate. My back of the envelope calculations are somewhere between 0.8 and 0.9 P per kilowatt hour. And what this basically means is lower users will pay less, higher users will pay more.

• 5:53Martin Lewis?

  The point for geeks out there is somewhere around 12, 12,500 kilowatt hours. But what's really interesting, Nestor did some great research on this, on the income distribution of scrapping the gas standing charge. And for every income threshold up to £100,000, the majority of people will gain. Overall, it's 60 gain, 40 lose, but up to £100,000, the majority gain. It is only in income thresholds above £100,000 where the majority lose out on this system. Of course, if prices are still sky high, we might need protections for the vulnerable high users. But this principle of you pay for what you use, getting rid of the moral hazard that is a standing charge that so many lower users find no benefit from cutting their bills

• 6:38Martin Lewis?

  because so much of it is taken up by the standing charge is absolutely right. And the Chancellor told me this morning when I asked him about it that they would be looking to do exactly the same with the electricity too, but that's more difficult and will take longer. And you want, you probably want to know about the £100 as well.

• 6:53Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, the impact of the £100. I mean, that is money straight into people's bank accounts, but not everybody's.

• 6:58Martin Lewis?

  No, well, look, I've been saying for a long time we needed intervention in January. Let's be absolutely plain, the price cap in January is currently predicted to go up 27%. Just think about that for a second, a rise of 27% on your gas and electricity bills in January. It is horrendous. And what it equates, it's really interesting when you do the maths on this. If we take that mythical off gem typical use figure, it is an annualised increase of £450 a year. But remember, the January price cap only lasts until March, so it's only a quarter of a year. So we're talking the actual increase someone would pay on typical use is £100 to £120 for January to March. This £100 payment covers that.

• 7:41Martin Lewis?

  Now, when I've been in discussions in the past about this, my concern was if they looked at doing it via the Warm Home Discount, that only gives money to about 6 million people on benefits. And lots of people who were just above the benefit threshold complained about that and saying, what about me? I don't get any help and I'm really struggling. So Rishi Sunak did this first and I was involved in that during the Ukraine energy crisis. And what I said to him, and I'm glad the government today has followed that, is council tax is the least worst proxy for household income. We don't have the data on household income, it's very expensive to get it. So council tax is the least worst proxy. If you do it as they have, which is everyone in council tax band A to D, it's the means test is effectively what council tax band you're in.

• 8:24Martin Lewis?

  If you do it and you give everyone £100, of course, there are some people getting £100 who shouldn't get £100 because they don't need it. Equally, there are some people not getting £100 who do need £100. And what the government has done, which is again, same as with Rishi Sunak, I argued the same then as I have this time, is they've, in fact, they've put in £100 million for the council's resilience fund that people who are struggling and are not getting the money will be able to apply for. So if you're going to do an intervention, I think the mechanism of the intervention is right. Other things on energy from a consumer finance perspective, I won't deal with the structural issues that he announced. The VAT scrapping on electricity has been extended till July.

• 9:00Speaker 05

  Okay, let's talk about a change and a, and a non-change, ISAs and LIs. Let's start with the ISA because there was an expectation of a change, but it's not happening.

• 9:10Martin Lewis?

  I'm delighted about this one as well. I mean, I have to be honest with you, I had a list of eight things when I went into the Chancellor and met him two months ago, five of them have been done today. So, and this is another one, the cash ISA limit was due to be reduced from £20,000 a year to £12,000 a year from next April. There were also a whole load of anti avoidance measures being put in place. So you would no longer be able to transfer from a shares ISA to a cash ISA. If you held cash in a shares ISA, there would be a specific tax charge. It was really complicated. And the reason they did this, and Rachel Reeves said to me, her exact quote to me was, this isn't about raising revenue, this is about encouraging young people to invest. Last year, I argued then, why are you doing it for older people?

• 9:55Martin Lewis?

  And that was why it was only for over 65s. For me, it's still the wrong way to do it. We should incentivise now what people to invest and I'll come on to that in a minute. That's all gone. So from this April, everybody of every age will still have the same up to £20,000 per tax year they can put in a cash ISA and all the anti avoidance measures have gone. What is also announced, and this was specifically my idea, I said it to Rachel Reeves and I said it to him and I'm, I'm feeling quite chuffed about it. My idea was a starter investment ISA, it's not a separate ISA. The way I described it is for the first £2,000 or £3,000 that you put in an investment ISA, if it's the first time you put it in and it may be age limited, we don't know yet that, you should get a 10 or 15% boost on what you put in. This would encourage people to dip their toe in the investing waters

• 10:40Martin Lewis?

  when people are very scared because you've got a whole buffer before you can lose money of 10 or 15%. And it would just be part of a normal ISA, so it'd be a bonus. Many firms already do that type of incentive, but by structurally making it that you will always get this the first time you invest, it becomes a lot easier for someone like me to talk about it in generic terms rather than giving specific terms. And it's a much better idea. He said today he'll be consulting on that. I'm going to be involved in that consultation. I think that is going to be good news. Then the negative on savings. So there was already a plan to do this, but it's got worse. If you save outside of a cash ISA,

• 11:17Martin Lewis?

  And outside of your personal savings allowance, that's the £1,000 of interest the basic rate taxpayer can earn a year tax-free, £500 for higher rate tax, you don't get it for additional rate. The tax on savings interest and property earnings, so basically landlords, is going to increase from April. So for a basic rate taxpayer, it's currently 20%. It was due to go to 22%. It will go to 24% now. For a higher rate taxpayer, it's going to go to 44% rather than the current 40%. For an additional rate taxpayer, it's going to go to 49% rather than the current 45%. So in one hand, the cash ISA limit, which is really valuable, it's tax-free, so it's really important people who are savings and don't want to invest, whether you should

• 12:02Martin Lewis?

  be investing or not is another matter, use their cash ISAs because the tax on savings interest, if you pay it, and most people don't, is going to go up.

• 12:11Speaker 05

  And then on LISAs, the lifetime ISA, which is to encourage people to basically put money aside to start maybe thinking about buying a home for the first time, first time buyers. There's a change there happening as well?

• 12:22Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, and I'm going to say, I'm sorry, this is another one I've been campaigning on, so I'm very happy about these changes that are coming in.

• 12:27Speaker 05

  You're funding the government, Martin.

• 12:29Martin Lewis?

  Well, there's a lot of retail in this. Ultimately, if we're going to be really honest, yeah, they have very little macroeconomic wiggle room here. So what do you do if you don't have wiggle room? You go retail. And I don't mean shops retail, I know you know this, I'm talking retail policies, policies that appeal to the consumer, which is basically what I do. So when I went in with a list, I think there was, okay, so this is where the sweet spots are. Now, the problem with the lifetime ISA, and many young people, especially in the south and east of England, have been absolutely killed by this. You can put in up to £4,000 a year and you get a 25% bonus, so up to £5,000 a year, which you can use as a first-time buyer on a property under £450,000, once you've had the lifetime ISA open for more than a year.

• 13:13Martin Lewis?

  But if you buy a property over £450,000, you pay a penalty, and the effective penalty that you pay is you have to give the state 6.25% of the money you saved. So not only do you not get a bonus, the state effectively fines you for using your own money towards a first-time property in a savings product that is designed for first-time buyers. It's nonsense. Now, I've argued two things. One, put the threshold up, and two, get rid of that penalty, which is what they're doing. So I need to explain it to people because this is complicated. How good's your maths, Matt? I don't want to put you on the spot if it's not that good.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  I'm okay, but let's find out at the end of the conversation if we think my maths is up to it. Go on.

• 13:56Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so if you put £1,000 in and you get a 25% bonus, what do you have?

• 14:00Speaker 05

  Uh, £1,250.

• 14:03Martin Lewis?

  Take 25% off that, you might need a calculator.

• 14:06Speaker 05

  I'll probably all need a calculator. I can do that though, that's, that's, here we are.

• 14:11Martin Lewis?

  Let's do it. £1,250 times...

• 14:13Speaker 05

  £1,250.

• 14:14Martin Lewis?

  Times 0.75.

• 14:15Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, of course, no, oh, hang on, I've got 312. This is good, isn't it? This is maths on the radio. Here we are. Times 0.75, there we are, £937.50.

• 14:29Martin Lewis?

  So you put £1,000 in, you've got £1,250, but you take it out, you pay 25% penalty if you're not buying it for a qualifying house, so you have that 93, whatever it was.

• 14:40Speaker 05

  937, you're actually your worst off if you just kept the £1,000.

• 14:43Martin Lewis?

  Correct. Under the new system, the penalty is being reduced if you use it to buy a house over £450,000 to 20%, which basically means you get back the money you put in plus any interest. So what we've gone for is this high-risk system where I have to buy a property under £450,000, or I'm going to be, not only am I not going to get the bonus, I'm going to be penalised, to as long as you're buying a property, you will at least get back what you put in plus interest, you just may not get the bonus, which massively de-risks it. We've also got them launching in 2029, and you first-time buyer ISA, which is going to be a much simpler scheme like the old Help to Buy ISA, it's not going to have the pension linkage, you're not going to have this issue with the bonus, you'll be able to take your money out whenever you want.

• 15:27Martin Lewis?

  We await more details on that, but I met, you know, Jeremy Hunt told me he would fix this, Rachel Reeves said she'd look at fixing this, so I'm very, very happy that John Healy has delivered on this particular one, and that starts tomorrow. It starts Thursday. It starts tomorrow, from tomorrow, if you take your money out to buy a house over £450,000, not for any other reason, you're going to get a 20% penalty. They've also got the new Your First Home for First-Time Buyers, which is basically giving you an interest-free loan up to 15%, well, 12.5%, you've got to have 2.5% deposit for new builds from February 2027. There are criteria there, and earnings criteria that go into that one as well. Okay, so well, that's all we had time for on Five Live, but it's not all I've got time

• 16:11Martin Lewis?

  for, so let me go to the next big issue on my list, which is the state pension. We'll go through the story on this. Last year, I was interviewing Rachel Reeves for my telly show, and I asked her a question about the state pension, because from April 2027, we were pretty sure back then, it's now nailed down now, the full new state pension, remember, not everyone gets a full pension, not everyone's on the new pension, but the full new state pension will be more than the personal allowance, the amount that you can earn tax-free each year. And so I asked her the question, are you going to make people who are earning above the full state pensioners who are earning above the tax personal allowance, fill in

• 16:55Martin Lewis?

  forms and fill in self-assessment forms? To which she said no, and her answer was slightly confused, so I followed it up and said, are you saying they don't have to pay tax at all? And she said on air, and I've heard since that that may have been the first time some people in the Treasury heard about it, she said on air, no, they won't have to pay tax at all. So that policy came into being possibly at the moment of that question. But what that rose was this dilemma. If you're going to say to people, what she had said specifically was from April 2027, if you only get the full new state pension, you will not have to pay tax. But what about someone who got slightly less than the full new state pension and had other earnings that topped them to that level, or someone who got the full new state pension but had, let's say, £1 a month coming from a private pension scheme?

• 17:39Martin Lewis?

  Would they then have to pay tax on the entire amount? And let me do the maths and you'll understand this. So we now know that from April 2027, the full new state pension will be around £13,040. The personal allowance is £12,570, so it's nearly £500 above that. So the tax is about £94, £95 that you would pay. So that's how much you're saving if you don't pay tax. So somebody got £12 income, then losing out the £95 tax saving, that wouldn't work. So all year, we've been asking the Treasury, how's it going to work? Are you still going to do it? They say, yeah, we're still going to do it. We now know how it will work, and this is how it will work.

• 18:20Martin Lewis?

  There is a new state pension tax allowance. It's complicated, I will try and keep it simple. And I should say, this will happen automatically, you don't need to do a self-assessment form or anything like that. Basically, if your total income from all sources is under £13,037, which is the exact amount of the full new state pension, you will not pay tax. If you have income above that, for each £3 you earn above that, you lose £1 of gain from the tax-free allowance. So what do I mean by that? The total tax gain is £94, £95, so each £3 above, you lose a pound of that £94, £95. So let me give you an example.

• 19:05Martin Lewis?

  If you earn £13,186, which is basically £150 above, you lose £50 of that tax-free amount, so instead of getting £94, your tax gain from this new allowance is £44. By the time you earn £13,317, I think it's 17 quid, give or take, sorry, still getting used to the numbers, you don't get any tax gain, so you just pay the same tax as someone who wasn't a state pensioner. So that's how it's going to work. It effectively means that they can say someone on the full new state pension, or with that earnings, if you're on the old pension, all of it. If you're a state pension age, you don't pay tax on earnings up to £13,040, and you pay a reduced tax compared to someone who is under state pension age, up to £13,317.

• 19:53Martin Lewis?

  That's the state pension. I've got a few more things I want to talk to you about, but let's have a break now because I was in with the Chancellor first thing this morning when the news broke of the fact that standing charges for gas are to be scrapped. And I did an interview with Rick Edwards, straight on the back of that. I was in there because I'd been campaigning about this issue and the Chancellor invited me in at the time of the announcement to tell me about it. So here's my interview with Rick Edwards and then I'll come back with a few more little bits to tell you about the budget. The Chancellor invited me in at seven o'clock this morning to tell me in person it was happening, which was rather nice. Standing charges are a moral hazard. They disincentivise low users from cutting their bills. So many people get in touch with me and say, I can't do anything more, over half my bill is the standing charge. So this is a great first step.

• 20:38Martin Lewis?

  They say it'll happen in 2027. What I read that to mean, because this is about standing charges on the price cap, not other tariffs. Other tariffs are still free to have standing charges or not have standing charges, as they've always been. I think it'll either come in on the first of October or perhaps on the first of January 28th. So they could argue it ended in 27 because the last day of standing charges would be the last day of the year. What it will mean in practice is the cost of the £108 a year gas standing charge will be shifted to the unit rate, the rate you pay for each kilowatt hour of gas you use. My back of the envelope guesstima, and it can only be that because we don't know the prices yet, it'll be just under a penny.

• 21:18Martin Lewis?

  When you look at the income distribution on this, so it's about 60 to 65% of people will be better off, 35 to 40% of people will be worse off. But in every income group up to 100,000, the majority of people are better off. It's only in income groups above 100,000 where the majority of people are worse off. So yeah, I do see this as good news because it means people will pay for what they use, which is what people want. They want to pay for what they use. I mean, they don't want to pay as much for what they use, as they're going to be doing certainly from January, but they want to pay for what they use.

• 21:51Speaker 04

  A few questions in from listeners I want to put to you, if that's okay. David in London says, do you know if the abolition of standard charges on gas meters, fixed charges, also applies to business meters?

• 22:01Martin Lewis?

  Is as far as I'm aware, and it's all that I cover, about consumer bills on the price cap. Business tariffs are not price capped. So no, it doesn't mean that for the moment. Although I should note that the Chancellor told me, but didn't tell me annoyingly, that there will be other substantive announcements on the energy system for consumers and businesses coming in the budget today. I don't know what they are. I do know, or I'm pretty sure there will be an intervention package coming for the January rise. I'm expecting a 27% rise in the price cap in January. Now that equates to about, over just January till the end of March, because that's how long the price cap lasts, about £100 on a typical bill. I think they'll either be increasing the warm home discount or be putting support

• 22:46Martin Lewis?

  on to council tax. My guess would be band A to D, which is what Rishi Sunak did. I was involved in that because it's a good proxy for household income. So I'd be listening for that. But I think there'll be structural changes too that could affect business users.

• 22:57Speaker 04

  And Phil says, but it's only on gas, why can't it be on electric too?

• 23:01Martin Lewis?

  I had that very conversation. I've lobbied for it to come off both. I mean, in a way, I would see this as both Labour and Tories in the last manifesto, when we asked them, said they wanted to reduce standing charges. You could see this as a reduction from £308 a year to £200 a year, just all coming on gas. When I asked the Chancellor that this morning, what he said to me is it's just more technically difficult to do that, but he wants it to happen. And they will be pushing off JMO next year to come up with a plan for how to reduce the standing charges on electricity. They've gone for gas because it's the one they can do quickest and it's the lowest hanging fruit, is the honest answer, I think.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  And what happens to people who are on a fixed tariff right now? A couple of people asking that, Chris in Somerset, for example.

• 23:41Martin Lewis?

  Well, first of all, remember, this is not going to be coming in until at least the latter half of 2027, and this does not affect fixes. This is about the standing charges on the price cap, the default tariff, the I've done nothing tariff, the pants cap, if you like, that most people are on. But my suspicion is when they change the structure of prices on the price cap, then the when other firms set special tariffs that aren't covered by the price cap, including fixes, they will probably have lower standing charges on them just to react to the way the market's moving. But your fix doesn't change. A fix has always been free to charge what standing charges it likes, also been free not to have any standing charges. This is about the price cap. But I think the market structures will change once this comes in at the end of next year.

• 24:24Martin Lewis?

  But for now, if fixing is right for you and fixes are expensive at the moment, I should say, then continue to fix. And if you're on a fix, nothing should change to your fix. So there we go. Of course, that interview was done before the budget itself, so you can judge how well I was calling it and how well I wasn't calling it from that interview yourself. You now know exactly what's gone on, or hopefully you were listening to the earlier part of the podcast. It was a surreal experience, I have to tell you. So I walked in the gates at about 10 to 7. And all, of course, all the journalists are lined up in the press pack. And as a journalist, it was quite strange to be the one walking into number 11, having my photograph taken and the cameras on. And then a couple of TV shows had live footage of me walking in. And you know, those live updates, Martin Lewis walks in, it was quite bizarre.

• 25:07Martin Lewis?

  And then I came out and I did some interviews, which was of course what they wanted. They wanted me to do interviews on standing charges because I'd never been campaigning for it and then I'd be in favour of it, which I don't really have a problem with. As I always say, when you're a campaigning journalist, you push very hard, but when you get something you've been campaigning for, you'd be gracious about it and you effectively say thank you. So to go in and speak to the Chancellor after he's done something I've been campaigning on for the last six years seemed a relatively sensible move for me, but by no fear or favour from other issues, I should note. Let's just do a few more things, a couple of things to clear on my list. Fuel duty. The fuel duty escalator has again been suspended. The cost on petrol and diesel was due to go up in December. It's not now going up, that's been suspended until July.

• 25:49Martin Lewis?

  Now, carers allowance cliff edge, one I was really pleased to see announced when this came out yesterday. It's something I've been campaigning on for a long time. It was another on my list when I spoke to John Healy, so I was delighted to hear this. This cliff edge is horrendous. Here's how it works at the moment. If you care for somebody 35 hours a week or more unpaid, that's a lot, then you are entitled to carers allowance of roughly £87 a week taxable, but you only get it if you earn under £204 a week after tax and national insurance and a few other things. You earn £204, you get carers allowance, which after tax takes you to around £280.

• 26:31Martin Lewis?

  You earn £204 and a penny, you take home £204 and a penny. You are far worse off when you work and earn more than you are on a lower level. Now, the big problem with this is the system, the IT system is so poor. It's one of the reasons, unfortunately, this change won't come in until 2030, but I hear it's totally costed and already paid for, so it will be happening. You earn, the people who may have earned a little bit more without realising it or had a slight pay increase due to minimum wage or done an extra hour or so, suddenly have still been paid the benefit, not known, and then enough for thousands to be clawed back later. The Guardian broke this story and it's horrendous. And that was a number of years ago. So the whole system's awful and cliff edges are always awful. What's going to happen now is for every pound you earn above the threshold, currently

• 27:15Martin Lewis?

  £204, but when this comes in, in a few years' time, hopefully it'll be higher, you then lose a pound of carers allowance. So you don't gain anything by working, but at least you don't earn anything by working. So it diminishes the disincentive to work. What it actually means in practice is if you earn £204 or more, up to £280ish after tax, you will always get a total of £280 because each pound you earn from work, you lose it on the carers allowance, but you still get the same amount. So hopefully it gets rid of some of the holes, some of the disincentive to work and is a big improvement. Just to finish off, we also heard an announcement that the mileage allowance is to increase. So we'll do it for cars and vans. Some of this already happened.

• 28:00Martin Lewis?

  Last year, they changed it so your mileage allowance has increased from 45p to 55p for the first 10,000 miles you drive in a year. That was meant to be temporary, that's now permanent. They've also now increased the allowance if you drive more. If you drive over 10,000 miles, it's up from 25p to 35p. For those who don't know what this is, this is if you're driving for work as part of your work. It's the amount of money you can be paid by your firm tax-free for your mileage that you do. Equally, if they don't give you that amount, it's that you can actually claim back the tax that you paid on that amount. So sort of claim back your workings on that up to that level. So that has increased. What else do I have for you? I'll just do a brief note on this because I'll do more on this in detail. They are launching the new Warm Home Loan Scheme.

• 28:45Martin Lewis?

  This is for funding solar powers and batteries and air pumps that's coming out. It's between interest-free and 5% finance. I'm still dotting I's, crossing T's on exactly how it's going to work, but I will bring you that on the podcast in future. Again, final warning from me, I should say, this is all provisional, we're looking at all the docs and going through it. So this is just my instant reaction. There is still some I dotting and T crossing yet to come. I hope it's been useful though. Thank you. And that's it for this special edition of the podcast. We'll be back on Monday with a quick Q and A podcast and then running as normal, far more relaxed, far more standard, me and Adrian, Mastermind, all the usual stuff, coming back in from next Thursday. Thank you for listening.

• 29:45Speaker 06

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

• 30:21Speaker 02

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