Energy fixes are back! | Best ISAs for 2026/7 | Council Tax Change

Energy bills are in the news and this may be a crucial moment. In this podcast Martin explains the Energy Price Cap, and the firms offering fixes cheaper than the Price Cap. It’s a new tax year, and that means all UK adults have a new £20,000 tax-free ISA allowance to use. Martin runs through your options of where to put your money. Martin explains why a change on council tax debt collection which will mean vulnerable people will have more time and support to settle their outstanding council tax bills has put him in a good mood. Listeners Tell Us about financial mistakes that turned out to be a good move. And will Adrian get this week’s Money Mastermind? This week the question is about savings interest. If you want to ask Martin a question, you now can! His Question Time podcast lets you ask Martin absolutely anything and everything (within reason!) – so if you’ve always wanted to know what colour his eyes are, what he's planning to do in his eventual retirement, or have a very complicated question about your personal finances, email it to [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

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

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• 0:54Speaker 01

  Coffee?

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  Love a cup of tea. I'll have tea too.

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• 1:04Martin Lewis?

  I cannot tell you how many people I've met who have been devastated by this. Constituents treated worse than customers. We've also got a cap on the amount of admin costs. Typically, they're £150, they're going to be capped at £100. I was in tears when they first told me they'd do a consultation. This is one of those things that isn't talked about enough. 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 a BBC Radio 5 live show with Adrian Childs, but there's also bonus money-saving tips just for you lucky, lucky podcast listeners. And in today's pod, as we've been off for a couple of weeks and we've had so many questions come in on two big topics, we're going to try and deal with both of them. It's a catch-up pod if you like.

• 1:48Martin Lewis?

  First of all, energy bills are in the news, of course, and this, right now, may be a crucial moment. If you're not on a fix, you're likely to be on the price cap. And after a month of very few options for you to do anything, now there's been a ceasefire in the Middle East, finally firms are offering fixes cheaper than the price cap again. This may well be a window of opportunity to beat the big price rises coming. I'll be answering your questions and explaining that in detail. There's also been a new tax year. Happy New Year, everyone. And that means all UK adults have a new £20,000 tax-free ISA allowance to use. So where do you put it? Your questions and my answers to come on that too. Council tax debt collection is the most aggressive and destructive form of debt

• 2:33Martin Lewis?

  collection out there. It causes misery to millions. But I've got some good news on that. This week's tellers is when did you make a financial mistake that turned out to be a good move? And Adrian has another mastermind task. This week it's on savings. Will he get it? Will you get it right? Play the theme tune.

• 2:59Speaker 03

  First up, Martin, you want to talk to us about council tax?

• 3:02Martin Lewis?

  I do indeed. I've had a happy week, Adrian.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  Good.

• 3:04Martin Lewis?

  Because this has been something I've been passionate about and campaigning on for a couple of years now with my charity, The Money and Mental Health Policy Institute. Council tax debt collection is by far the worst form of debt collection in this country by any legal lending. They are way more aggressive and vicious than any form of consumer lending. What they do would make banks blush and it absolutely devastates and destroys people's financial lives and people's wellbeing. We have 3.3 million people typically in arrears with council tax. We have over a million people have their own councils, send the bailiffs on them, constituents treated worse than customers. And we've been lobbying for change

• 3:44Martin Lewis?

  on that. So the situation as it stands now, if you miss your monthly council tax payment, within three weeks, your council can and most do write to you saying you now have to pay us for the whole year. How they think someone who can't afford to pay for a month can suddenly afford to pay for a year, I don't know. But that's the structure. Within three weeks of that, they can go to court, there's an admin fee added on top, and you can have the bailiff sent. So within roughly six weeks from missing a monthly payment, you can have the bailiff sent in to take a year's payment and more because of the admin

• 4:23Martin Lewis?

  fee on top. The whole way this works, there is no time, there is no space for people who are having temporary issues to sort themselves out. Because often by the time they get the letter telling them they have to pay for a year, with the way the postal system is and the way things work, they have to pay for a year. In fact, people who've Letters on Christmas Eve and told they had to pay on Christmas Day because of postal delays. It's a nightmare. So we've been lobbying for change on that. We've got the government to launch a consultation last year and yesterday announced the results. And from April twenty twenty seven, councils will not be able to change it from a month to a year within the first sixty three days. So you'll have a little over two months before it escalates. We're working with them now to talk about signposting much earlier than that.

• 5:07Martin Lewis?

  So people can go and get debt and financial help. So it's a bit like the breathing space scheme that works on consumer debt. But where you have a council tax debt, you'll be told you've got the debt, you'll be signposted to help. So people who can help you. And hopefully, within that sixty three days, we'll get a lot of people who will then be able to pay for the month, get their finances back on track. And it won't escalate to this having to pay for a year. I'm not saying this is a perfect system as I would design it, but this system has been in place thirty three years as a devastated people's lives. And we've got to change from three weeks to sixty three days is good. We've also got a cap on the amount of admin costs. Typically, they're a hundred and fifty pounds. They're going to be capped at a hundred pounds. Again, in my world, I would have liked it to be lower.

• 5:48Martin Lewis?

  But I cannot tell you how many people I've met who have been devastated by this. Absolutely devastated by this. You know, the reason I do it through my mental health charity, Money in Mental Health, is because it disproportionately affects people who have mental health problems, who often have administration problems as well. And also, of course, if you've got a mental health problem, you're three times more likely to be in crisis debt anyway.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  I mean, it is that there's a peculiar psychological thing to being pursued by what is the state? Or the local state, if you like, you know, from a from a company of some kind or a bank, you know, it's awful. But when it's the state chasing you, like.

• 6:24Martin Lewis?

  Well, this part of another campaign we did is we got the FCA to change that when someone's indebted areas, the letters would threaten to take you to court. And that was enforced by the regulator. We got them to change that because it's counterproductive. Now, the companies are signposting you to help. And there is no, this doesn't reduce the amount of debts that are collected. It just, it's better for the individual. This is better for the councils and better for the economy. There are some other council tax changes too, just to mention them briefly. They're going to shift the default that you pay in 12 monthly payments rather than paying in 10 payments. That's going to start in April 2027 for people moving into new properties and 28, April 28 for everybody, but you will be able to opt for the old 10 month system if you want. So don't panic that. I like that way.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  What was that? How did the 10 month system start?

• 7:07Martin Lewis?

  Currently you pay council tax for 10, I don't know, I don't know why it started, but you pay for 10 months and then you don't pay for two months. Some people like it and people have said to me, yeah, that's the two months I use the money to pay for my car insurance, say. So some people have built their budgeting around it. Great if you have, that's why we lobbied to say, yeah, shift it, but don't lose the option. Just change the default setting. And there's also a change to severe mental impairment that's going to be renamed. It's a discount for people, vulnerable people, Alzheimer's, dementia, severe stroke, severe Parkinson's that I've long campaigned on. Many listeners will know about that. It's going to be called the severe cognitive impairment. Doesn't change the eligibility, the big thing that we asked for that they've done, which I'm pleased. And this sounds bizarre, but this is one of those, I often talk, Adrian, about the

• 7:50Martin Lewis?

  big problem with governments is they do big changes and they forget the small things that really, really matter. And this is going to sound really trivial, this change we asked for. Councils have their own application form for the severe mental impairment discount, which is for vulnerable people to get a reduction in their council tax. I won't go into explaining how it works. But they all have different ones and they all require it to be done in a slightly different way. And we're talking with some of society's most vulnerable and it makes it incredibly difficult to give guidance to people on how to fill in this form, which is a complicated form, because there's no consistency. And the government has agreed that each council will be one form and it will be across all councils, which will make it much easier to help people and guide people through applying for it. Sounds small, but you can see why it would have an impact.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  I've got loads of grateful messages for you here from the happy stylist, for example. Having missed a month five years ago, you're right, it's so stressful, confusing, feels quite scary. A great step forward, albeit two months isn't still that long, but better than three weeks. Jane, so utterly pleased to hear this is being heard. Shocking form of financial devastation. Pauline, amazing. At least something, last something is being done. So many sleepless nights. Cora, do you know what? I'm forever informing them about my lodgers moving in and out, being honest with the council and they take months to work it out. So I'm paying what I can't afford while they are adjusting the payments.

• 9:10Martin Lewis?

  There's a lot of unhappiness about that over the way council tax operates. Of course, it's going up as well. Council funding is really stretched and so I'm very mindful when we were doing this campaign, we have to be aware that the funding is stretched. But I genuinely don't, and I have to be slightly careful because there's local elections coming, there are some councils who do this better than others. And the councils do it better, tend to be more conciliatory, try and work people through help. They have their own teams of bailiffs who go in, who are there to help as well as to take stuff away. They're not working as private bailiffs. And they don't have any less success in debt collection than others. So being more conciliatory and being more, you know, helping the individual who's struggling, doesn't cost the council's money

• 9:52Martin Lewis?

  in the long run. And we need to change attitudes to debt collection. You know, there's no point in saying, "You missed a month, give us a year", when people don't have the money. You're not getting a year, you're just catastrophising someone's finances. That hits their wellbeing and it's the council who'll have to pick up the pieces in the end. So it's way better to work this in a little bit more sensitive way. And thank you, I have many wonderful messages on this. I was in tears when they first told me they'd do a consultation. This is, this is one of those things that isn't talked about enough. People, you know, many of the media don't realise this is going on to millions of people all the time. And so I'm feeling quite proud of myself and especially all the brilliant team at the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute charity.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  We've had the Chancellor Rachel Reeves criticizing President Trump's decision to go to war with Iran and without a kind of an exit plan, saying it was a mistake, hadn't made the world a safer place. She said, "Previous talks to stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon shouldn't have been allowed to continue. The war continues to impact the cost of living in this country and elsewhere. And although average annual energy bills fell by 6.7% on the 1st of April, those on standard price cap tariffs...

• 11:03Speaker 03

  The cap is expected to rise significantly in July.

• 11:06Martin Lewis?

  It is indeed.

• 11:06Speaker 03

  Isn't it? You've had loads of questions on this. I mean, Dale says, what does this even mean? How do I know if I'm on the price cap on a fix for the next year, but not sure what it means by the price cap?

• 11:17Martin Lewis?

  So I've had a bit of an epiphany on that this week because I was doing a talk the other day, it doesn't matter where. It was in front of the general public, there were about 600 people there. And I actually did the same talk three days in a row and I did the same thing, having done it the first time three days in a row. And it worked exactly the same way each time. And this is what happened. So I asked the audience, I said, and if you're at home, answer this as if you're there now in your head. You don't have to do it. We can't hear you. So don't shout it out. There's no point.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  We can hear them.

• 11:41Martin Lewis?

  Can we?

• 11:42Speaker 03

  The technology.

• 11:42Martin Lewis?

  We're not supposed to say that, Adrian.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Okay, sorry.

• 11:45Martin Lewis?

  So here's the question. Put your hand up now in your head. You don't have to do it. Put your hand up now. And if you're driving, please don't do it. Put your hand up now if you are on a fixed tariff or a special deal tariff, like an eco tariff or a time of use tariff or any tariff that you've chosen to get in that sense. What happened with the audience? A third of the hands went up. And this was an audience in London. So because what I'm about to talk about doesn't apply to Northern Ireland, it's England, Scotland, Wales. And then I said, put your hand up if you're on a price cap tariff. And about 600 people there, a third of hands had gone up, two people put their hands up. And I said, fascinating. Everyone who didn't put their hand up to the first question, you are almost certainly on a price cap tariff.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  What's making them think they're not?

• 12:33Martin Lewis?

  I just think people don't understand what it means. And I get questions, I'm on a fix, is that a price cap? No. So let's just try, I'm going to try and do it again. And I wonder if you at home, when I asked you if you're on a price cap tariff, you went, oh, I don't know. And so you didn't really answer, but you hadn't answered yes to the first one. The price cap only affects the standard default tariff that you are put on if you have not actively chosen to be on a tariff. So if you've chosen a fix, you've chosen a time of use, you've chosen a discounted tracker, you've said, oh, that looks a better tariff for me, then you're not on the price cap unless that tariff has ended and many of them last a year. So I mean, I could, I was having a debate with brilliant. Helen, who I work with, an argument, a good constructive argument over whether a way to phrase this would be to say,

• 13:17Martin Lewis?

  have you switched in the last year? Because if you haven't switched in the last year, you're probably on the price cap. But then there are some older, it doesn't quite work. But basically, if you haven't done anything about your energy bill in the last year and you're not on an older fix or a special deal that you're aware of, you're almost certainly on the price cap. And the price cap simply means that it is the regulator off gem that sets the maximum unit rate and standing charge you can be charged on your tariff, it moves every three months and almost every firm has set one prices at or very near the maximum. So your regulator is setting your price. Price went down 6.7% in April. The current prediction is it will go up 14% on the first of July.

• 14:01Martin Lewis?

  It is then predicted to stay at that rate roughly in October and January. But the further out you go, the more crystal ball gazing it is. And the reason everyone needs, the weirdness here, the thing you need to understand and why almost we're arbitraging the difference in tariffs, which is way too complicated. We shouldn't have a system that works that way, but we do. Is the price cap is based on a time lag. So the April price cap we've just had was based on prices from mid-November to mid-February before the Middle East conflict. The July cap is based on prices from mid-February to mid-May. All of the Middle East conflict so far. So even if everything went back to as it was, which is virtually incapable because the strikes of hormones are not going to open,

• 14:45Martin Lewis?

  even if the conflict is completely over. And then, and again, and energy is not going to move that quickly. But even if it did, because the July cap, price cap is an average of three months wholesale rates, two months of them have been very high. So even if the third, the, the third month wasn't very high, it's still going up in July. The current prediction is 14%. Things get better, it might be 10%. If things get worse, it might be 20%. But it would be, it would, something radical and different would have to happen for it not to go up in July. And one would suspect it will still be higher in October and maybe in January than it is right now. So the reason we're doing this, I'm trying to take a picture. So the UK cost of energy, both gas and electricity is primarily based on UK natural gas prices.

• 15:28Martin Lewis?

  Because that's the highest marginal rate, even, and it's used for generating our electricity. Before Ukraine, they would be at roughly 50p. I think it's per firm, I've just forgotten. But let's just, just 50p.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:40Martin Lewis?

  Right. In Ukraine, they shot up to 2, 300 and even peaked at 600 pence. So from 50p to 600 pence. In more recent times, it's come down till just before the Middle East conflict, it was at 75p. So higher than it was before, but much longer than it has been. The peak it's been during the Middle East conflict is 150. So nothing like Ukraine, but double what it was before the conflict. You're still following me? Today, since the ceasefire, today, when I looked an hour ago before I came, so it may have changed in the last hour, but it was at 105. So 75 pre the Middle East conflict, peaking at 150, now at 105.

• 16:20Martin Lewis?

  And that being at 105 is enough that firms can offer fixes cheaper than the April price cap. Because while the price cap is time lagged, when you're offering a fix, you're effectively massively oversimplifying. You're buying a tranche of stock that you can sell at the price today. And the price of wholesale energy today is cheap enough that they can sell fixes below the price cap. And that means you can lock in right now and guarantee no price rises. If you're on the price cap, you can lock in right now at cheaper than the price cap and it's guaranteed not to rise for a year. I can't promise that things might not get even cheaper in future, but certainly the risk averse thing to do now, the bird in the hand thing to do now is,

• 17:02Martin Lewis?

  you can do it right now. If we're talking two weeks ago, the cheapest fix was about 7% more than the April price cap. Today, the cheapest fix is 4% less than the April price cap. That movement because of the ceasefire is a window of opportunity. I don't know if the window will stay open or close or not. I simply couldn't answer.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  Okay, energy price cap questions. Let's rattle through these. Jeff, on the government's reduction in energy costs from April, I'm on an energy fixed tariff. So is my bill reduced each month or does it increase my credit balance with my provider?

• 17:34Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, so what's happened is the rate that you pay, the unit rate you pay for gas and electricity will have reduced between around seven and nine percent on most fixes. There are some exceptions. I'm just going to assume you're on the typical one. So the amount that you pay will, you're probably paying by direct debit. That of course is just to try and cover what you pay in the year. So what will likely happen if your direct debit hasn't changed, but your unit rate has got lower, so you're using yes than you otherwise would, is you'd probably build up a little bit more credit than you would have done. And at some point, they should lower your direct debit if you're building too much credit up. But overall, the amount you'll pay, because everybody's bills went down because of policy costs in April, or almost everybody's bills went down, will be about seven to nine percent lower.

• 18:15Speaker 03

  Dave is fixed until September. Is there an option to re-fix now to save on what will probably be crazy prices in September?

• 18:22Martin Lewis?

  That's a big assumption, crazy prices in September. Remember what I explained before, the price cap is time lagged. The rate you will be able to get a new fix at in September will depend on the wholesale rates in September. If this conflict is over and clear in September, you may be able to fix up substantially cheaper rates than you can fix at right now if you were to wait. So if you're already on a cheap tariff, you know, there's an argument that says you just stick on that. You don't want to have to pay early exit penalties. Of course, the other thing could happen and the world situation could be far worse in September and it's far more and you won't be able to get a cheap fix then. So if you're incredibly risk averse, if you were on a cheap fix now, you may want to pay exit penalties and lock

• 19:04Martin Lewis?

  in, because you can lock in for a year or 15 months now, below the current April price cap. But I would probably cross my fingers and stick where you are till September. That is done purely intuitively, and I cannot guarantee it'll be right, because I don't know what the large orange fella in the White House is going to do.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  Allison's, I think it's a similar answer. Allison's current energy fix rate ends in mid-May. To get the same product again fixed for another two years, it's gone up about 35%. Should I wait and fix it near the end date, or accept it will probably go up further in the current climate and fix now?

• 19:33Martin Lewis?

  Well, it is going to go up because you were on a cheap fix, I would presume. Now, you can do, if you're on a fix, they can't charge you early exit penalties within the last 50 days of the fix, so day 49 and beyond. So that's when you should be doing a comparison. Again, I mean, the answer is if this conflict diminishes, you will probably be able to get a cheaper fix in 49 days' time than you can today. If it doesn't, you won't be able to. So it's how much you value bird in the hand. I'm not sure why you're going for a two-year fix. I'm not aware of very many cheap two-year fixes at the moment. The longest relatively cheap fix I've seen is about 15 months. So you might want a shorter fix. I also suspect you're trying to do it with your existing company. Get off that,

• 20:14Martin Lewis?

  people. Let's stop. At the moment, this is not a wide market with small differences between companies. Some firms are offering cheap fixes, others aren't. This isn't about getting a cheap fix with your existing company. If you're going to want one below the price cap, you're going to need to go and do a whole of market comparison and find who the cheapest is for you. So don't just rely on what your existing company will offer you. There's a spread of around 12% between cheapest and less cheap companies at the moment. I remember that from, yes, a few days ago's figure, so it may have changed. But there's a big spread. They're not all the same price. Just a quick note. Obviously, you're listening to this on the podcast and you could be listening to this at any time. We're seeing incredible volatility with energy prices. I literally

• 20:59Martin Lewis?

  asked the wonderful people on my team to send me twice a day a list of the cheapest fixes and they change each day from the morning to the evening. So the situation I'm talking about was right when we broadcast it. But especially if some big global political change in the meanwhile, it could be different when you're listening.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Kelly is on an Octopus tracker tariff. Should I start to look at something more stable? Haven't really found it much cheaper or more expensive over the last year, but can't find a comparison for these tariffs.

• 21:26Martin Lewis?

  There is no comparison for the tracker tariff because it's impossible to do. The tracker tariff by Octopus, the unit rate that you pay for your gas and electricity changes every day based on the underlying wholesale rate. There's also the agile price, where the amount you pay for electricity changes every half hour based on the wholesale rate. And some days on agile recently, we've seen the price be way more than the price cap. And other days, they've been paying you seven pence a kilowatt hour to use electricity. So if you charged your electric car at that point, you might have made, you know, five, six, seven quid be paid to charge your electric car. Tracker doesn't do that, though. Tracker moves every day. Obviously, when wholesale rates are going up... It's not been that cheap. Before the Middle East conflict, it worked quite well for many people.

• 22:07Martin Lewis?

  The problem with moving off tracker is what they say is you can leave tracker, but you can't come back for nine months because what they don't want people doing is saying, oh, it's an expensive period. I'm just going to nip off for a month, go on to a normal price cap and then come back when it's cheaper. You can't do that. So if you leave the tracker tariff, you've got to leave for at least nine months. Again, if this conflict looks like I would probably hold another week and see what's going on in the news. If we're at the end game of this, right, then you're probably better off staying on the tracker. I can't know because I haven't got a crystal ball, but you're probably better off. If we're not at the end game of this, you might just want to say, I want to go risk averse and I'm going to get myself a fix. That's as cheap as I can get and then I'm not playing with this volatility.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Will says it should be the law that the energy companies have to put you on the cheapest tariff.

• 22:51Martin Lewis?

  David Cameron talked about that. Unfortunately, what is the cheapest tariff? Right? So I'm even I who does this for my job. I'm sitting there going, well, if you fix right now, it's cheaper than the price cap. And it's cheaper than where the price cap is predicted to go in July and maybe cheaper where the where the price cap is in October. But also you might fix in two weeks' time and it'll be cheaper. You have to, there are two types of the standard variable rate that is the price cap and moves with off gem. And then there's fixes, which is basically if you think of the company goes, oh, there's a bit of cheap energy over there. I'm going to buy a chunk of it and I'm going to sell it to you at this price. Well, that that'll be gone in a, in a, in a week's time, that'll be gone and it'll, whatever they can buy it for at that.

• 23:35Martin Lewis?

  So what is the cheapest? So you wouldn't be allowed to have fixes. Did you see what I mean?

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Okay, no, I get that, but they could, you could express it as well, not the most expensive, not default. So the

• 23:45Martin Lewis?

  Which is the price cap. So the price cap was set up for the people who don't take advantage of switching so that they wouldn't be charged extremely outrageously ripped off prices compared to everyone else. They'd only be charged ripped off prices compared to everyone else. You know, it, it's not as outrageously bad as it would have been otherwise. But the idea, what you would do, and listen, I'm not, I'm not against a regulated pricing market. But if you said everyone needs to be on the cheapest. Well, so someone who's on the Octopus Agile tariff, that price moves every half hour. How do you compare that to a price cap tariff and how do you compare that to a fixed tariff? There isn't a definition of the cheapest. It's why I have to spend half an hour explaining it.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  Okay, Stephen, it's a long one this. My EON fixed tariff is ending 6th of July. Until 49 days beforehand, I have to pay £100 to move suppliers. If I move to another EON tariff, there is no exit fee. I pay £84 a month by direct debit. What should I do? Switch now at a higher rate with less available fixes, taking a hit to be safe from future rises, and check available switches within 49-day period or wait until fix ends?

• 24:51Martin Lewis?

  So what you're basically saying is, do I move to an EON tariff because there's no early exit penalties, even though I'll pay more to fix now because those fixes are cheap? I need to be really straight. I don't know. I do not know. There is no right answer. Now, you might think that's a bad answer, but then again, the other way to work the phrase that is, there is no wrong answer. The only way to answer your question is to have a crystal ball. I don't have one, you don't have one. If you're risk averse, you may as well lock in now at a price that you're comfortable with, even if it's more than you're paying for the next month or two, because you know you can lock in at less than the price cap on predictions for the next year. If you're not risk averse and you're willing to play the volatility, then you might hold off and wait and cross your fingers. But there is no right answer. What I can't, which is why my big messaging this week

• 25:36Martin Lewis?

  has been for everyone on the price cap. If you're on a price cap tariff, not on a fix which is already cheap, you're on that default bog standard. We're just going to protect you from being extremely ripped off, but you're still going to be ripped off effectively. I'll phrase it that way. I'm not trying to make a political point. Just think about it. It's not, price cap is not a good price. It's capped. It's not a good price. It's the maximum they're allowed to charge you. If you're on that maximum they're allowed to charge you price cap, which 60% of people are. Right now, you can save money straight away because you can move to a tariff that's 4% cheaper today. And we are pretty certain the price cap is going up in July. So the saving you make from July to October will be way more than 4% because the price cap is going up.

• 26:18Martin Lewis?

  And based on current predictions, you will still save substantially in October and in January. But the October and January could change, which is why if you do move to a fix, don't get one with two big early exit penalties, the penalties you have to, just in case. If the whole world changed and then did you suddenly got really, really cheap, then you'd pay your 50 quid exit penalty, you'd get off that tariff and you get yourself a new fix in October or January if it did get much cheaper. But the sensible, risk averse thing to do right now is to lock in cheaper than the current price cap. Based on current information.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Paul is commenting with, "I'm paying for what he uses each month rather than building a pot. Would I be able to get this on a fix?"

• 26:56Martin Lewis?

  If he's doing that, and you mean you're on a direct debit, on a variable direct debit, well, most fixes are available on monthly direct debit. If the firm offers variable direct debit, they will often allow you to fix on it. But it does just depend on whether the firm allows you a variable direct debit.

• 27:17Martin Lewis?

  Tell us, have you ever made a financial blunder that felt disastrous at the time, but later turned out to be one of the best money moves you've ever made? Why don't you start with Julie?

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Julie took out critical illness policy over a 25-year term, remaining fit and well, it seemed like a total waste of money and a bad decision. Nearly cancelled it several times. 24 and a half years in, I was diagnosed with cancer. Sorry to read that, Julie. I had a small op and now good as new, excellent. It paid out 50K. I invested it and that 50K is now worth 75K and bridging the gap from early retirement to age 67.

• 27:53Martin Lewis?

  Unbelievable. So 25-year term and you got ill at 24 and a half years. If it had been seven months later, you would have got nothing and the whole policy would have been... Well, just worth a note on critical illness. Because when do you think a critical illness policy pays out?

• 28:07Speaker 03

  Oh God, I don't know.

• 28:10Martin Lewis?

  Because you would think the obvious thing is-

• 28:11Speaker 03

  I dread to think.

• 28:12Martin Lewis?

  You would think when you've got a critical illness would be the relatively obvious answer. Critical illness policies pay out when you've got a specified critical illness that's on the list of critical illness policies. So, or something critical, you know, it might be that you've lost an arm, it might be that you've lost an arm and a leg and just losing an arm isn't enough. It might be that you've got one cancer but it wouldn't necessarily cover another cancer. The problem with buying critical illness is you sort of need to be an independent financial advisor and a GP to really understand what's covered. I'm not saying it's a bad policy, I'm just saying never assume that you've got something you think in your head is a critical illness. People assume I've got cancer, it's going to pay out. Which cancer? Where's your cancer? How severe's your cancer is? Just a little side note on that.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  Louise then, you want to do Louise's?

• 28:56Martin Lewis?

  Having to sell my dream home at divorce. Thought I'd be homeless or somewhere really rubbish. I actually had a mortgage broker tell me to find a man quick as I had no hope of getting a mortgage on my own. No thanks love, got that T-shirt already. Well done you Louise. Market changed and after the deed was done and I have a lovely house with over half the mortgage paid and I'm not married to a total rotter anymore. Win-win. Well done Louise.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  Dominic, forgot to renew my fixed rate mortgage so I was paying the over the odds variable for a while. Finally got round to getting a five-year fixed rate two weeks before the Lids Trust budget.

• 29:29Martin Lewis?

  Perfect timing, well done. Richard, my mother accidentally ticked the wrong box and committed my father to contribute three times as much as he intended into his pension. That was 58 years ago, laughing now. Wow, well done.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  Neil, financed a Jaguar I couldn't afford at the age of 32, felt sick sign in the paperwork, spent three years obsessing over every penny to pay it off early. Built habits that changed everything. Sometimes the mistake is the lesson.

• 29:54Martin Lewis?

  I properly love that one. I properly love the idea that you made a mistake, you had to suddenly become much more rigorous with your finances and then that paid dividends for years later because you learnt that lesson in financial control. Shall we do one more then we start?

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Yes. My dad sent my mum to the bank in the late 1980s to buy £2,000 of Guinness shares. It sounds sort of Victorian, doesn't it? Off you go.

• 30:18Martin Lewis?

  I thought it was £2,000 worth of Guinness.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  £2,000 of Guinness shares. She misheard and bought 2,000 shares at £3.25 each.

• 30:26Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so nearly £7,000 of shares.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  My dad was fuming, but the value grew year on year thereafter. Despite recent falls in value, they're still worth over 50K.

• 30:34Martin Lewis?

  Oh, well done. So well done, Jason's mum. Jason's mum. There we go, accidental fortune. I love some of those.

• 30:44Martin Lewis?

  Shall we just do a little bit on cash ISAs for five minutes?

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Yes, go on.

• 30:47Martin Lewis?

  I'm going to do a lot more in the podcast. We're going to take all your questions in the podcast. So it's just, look, as we've talked about many times before, not just cash ISAs, ISAs. On the 6th of April, every UK adult aged 18 plus gets a £20,000 ISA allowance.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:04Martin Lewis?

  And with that ISA allowance, it is just a tax wrapper. It's a wrapper you can put around savings or a wrapper you can put around investments, which means it is not taxable. And not taxable is really important to understand. It's not the same as tax free. Let me try and do you this with you, Adrian. So roughly how much are you allowed to earn a year before you pay tax on it?

• 31:27Speaker 03

  About 12.

• 31:28Martin Lewis?

  £12,570. So if you earned £10,000, that money isn't taxed because it's below the threshold. But it is taxable because it counts towards the threshold. That's why we always say the state pension is taxable. Many people, the whole argument about the state pension is going to be higher than the tax free threshold. State pension has always been taxable, but if you've only had the state pension, it wouldn't be taxed because it's below the threshold. ISAs are not taxable. The amount of interest you earn in a cash ISA or the dividends you earn in a shares ISA or the capital gain in a shares ISA is not taxable.

• 32:08Martin Lewis?

  Not only do you not pay tax on it, but it doesn't count towards the allowances that you have on everything else. And that's why for people who are looking to save or looking to invest, it's really worth considering putting money into an ISA. And for cash ISAs at the moment, the best cash ISA rates are better than the top normal savings rates. So even if you didn't need the tax because you weren't going to be taxed on your savings anyway because you can earn a thousand pounds of interest a year tax-free in normal savings. Well, you may as well open a cash ISA because a cash ISA is just a savings account that isn't taxable. Do you want to do one or two questions, then we'll move to the mastermind.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  David, can you confirm there is now a 12K limit on cash ISAs? I've heard different things and also any recommendations about to invest safely in stocks and shares ISAs?

• 32:54Martin Lewis?

  I cannot confirm there is a £12,000 limit on cash ISAs because there is a £20,000 limit on cash ISAs. The current plan is from April 2027, so next April, the limit on cash ISAs will be reduced to £12,000 for people aged under 65 and will remain at £20,000 for people aged over 65. The ISA limit from April 2027 in total will still stay at £20,000. So just to be clear, that means next year, you could put £12,000 in a cash ISA and £8,000 in the shares ISA because it's a total. You could put £5,000 in the cash ISA and £15,000 in the shares ISA. What you can't do is put £20,000 in a cash ISA

• 33:38Martin Lewis?

  because the maximum you can have in a cash ISA if you're under 65 from next year will be £12,000. But it doesn't start yet, it hasn't started. And the reason I say it's planned, I mean, it's going to happen, but it's not locked into the legislation of how they'll do it yet.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  Okay, Helen, when the ISA allowance goes down for the under 65s, will it increase back up to 20,000 when I turn 65?

• 34:02Martin Lewis?

  So here's the thing I don't yet know, what counts as being 65? So I don't know that if, that the ISA allowance will increase in the year that you turn 65. So let's imagine your birthday is in June. And from April 2027, you were to turn 65 in June 2027. I don't know if what would happen is from April, while you're still 64, you would get the full 20,000 allowance. Or it would only happen in June, when you turn 65, you'd get the full 20,000 allowance. Or you'd have to wait until your first birthday, where you were 65, on the 6th of April in order, we just don't know.

• 34:46Martin Lewis?

  So, once you're 65, you'll be able to get the 20,000 pounds allowance. Before you're 65, you won't. But the exact definition of what being 65 is, I haven't got yet. Do you understand what I'm saying? There is, that hasn't been defined yet.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  Rob has 2K in a standard savings account. Would it be better in a cash ISA or a higher rate savings account? We'll be adding to it to use for an emergency fund.

• 35:10Martin Lewis?

  Well, almost certainly, I'm making some assumptions here that you're not a high rate taxpayer, Rob. You would not earn enough interest on that to pay tax on it. So the tax at the moment certainly isn't an issue for you. You want to put it where the interest is highest. Now, that could be if you're banked with Santander. It has a 4,000 pounds easy access account. You can get 6% interest on. But other than that, if you're looking for easy access, the top paying cash ISA, which is trading 212, it's 4.62%, but you can't get it direct, you have to go to our comparison site, beats the top paying normal easy access savings at 4.5% with Chase. I'm guessing it's easy access savings with fixed rates, normal savings beats. So you may as well open a cash ISA. You don't need the tax allowance, but the rate's higher and you want the highest rate.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  Okay. Anton, can I reinvest my ISA with the interest and add 20,000 to it?

• 35:58Martin Lewis?

  Reinvesting is that you need to transfer. If you take your money out of an ISA, then you are opening a new ISA if you put it back in another ISA. So you need to go to a new ISA provider, fill in its form. It'll have a form saying, do you want to transfer? And you can transfer, by the way, without putting new money in. You don't need to be adding new money with most firms. You fill in and it will move the ISA from where it is. So it's with the new provider, you transfer that. It doesn't count towards your 20,000 because it's only new money. You're allowed to put 20,000 pounds of new money in an ISA each year. So if you've already got money in from past years, you can transfer it without a problem. That's me answering lots of my questions. Now it's time for you to answer yours. Play the theme tune.

• 36:43Speaker 03

  Can I just say, my self-esteem is at a very low level. I had to get up at 3:45 this morning to get a train. I set my alarm for 15:45.

• 36:53Martin Lewis?

  Oh no.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  Therefore, overslept, missed the train, paid a... punished mercilessly with the extra fare. I'm on a low E, Martin.

• 37:02Martin Lewis?

  Okay. Today's mastermind question: is 5% interest higher than 4% interest? No, joking, that's not the question.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  I'm glad for this. I don't trust you. I think it was a trick question anyway.

• 37:12Martin Lewis?

  Adrian, the score stands that you've got 17 right and 36 wrong in this three-option, multiple-choice quiz, which means sadly you are... oh, it's meant to go no better than random chance. We'll need to get that sorted in the future.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah.

• 37:26Martin Lewis?

  Okay. Now, listeners, our Adrian has gone to a neighbour's barbecue, hoping for not more taxing than an undercooked sausage and an exciting discussion about the proper use of tongs. But then...

• 37:41Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 37:41Martin Lewis?

  But then, one of the neighbour's friends spots him, makes a beeline, and having heard he does this show, instantly assumes Adrian is at least money-adjacent, a cut-price financial oracle in crops.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  Nobody would listen, listening to this show would reach that conclusion.

• 37:55Martin Lewis?

  Don't read the format. Not wanting to let Five Live...

• 37:58Speaker 03

  I touched your foot under the table then. It was quite comforting.

• 38:00Martin Lewis?

  I enjoyed it. Not wanting to let Five Live down, Adrian decides to lean into it. Yes, he says, "I actually feed Martin most of what he says on the podcast. It's just a radio conceit that I ask the questions and he answers." The woman looks impressed. Adrian looks pleased, until she hits him with her query. She's just had a pay rise to £49,300 a year, which is £970 below the higher-rate tax threshold. She's also got money in savings, which, conveniently for this question, earn £1,000 of interest outside of an ISA. She says to you, Adrian, of course, as you may know, the personal savings allowance is the amount of savings interest you can earn each

• 38:44Martin Lewis?

  tax year without paying tax on it. It's £1,000 for basic-rate taxpayers. And £500 for higher rate taxpayers. So my question is, will I pay tax on this interest? And as she's not me, it's only a two option multiple choice this week. You see, I told you I was trying to help. P.S. We will ignore pensions. So will I pay tax on the interest? If so, question, your options are A, yes, you'll pay tax on £500 of it because your earnings plus interest push you into the higher rate tax band. Or B, no, all £1,000 is tax free because your earned income makes you a basic rate taxpayer. Therefore, all of your savings interest, you get the £1,000 tax free and therefore it's not going to be taxed.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  The £1,000 takes her beyond the

• 39:34Martin Lewis?

  The high rate tax.

• 39:34Speaker 03

  The high rate tax. Does that mean she suddenly has to pay on

• 39:39Martin Lewis?

  She loses the £1,000, drops to £500.

• 39:42Speaker 03

  Even though there's only

• 39:44Martin Lewis?

  Even though she's only 30 quid over the limit.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  I think she probably, I think it's probably daft. So she probably does.

• 39:54Martin Lewis?

  So she will have to pay tax as a high rate taxpayer?

• 39:56Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 39:59Martin Lewis?

  I'm not going to do final answer.

• 40:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:01Martin Lewis?

  Because I'm being nice. Play Hallelujah. I'm not going to give you a chance to opt out.

• 40:07Martin Lewis?

  Do you feel better?

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, yes, yes.

• 40:11Martin Lewis?

  Now, I haven't got long to explain this. I'm going to run straight on. Forgive me. Well done, Adrian. The savings interest does count. So bizarrely, someone earning £1,000 of interest on top of £49,300 salary would tip into the higher rate that would slash their personal savings allowance from 1,000 to 500, which means they would pay 30 pounds of that interest would be taxed at 40% and 470 pounds would be taxed at 20%, leaving them with net interest of 894 pounds. Bizarrely, if the same person's interest had only earned them 950 quid, not £1,000, so they'd just earned less interest, all the 950 quid would have stayed tax free because they're a basic rate taxpayer and they would have actually earned 54 pounds more net interest. It's a quirk in the system for people who

• 40:56Martin Lewis?

  are around that threshold. It's interesting. It's probably not that practical for many people, but I enjoyed it and you got it right. Well done.

• 41:01Speaker 03

  Thank you very sweetly indeed.

• 41:08Martin Lewis?

  Ah, time to move into our pod only stuff and podcast producer Simon is with me. Hello Simon, how are you doing?

• 41:14Speaker 00

  I'm excellent, I'm delighted to be here. Since we last spoke on air, people have been up to the moon, round the moon and back again.

• 41:21Martin Lewis?

  And you're over the moon to be here.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  I am over the moon to be here. I'm sure they were, I assume they downloaded previous episodes to listen to while they're on the journey.

• 41:29Martin Lewis?

  But people don't believe this, but I was over the moon that Adrian finally got a mastermind right. I have genuinely this year, I decided to be nice Martin, not mean Martin and try and be supportive of him getting the answers right. And I think, I think it's thrown him. I think he can't quite cope with the fact that I'm not trying to catch him out. So, so I was very pleased he actually got one today, he got the right, I mean it was a two option, multiple choice, it's normally three option, but we'll let him off.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Well, I was relieved because the BBC get very, there's a lot of rules at the BBC when it comes to like competitions and quizzes, because if he got it wrong today, you would have had to come down to one choice, multiple choice.

• 42:07Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 42:08Speaker 00

  And that would have been a nightmare for compliance.

• 42:10Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, some television companies have been caught out with similar things in the past. We shall move on swiftly. So I think what we'll do in pod only, I think we covered energy mostly. If you've got any more questions, remember you can always get in touch with the Martin Lewis podcast at bbc.co.uk. They might be asked in this main pod or they might be asked in our Question Times podcast where you can ask me questions on anything and everything, but we've got lots more ISA questions I know to come. So why don't we get into some of those with you? What have you got?

• 42:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, we've got one from Sue. I have an ISA with Lloyds which will mature in September. I want to transfer it all to a better one, but I have already used up my £20,000 as I opened a different one I can't transfer into. Which bank allows me to open an ISA but will only transfer with no extra deposit?

• 42:51Martin Lewis?

  I mean, I can't give you a direct answer on that, except most of them is my answer. There is very few say you have to have new money to be putting new money in to get a transfer. There are some that don't allow transfers, but generally if they allow transfers, then you can do a transfer without putting new money in. The reason I can't answer is I don't know whether you want easy access or one year fix or two year fix. It depends. There are some very good sources out there that update every day what the best cash ISAs are and you can use that and you should be able to find that.

• 43:21Speaker 00

  So we've got this one in from Liz. If I already have an ISA with one bank, can I set up another one with another bank please? I'm very confused as different banks tell me different info.

• 43:33Martin Lewis?

  Yes, you can. It is absolutely not a problem. What you are not allowed to do is put more than £20,000 of new money into ISAs in a tax year. It used to be that you could only open one ISA of each type, so one cash and one shares ISA, in a tax year. That rule has now been changed. You can open multiple cash ISAs in a tax year as long as you're not putting over £20,000 in them. So you could have three different past year cash ISAs if you wanted, and then you could open one fixed cash ISA with one provider this year and one easy access cash ISA with another provider this year, as long as you're not putting more than £20,000 in the ISA in the tax year, you'll be fine.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Now, I feel like I'm stepping on producer Matt's toes here as I'm going to introduce a caller into a podcast, which is normally his.

• 44:19Martin Lewis?

  That's question time for him. What are you doing?

• 44:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we do have Jenny on the line from Crash Church, yes.

• 44:26Speaker 05

  Yes, hello. Good afternoon, Martin.

• 44:28Martin Lewis?

  Hello, hello Jenny. What can I do for you?

• 44:30Speaker 05

  Half my question's been answered. Basically, I have a one-year fixed ISA which is due to expire next week. I have another ISA that's going to expire in August, and I'm wanting to know what the best rate is for another one-year fixed but would take transfers in, should I wish to transfer my money in later in the year from the other ISA. Does that make sense?

• 44:58Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, so it's often very difficult to do that, to put the money in in August in the same ISA that you're doing a fix now. So you generally, because you have to fund them. I'll tell you what I would do if I were you, right? And of course, there's no right or wrong. Generally, if you're using cash and you're using them for the same purpose, so as in an easy access or a fix, and you just want a one-year fix, you want fewer ISAs rather than more, simply for administrative reasons, that if you ever want to transfer the ISA, you're not having to transfer five ISAs, you're only having to transfer one ISA. Make sense?

• 45:34Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 45:34Martin Lewis?

  Right, so here's what I would do. When your current transfer ends next week, I would move that into the top easy access ISA that allows transfers, which the top easy access cash ISA that allows transfers at the moment is Monument for new customers that pays 4.28%, right? So I'd probably move it, move this money into Monument. I would have it sitting in there until August, when your other one matures, and then I would transfer that into Monument, which is easy access, so you should be able to do so. Then you will have all of your money in that easy access cash ISA. At that point, I would transfer that cash ISA,

• 46:19Martin Lewis?

  the Monument one or another top transfer one, into the fix that you want at the time. Now, of course, there's a minor risk that fix rates might get a little bit worse during that time. That, that's the cost of doing this, the slight risk. Although currently, interest rates are predicted to be relatively stable for the year, although we're in a very volatile world, things can change. But I think for administrative purposes, that's probably what I would be doing in your circumstance. How does that sound?

• 46:41Speaker 05

  That sounds fine. So this Monument one is variable as well, so that could go down in interest rate between now and August. That's a risk we run, is that correct?

• 46:49Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, so it's, it's interest rate is 3.74% variable and there's a bonus of 0.54% for a year. It could, again, if it did, you could always transfer it to another easy access ISA meantime. I think it would be unlikely to see it dropping substantially if UK interest rates didn't drop.

• 47:09Speaker 05

  That's very helpful. And should I have any extra money, which I haven't at the moment, I'm still can open another cash ISA within this tax year with any amount up to 20,000, because I'm over 65, correct?

• 47:21Martin Lewis?

  Your age is irrelevant this year because everyone can put 20,000 pounds of new money in the cash. It's next year when, when your age will become relevant. But you are absolutely right. And I'm just going to do this because, because people get so confused in this. I want to make this really clear. You put that money in, in previous years. So those are previous years ISAs. The fact that you put them in a fix that is maturing doesn't stop it being previous years. The fact that you transfer it to a new provider doesn't stop it being the previous years. So you have not opened, put new money in an ISA this year. So you have a zero, you've used zero of your ISA allowance, which means you have the full £20,000 still to use. And I know you understood that, but I wanted to phrase it that way because I think some people really fight on this. That's past year's ISAs.

• 48:06Martin Lewis?

  And the key thing to understand, of course, is once money's in an ISA, it stays tax-free year after year after year. So you get £20,000 this year. If somebody put £20,000 in on the 5th of April, was technically the last tax year, so they could now put another £20,000 in today. They'd have £40,000 in ISAs. And next year, if they're over 65 like you, if we're talking cash ISAs, they could put another £20,000 in. Then they'd have £60,000 in ISAs. And also important to understand, the interest that goes into the ISA isn't, not only do you not, is that not taxable, but the interest earned on the interest isn't taxable because it's all still money inside the ISA. So yeah, absolutely, you're doing all the right thing.

• 48:44Speaker 05

  Thank you. I only just learnt that from your TV programmes last year because I got so confused myself with ISAs and probably came unstuck a few years.

• 48:52Martin Lewis?

  So did that explanation I just did make sense?

• 48:54Speaker 05

  Yes, it did.

• 48:55Martin Lewis?

  Good, good. Because it's all, it sounds really funny, but it's all there in my head. I get it. But sometimes when you really get it, you don't know what bits other people don't get. So you have to sort of spell it out a bit more. And thank you for telling me that I got it right. That's appreciated.

• 49:11Speaker 05

  Bit that I didn't understand, which I know some of my colleagues don't understand as well, it is so important to not, as I did one year, close your ISA down. You need to make sure that you tell your new provider to leave it across for you.

• 49:23Martin Lewis?

  Amen.

• 49:24Speaker 05

  And I came unstuck and then I lost my ISA allowance for that year.

• 49:28Martin Lewis?

  Well, we had a question earlier where someone talked about reinvesting. No, no, they talked about reinvesting. And I don't like that term because you're not reinvesting. The, it's savings anyway, but the money is saved and you're still saving. You're just moving provider. There's no re in it. And it's, that's why it's a transfer. You'd never withdraw that. Then it's outsized nicer and then you use it, then it is new money when you put it back in, with the exception of some flexible ISAs, but we'll ignore that for a second. Thanks Jenny. So let's do a few more, Simon. That was really good, really good call. Now, you might have to put your foreign correspondent hat on for this next one from John. Hello, this is Martin Lewis, reporting from central London. That's not foreign at all, is it?

• 50:05Speaker 00

  He wants to know, is it a good or bad time to open a stocks and shares ISA with the volatility in the Middle East?

• 50:11Martin Lewis?

  Yes. It is a good or a bad time to open a stocks and shares ISA with the volatility in the Middle East. So, look, clearly there are two ways to look at this. There's volatility, stock markets have dropped a little, therefore it's a good buying opportunity, or stock markets might go down further, therefore it's a bad buying opportunity. I think if you're talking about putting money in a stocks and shares ISA, and you're talking about, for the right reasons, investing for a long-term money that you don't need for five years, and that you're going to do that in a nice wide spread of investments, like a global tracker fund, or an S&P tracker, or a FTSE tracker, then you just have to accept that there is never, you will never know what the perfect time to put money in is.

• 50:55Martin Lewis?

  And actually, the answer is, start putting money in, and hopefully, the longer period it's going to be in there, the more growth you'll get. Now, there is a method that investment advisers talk about, which can help, sort of, help you with that volatility. So let's just imagine you're putting £10,000 in the stocks and shares ISA, and you're putting it away for a long time. You could put £10,000 in now, but you could arrange with the provider that it sits in its cash part of the stock, so you can hold it in cash within the stocks and shares ISA for the moment, that may all change next year, by the way, once the regulations change over the £12,000 limit. But anyway, and then you could say, well, I've got £10,000, over the next 10 months, I'd like you to buy £1,000 a month worth of that tracker fund that I'm putting my investment into.

• 51:36Martin Lewis?

  And therefore, it's called pound-cost averaging, because you're drip-feeding the money in, that sort of helps smooth out the short-term volatility of whether you buy at the right moment or not. So if you're worried about that volatility, you might want to adopt that tactic. But nobody knows, if people knew whether it was a good or bad time to buy, then they would all be buying, they're only predicting. I mean, by definition, the markets are unknowable, so, but what you're, they're unknowable in the short term, but in a broad spread of investment over the long term, on the balance of probabilities, so we can never say perfect, then investing will outperform saving. So don't let it put you off the volatility, but you might want to spread the time that you're putting the money in, that might make you feel more comfortable.

• 52:19Martin Lewis?

  Although again, in the long run, if this was the bottom of the market, you would have been better if you put it all in right now. But we don't know. So you can't get it wrong because there's no way to get it right. So you just have to do something sensible. I hope that helps. Let's do a couple more, Simon.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  If you take off your foreign correspondent hat and put your Mystic Meg hat on.

• 52:35Martin Lewis?

  So I realised when I said it a moment ago, many years ago, in the early noughties, I did do some reporter packages for the BBC. And I remember for telly, and you have to had to sign it off, Martin Lewis, BBC News. And one of my colleagues on the business section at the time was called Marcia Hughes. And I was always jealous because she got to go, Marcia Hughes, BBC News. And I thought it'd be so much cooler to have a rhyming sign off. But I didn't. Anyway, I digress. Carry on.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  Well, well, you know.

• 53:01Martin Lewis?

  Marcia, I don't know where you are these days, but I hope you're doing very well.

• 53:05Speaker 00

  But, you know, it's the podcast game that you did move away from that and into this.

• 53:09Martin Lewis?

  Yes, of course, right.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  Shelley wants to know, using your crystal ball, are ISAs and other savings interest rates likely to rise or fall?

• 53:17Martin Lewis?

  Well, Shelley, Taurus is ascending. And when Taurus is ascending, that means the financial markets are ascending. But Virgo is descending. And when Virgo is descending, that can impact the cen... Anyway, so the question is, what's going to happen to interest rates? Don't know. We heard the boss of the Bank of England say today, as I'm recording this anyway, that he wasn't expect, don't expect interest rates to be jumping up as some people have predicted. I mean, the world is so volatile right now. It really is pure crystal ball gazing. And I don't believe in crystal balls, which will give you the view of where I am. It's looking like the market prediction earlier in the year was that interest rates were going to drop. Now is that they're going to be relatively stable. But we're

• 54:01Martin Lewis?

  pretty uncertain about those predictions. But I think certainly in the imminent term, with inflation rising, as it definitely has done, even though we've not had the numbers, March inflation and April inflation is going to be higher than February's inflation because of those input factors coming in from the Middle East. I think it's very unlikely that we will see interest rates cut. And the Bank of England governor's warning that they probably won't rise. So you get somewhere from in the middle of that, they're going to be roughly stable. But that is a crystal ball.

• 54:31Speaker 00

  So Corporal's asking, if I take a two-year fixed ISA, what happens after the 2027 change? Will it continue?

• 54:39Martin Lewis?

  Absolutely nothing at all happens. The 2027 change, the dropping of the cash ISA allowance to £12,000, only affects new money being put in, in that year. If you're putting money into a cash ISA in this year, whether it's a two-year fix, a one-year fix or easy access, then that's this year's allowance you're using. Once money is in a cash ISA, it stays tax-free as long as it's in the cash ISA, year after year after year. The change next year will have zero impact on money already in ISAs by the 5th of April 2027. And that, to me, Simon, seems a pretty good place to stop. Okay, so we're going to leave that there for today. I hope you've enjoyed it. Loads of subject. Cash ISAs, council tax, energy bills, Adrian getting a mastermind right. One does never cease.

• 55:25Martin Lewis?

  That's it for this week. We tend to put out a new episode every Thursday and Monday, which is our Question Time podcast, where you can ask me questions on absolutely anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. If you've enjoyed today's pod, please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast. And why not leave us a review or subscribe and tell them to do it too? Then your pockets will be pleased with you. And if you haven't enjoyed it and you've been listening this long, then maybe you need to ask yourself, why didn't you just turn it off?

• 56:08Speaker 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.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  It often starts with a question. What were lines doing in York in the 3rd century? Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? Then we search for answers.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  It's one of the first times really that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers. If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  As I was doing the research for the programme, my jaw just dropped further and further down. In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Watch the discussions unfold and explore over a thousand conversations in our archive. I'm Nisha Glennie and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world. In Our Time. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Coffee? Love a cup of tea.

• 57:35Speaker 03

  I'll have tea too.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Tea for me, please.