Question Time: Should I overpay my mortgage? If I sign up online, why can’t I cancel online? Can I open an ISA for my niece?

In our Question Time podcast, Martin Lewis answers your questions including: which travel insurance policy do I make a claim to? When you say ‘pay off all debts’ does that include your mortgage? Can I open an ISA for my niece or nephew? Why is cancelling a subscription so hard? Plus, how your height impacts your step count, and what should we call you if you ask us a question? And we have a success story following Martin’s answer to a question on broadband. If you want to ask Martin a question, his Question Time podcast lets you do just that! You can ask him questions about absolutely anything and everything (within reason!) – so if you’ve always wanted to know which tree he likes best, how many burpees he can do in a minute, 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 1:48Martin Lewis?

  You can choose who to claim from.

• 1:51Speaker 04

  Well, just to give some feedback on a question I had last week.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  Been roped in to speak to us.

• 1:56Martin Lewis?

  I consider it a very good one. It's something I've long said that we should do as well.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  She also keeps us in check, doesn't she? She does keep us in check. Coming in first.

• 2:03Martin Lewis?

  And it's always lovely to have success. Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is the Question Time episode where you get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. This week, your questions are: I've got two travel insurance policies. Which one should I claim on? When you say pay off all debts, does that include your mortgage? Am I allowed to open a junior ISA for my niece and nephew? Is there a law that if I sign up for a subscription online, I can cancel it online? Success! Last week's geeky broadband question has paid dividends. Not literal dividends, more money saved, but you get the point.

• 2:44Martin Lewis?

  And finally, how does height impact the number of steps you get? Play the theme tune.

• 3:05Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to this week's Question Time podcast where you get to ask me anything and everything, brackets within reason, close brackets. And of course, as always, let's welcome the man himself, our curator of questions, Mr. Matthew Burnham.

• 3:26Martin Lewis?

  That was meant to be clapping, man.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  Oh, right. I thought something had gone wrong.

• 3:29Martin Lewis?

  Sounded more like interference, didn't it?

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, it did.

• 3:31Martin Lewis?

  But it was meant to be clapping. I was meant to... it was acclamation.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  I see. Titles, please.

• 3:38Martin Lewis?

  Well, I don't know, you know, if I can call you... I know you like Professor Sir Matthew Burnham.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Professor Sir, I love that.

• 3:43Martin Lewis?

  Oh, so it was Dr. Professor Sir Matthew Burnham, but you haven't actually earned any of them.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  No.

• 3:48Martin Lewis?

  But you have earned curator of questions.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  Yes, because I curate the questions.

• 3:53Martin Lewis?

  Now, something we needed to discuss that we talked about before we get all into this... Sorry, we'll get into the proper stuff in a moment, everyone, is we were talking about, I have a title.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 4:03Martin Lewis?

  You know, money saving expert, you have a title.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 4:06Martin Lewis?

  Curator of questions. And then we have all the brilliant people who get in touch and provide questions, which provides content for this podcast, which we love. They therefore should have a question too. If you have your question on air. Now, we discussed at the, after last week's podcast, when it was just, just us and the wonderful Rosie, who's here as well, what that should be. And we came up with ideas. I have an idea, do you have an idea?

• 4:28Speaker 00

  I don't know if I have a good idea. That's the problem. What's your idea first, and then we'll see.

• 4:34Martin Lewis?

  So this is the Question Time podcast.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:37Martin Lewis?

  Which is QT. So I feel we should call them QT's.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  Oh, that's sweet.

• 4:43Martin Lewis?

  Yeah. So if you, so anybody who gets in touch is a QT.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  A QT. And are we spelling it QT?

• 4:48Martin Lewis?

  QT, obviously not C U T I U.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  Okay, okay.

• 4:51Martin Lewis?

  But QT. And obviously every time we do it, we'll have to make a slight mention that it's QT so somebody doesn't realise and think that we're, you know, doing it the wrong way. Or we could go with something, you know, more formal, couldn't we?

• 5:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I was thinking that if you've come on the podcast, you feel like you're part of the club.

• 5:08Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  So I was thinking.

• 5:10Martin Lewis?

  You're on the inside, not the outside.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. You know, you've chatted to us, you've got your question answered by the man himself, which is you. So it's like, are you in this, this club? And so I'm trying to think of what we should call it. I want to get your name in it. So, so like Martin's QT's? I don't know.

• 5:29Martin Lewis?

  I'm not sure Martin's QT's. I think that would get me all types of trouble.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  You know, but some, something along those lines. I want it to be your club.

• 5:38Martin Lewis?

  There's an easy way to do this.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Go on.

• 5:39Martin Lewis?

  We're talking about them, so now we are talking to them. If you are listening now and you have a good idea, maybe you like QT's, maybe you've got something else that would work, then get in touch at [email protected] with your ideas for what we should call anyone whose question is either read out or comes on to talk on the podcast. Okay, with that done, what's your first question?

• 6:04Speaker 00

  Lovely question here. I don't know why I said that.

• 6:07Martin Lewis?

  Presenting local radio, we've got a lovely question here. Coming in first.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  Ah, dear.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Got a question here from James to start us off. He's emailed it in. He says, Dear Martin and Matt, which I'm not really happy about the order.

• 6:25Martin Lewis?

  It's fine, that's very good.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  Um, I receive travel insurance as part of my HSBC bank account, but I also have travel insurance from a workplace healthcare plan. He says, what happens if I need to make a claim? Can I choose who to claim from? Or do I need to notify both? He also then goes on to say, whilst I've not claimed, I want to make sure I don't encounter any issues should I need to. I've used AI to compare both policy documents and my bank policy is more comprehensive, but I don't have the option to opt out of the company plan without declining workplace healthcare.

• 6:57Martin Lewis?

  Okay, what an interesting question, James. Thank you very much. Well, the first thing to say is there's no problem having two policies. You're fine. What there would be a problem is double cut, double cover. You cannot profit, you can only get your costs back. So you couldn't, for example, have an incident abroad and claim off both the same amount. So you're making money on the back of it. That would, that's a breach. That's the first rule. Second rule is you can choose who to claim from, but when you're making that claim, you must answer honestly. And it will usually ask you if you have any other insurance that may cover this. That's one of their standard questions. Do you have any other policies that may cover this? And you should tell them yes. Rule three is when you claim at that point, the insurer

• 7:41Martin Lewis?

  that you claim from, and I would always be claiming for the one that gives me the best cover. So in your case, you'd want it to be your bank policy because that's got the best cover. The insurer that you claim from may try and recover the costs from the other insurer or ask you to do so. And all of that depends on the terms of your particular travel insurance policy. So you should be covered and yes, it's simpler to have one, so you can answer no. But in your case, you can't only have one because you're getting better cover from your bank policy anyway. So I would go, if something happened, I would claim from my bank, I would answer honestly. They may get in touch with the other insurer about what they cover. Hopefully they'll do it together so you don't have to get involved, but you might have to get involved. But that's roughly how it works. So yeah, go and claim if it happens from HSBC.

• 8:25Martin Lewis?

  I think it was in your case and I hope that makes sense.

• 8:30Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so caller?

• 8:32Speaker 00

  Caller.

• 8:32Martin Lewis?

  Caller.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  This one's a bit funny, I suppose, not the question, but the circumstances. We'll bring Dan in. Dan's in Leeds. Hi, Dan.

• 8:41Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Matt, I'm Matt. How's it going?

• 8:43Martin Lewis?

  Hello, mate. Hello.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  So...

• 8:44Martin Lewis?

  And Dan, it's Martin and Matt, just...

• 8:46Speaker 00

  No, it's Matt and Martin. Thanks for getting it the right way around. So, Dan, you've been roped in to speak to us, haven't you?

• 8:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, not so reluctantly because I've been a fan of the podcast as well.

• 8:57Martin Lewis?

  Oh, good.

• 8:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've been given the honour of asking the question.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  So, your wife emailed in?

• 9:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  And this is her question?

• 9:06Martin Lewis?

  So, your wife emailed in, it's her question, but you're voicing the question for us. Thank you so much for doing that.

• 9:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:11Martin Lewis?

  Perfect. What is it?

• 9:13Speaker 05

  Yes, she's asked because she knows that you've talked about whether you should pay off any debts before, like, savings and investing.

• 9:19Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  But she's wondering if this applies to mortgages.

• 9:24Martin Lewis?

  Okay, that is a big question. So, let's take this one step at a time. Actually, my general advice about debt is you should always pay off expensive debt before saving. Now, it does get a little bit more contentious because you also want to have an emergency fund. So, it depends on the nature of the debt that you should pay off. An emergency fund is there so you don't have to borrow even more. So, credit cards are quite simple because credit cards are an open-ending system of borrowing. So, if you think about it, if you've got a thousand pounds on a credit card and you've got a thousand pounds in savings, the credit card is costing you 20%, the savings are gaining you 4%, you gain 16% if you use the savings to pay off the credit card. And the advantage with the credit card is, once you pay the credit card off, it can sit there at a zero balance. And if you had an emergency, because you now don't

• 10:08Martin Lewis?

  have any savings, you could just borrow back on the credit card and you'd be in no worse a position, but you would have saved the interest meanwhile. It doesn't quite work the same way with a loan because you don't have the borrow-back ability in the same way. So, there's a little bit of thinking, but the general rule is you pay off expensive debts. Let's move to mortgages. Okay, with a mortgage, the rule of thumb is this. If the mortgage rate is higher than the after-tax rate you can earn on savings. So let's say you've got a 6% mortgage, you can earn 4% in savings. Then you are generally better to overpay the mortgage, making sure the payments go towards reducing your capital, which will effectively reduce the amount of time you have left to pay on the mortgage.

• 10:53Martin Lewis?

  They don't just reduce your monthly payments, then you don't make an interest saving because they're just spreading it out over a long period. If the savings rate is higher than the mortgage rate, then you are probably better off to save with a couple of caveats. First of all, I'd go on to a mortgage overpayment calculator, because if it's very close between the two, generally overpaying your mortgage will win because of the vagaries of the way interest is worked out. But also, if you reduce the amount of your mortgage debt, if you've got quite a high proportion of borrowing to your house's value, if you reduce the amount of your mortgage's debt, you reduce the loan to value, which could mean you might be able to get a cheaper mortgage when it comes to remortgaging. So that's worth thinking about, too.

• 11:34Martin Lewis?

  The two big caveats to overpaying your mortgage are, first of all, I'd always have an emergency fund in liquid cash, because if you overpay your mortgage and suddenly something happens that you can't pay it anymore, that's not going to start the bank going, oh, you've overpaid, so don't worry about paying us now, they're still going to put you in arrears. And second, you need to check that there aren't any overpayment penalties. So there are some mortgages which will have penalties if you try and overpay, but in general, on most mortgages, you can pay off up to 10% of your outstanding balance each year without any penalties, but you should always check that before you do overpay. So how are we doing? That's debt and mortgages.

• 12:13Speaker 05

  Because we're with Santander at the minute, and it's 4.6, sorry, 4.26% interest.

• 12:20Martin Lewis?

  So you're in that fine line. How, do you know what your LTV is, or roughly, have you paid a lot of your mortgage off, or are you relatively new and therefore have a big debt on it?

• 12:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's relatively new. We got like.

• 12:34Martin Lewis?

  I then asked Dan how much his house was worth because I needed to know that to understand whether it's worth overpaying for LTV reasons. He gave me an answer which we're not going to put on air, but effectively as he's borrowing less than 60% of his home's value, he probably won't get a gain from reducing his loan to value because you only get that if you're borrowing over 60% of your house's value. Therefore, that isn't really a factor in his decision. Well, in that case, you're probably not going to get much LTV gain. The gain on loan to value is for people who are borrowing over 60% of their house's value. So you're not in that category. So I think it's really just a piece of financial mess. Now, you could find, certainly have an emergency fund, and you could find that savings, you know,

• 13:17Martin Lewis?

  there are savings at 4.5%, but if you're putting a substantial amount away, that will be taxed, that reduces it. So you might want to have your money in a cash I. So you might also want to think about investing if you've got spare cash, which can do quite well too. It's a fine balance. I hope that gives you a little bit of a clue to where to start, though.

• 13:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's definitely given me a direction to have a look at. So yeah, appreciate that.

• 13:38Martin Lewis?

  Thank you so much. Thank you for calling, Dan, and send the best to your wife as well because she couldn't call, I know.

• 13:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, appreciate that.

• 13:45Martin Lewis?

  So there we go. I think that gives a relatively simple summary. If it's expensive debts, get rid of them if you can. Just make sure you've got the emergency fund. If it's a mortgage, if the mortgage rate is roughly the same or higher than you can earn after tax in savings, you will tend to be better off overpaying the mortgage. Again, as long as you've got an emergency fund, which I define as three to six months' worth of bills. You can make your decision whether you want three or six months' worth of bills. And do make sure that that counts towards paying off the capital and there aren't any penalties. And it's worth thinking too about whether you'd like to invest a little bit of cash too to build for your long-term future. As long as you're putting money away for at least five years that you don't need to access in a broad spread of investments, that will

• 14:27Martin Lewis?

  probably outperform saving and may in some cases, outperform paying off your mortgage too. Although, of course, it's shares. So it can do well and not so well.

• 14:40Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so that was paying off your debts. What's your next question for me, please, Matt?

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Got one from Scott. He's emailed it into MartinLizPodcast at bbc.co.uk. Very short question, but I'm sure there's a lot you can talk about. Hi, Martin and team. I mean, me and you.

• 14:54Martin Lewis?

  And Rosie.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  You are Rosie. Sorry. Sorry, Rosie.

• 14:57Martin Lewis?

  So Rosie, for those who don't know, Rosie works with me. She is a researcher with me, and he's brilliantly clever. And she sits alongside me to be the pair of ears, because sometimes when you do broadcasting, the thing that comes out of your mouth is not the thing that your brennan was meant to say. So that she, because she will sometimes go, "You just said that." I'm like, "Did I?" That's what happens. So yeah, team is fine, Matt.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Team. She also keeps us in check, doesn't she?

• 15:21Martin Lewis?

  She does keep us in check.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  So Scott's question, "I'd like to support my nieces and nephew by opening an ISA. Can I do it?"

• 15:29Martin Lewis?

  Well, Uncle Scott, no is the honest answer. I presume you're talking about a junior ISA, which is a tax-free savings account you can put, or investment account, you can put up to nine thousand pounds a tax year in, but the child can't then access the account until they're 18. So it is locked away until their 18th birthday, and then on their 18th birthday, it is totally their money. But you, as an uncle, can't do it. It generally has to be the person who has the guardianship or the parentship of the child to be able to open their ISA. So you will have to do it through them. And just as a general note, I tend to almost always get questions about cash junior ISAs. I think junior ISAs are

• 16:13Martin Lewis?

  one of those areas where you really, really want to always be focusing, if you possibly can, on investing. Again, always investing in a broad spread of assets, you know, a combination of trackathens and that type of thing. And the reason for that's simple. You're generally locking money away for up to 18 years that cannot be accessed. And the rule of investing is, if you're locking money away for more than five years, and for general people, if you've got an emergency fund and you haven't got any high debts, which hopefully children won't, then you should look at investing over savings, because on a balance of probabilities, it will outperform. Well, a junior ISA is...

• 16:50Martin Lewis?

  In that sweet spot, it's absolutely in the sweet spot. Money locked away for a long time that you don't need by definition because you can't access it. And therefore, I don't know what you were going for because you just asked about an ISA. You could well be thinking about a shares ISA. But you can have both, by the way, if you don't want to go too far and you think that's a bit much for you. You could put some in a cash ISA and some in a shares ISA and it could work that way. So I'd be having a think about that way, but you can't do it. You're going to need to talk to the parents, Uncle Scott.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Well, what's your answer on that question, Martin? I did a little search to come up with some.

• 17:21Martin Lewis?

  So you weren't listening?

• 17:22Speaker 00

  Of course I was listening. I can multitask.

• 17:24Martin Lewis?

  Okay, I can't. Well, do you?

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Definitely can't. And it came up with a couple of ideas and one of them, which I really thought was good.

• 17:30Martin Lewis?

  This is for the club. This is your club, I guess.

• 17:32Speaker 00

  This is for the club, yeah.

• 17:33Martin Lewis?

  Alternatives to QTs.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  So instead of calling them QTs, we could say they're part of the frugal fellowship.

• 17:39Martin Lewis?

  Well, it's very Lord of the Rings.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  I know, but it's funny.

• 17:42Martin Lewis?

  It is, it is, but I'm just gonna go, okay. This pod isn't actually about frugality.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  No, it's not.

• 17:52Martin Lewis?

  Right, you know, frugality is, so when I always talk about money makeovers, I talk about there are two steps to it. The first step is to go through everything that you spend money on and see, can I get the same and pay less for it? If at that point you're still spending more than you earn or more than your income, then you start cutting back and that's frugality. Frugality is the second part for me, not the first part. And actually, most of the questions we get are about the first part.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:17Martin Lewis?

  They're about money management and products. So while the frugality of the rings, or whatever it was.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  Frugal fellowship.

• 18:23Martin Lewis?

  Frugal, the frugal fellowship, Frodo. Ah, my pretty. While I think that's nice and it sounds nice, it's good alliteration, don't think it cuts it.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  What about finance fellowship?

• 18:35Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  No. Okay, do you know what? We'll keep thinking about it and I'm sure someone listening is much more creative and it will blow us out the water.

• 18:44Martin Lewis?

  That's the problem with AI, you know. If you start using it, when you need to come up with something, instead of putting your brain to it, it's so easy to just ask it to come up with random solutions. I worry that we lose, you know, you almost lose our creativity by not doing it ourselves. Anyway, I should be doing a question.

• 19:02Martin Lewis?

  Okay, what have you got next for me, Matt?

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Got a question, well, kind of a question, from John. It's on subscriptions and cancelling them. So, he has emailed in and says something he'd like you to explore is the possibility of a consumer law that requires people to be able to cancel subscriptions or services at no more effort than to set it up. So, he says, "I can set up broadband in about two pages, takes five minutes. Yet to cancel, I have to spend an hour waiting on the phone to then be bombarded with different people and ways of trying to keep me. If it were the same form to cancel, it would force companies to be more competitive, and a lot of people, especially the elderly, would not get ripped off because of broken processes. Cancellation teams should have to answer as quick or quicker than sales teams and so on.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  If I phone a company to buy something, they'll answer the call within two minutes. If I want to cancel, I speak to someone else and have likely been on hold for hours for the privilege." Just an idea, and I think you'd probably consider it a good one.

• 20:01Martin Lewis?

  I do consider it. I consider it a very good one. It's something I've long said that we should do as well. My view has always been quite simple. I should be able to get out of something the same way I got into it. So if I set it up online, I should be able to get out of it online in the same way. If I called, I should be able to call. If I texted, I should be able to text. That should be a basic rule. Now, of course, the best rule, and with my Money and Mental Health Policy Institute charity hat on, is for people with mental health issues, is that you have all the different contact routes available at every possible opportunity, because that makes it easier for people. But firms are not that into it, certainly firms who are not in essential service providers, where they have to have more rules about how they treat vulnerable customers. So, the good news is, in the Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act, there is a

• 20:45Martin Lewis?

  point, just checking it, I was a go, so that was hence the slow talking, that says, "Consumers should not have to put in more effort to exit a subscription contract than they did to enter it," which I think goes quite a long way to covering John's point. In the consultation, examples of how this works in practice include being able to exit online if you signed up online and only requiring the consumer to contact the trader once to cancel the subscription, all of which we will all agree on. So there it is, there is an act that does this. Isn't that wonderful?

• 21:20Martin Lewis?

  But while that law has been passed, each section of the law needs specific secondary legislation. So that's where a minister is saying this is now in part and exactly how it's going to work to bring it into force. And the way that that secondary legislation comes into place is it has to go out to consultation. And the government hasn't yet set out its final rules on this section. It was meant to come no earlier than spring this year. It's now looking at autumn this year. So let's just cross our fingers that by the end of the year, that will be in place. Great question, John. Really appreciate it.

• 21:57Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so now I'm guessing it's a caller and it's, what's their question?

• 22:02Speaker 00

  Not a question, a success. I think it's probably just best to bring him in. So we've got Jamie in Sheffield. Hi, Jamie.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Hiya, how's it going?

• 22:10Martin Lewis?

  Hello, Jamie. Hiya. What can we do for you?

• 22:12Speaker 04

  Well, just to give some feedback on a question I had last week, which was described as a very nerdy question, which I'm very proud of, I must say. I am the broadband question.

• 22:23Martin Lewis?

  Ah, so this, that was the question with, should I wait until April to try and avoid a price hike on broadband because they're telling me if I sign up now, they'll, in pounds and pence, what it will go up. It was a really tough and geeky one, but I hedged on the side of getting now. What did you do?

• 22:40Speaker 04

  I waited a couple of days. I was waiting eagerly waiting for your response. And luckily for me, they, when I was checking the comparison site, I always check, that a supplier was offering a deal that didn't increase their prices until April 2027.

• 22:57Martin Lewis?

  Oh, wonderful.

• 22:58Speaker 04

  And they remained at £20 a month. And so I managed to avoid having that price increase this year and saved £96. So very pleased with that.

• 23:07Martin Lewis?

  Oh, well done. And you're getting £20 a month. What speed are you getting for that?

• 23:10Speaker 04

  £150.

• 23:11Martin Lewis?

  Oh, which is perfect. I mean, unless you've got special needs.

• 23:14Speaker 04

  Double what I had before, yeah.

• 23:16Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, I mean, we talked to, sorry, did you say it was more than you had before?

• 23:18Speaker 04

  It's double what I had before.

• 23:19Martin Lewis?

  Oh, double what you had before and you're paying less money. Your contract came to the end absolutely perfect. Jobs are good and we sorted it out. That's brilliant. So, yeah, just to sum up for people listening. This is all about the fact that we're going to see price hikes on most mobile and broadband providers this April. Now, you'll know what the price hike is in most cases because under the new Ofcom regime, well, new is about a year and a half old. They have to tell you in pounds and pence how much your mid-contract price hike will be. So, Jamie, his whole thing was, do I wait till April? Then I avoid this year's price hike. But my issue was we couldn't guarantee that if you do wait till April, you won't be paying a higher price from the start anyway. Because it's all about short-lived offers and all about waiting to pounce when you've got a short-lived offer. And Jamie, you pounced.

• 24:02Speaker 04

  I did pounce, I did.

• 24:03Martin Lewis?

  Wonderful. Well, well done for pouncing. Glad you managed to get your claws into a good broadband deal and it's always lovely to hear your success. Thank you so much.

• 24:11Speaker 04

  It was very good. And just to note how easy it is to switch. It just happened very quickly. Didn't have to get an engineer out, completed in minutes.

• 24:19Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, it could be up to two hours downtime, but normally there isn't. Yours was virtually nothing, was it?

• 24:24Speaker 04

  Virtually nothing, yeah.

• 24:25Martin Lewis?

  Oh, well done. I'm so pleased. I love our success. Thank you so much, Jamie. Really appreciate it.

• 24:29Speaker 04

  Thanks very much for help. Always appreciate it. Thanks.

• 24:33Martin Lewis?

  And Matt, we're nearly at the end of the podcast. Are you about to throw a funny up to me?

• 24:37Speaker 00

  It's not quite a funny. It's a comment that Jackie sent in.

• 24:40Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  Dear Martin, I'm 62 and my sister Tracy is 59. I'm 5'10", she's 5'3". If we go for a walk for exactly the same time, for the same distance, she walks at least 1,000 steps more than me. It's infuriating, but I have a longer stride and therefore take fewer steps per mile. How tall is your step nemesis? I bet she's under 5'5". Anyway, I wish you well and thank you for all you do.

• 25:08Martin Lewis?

  Well, yes, so my step nemesis and I, that people know from earlier, is my huge step competitor, a wonderful person, but an evil stepper who lives in Manchester. And we got completely obsessive last calendar year and I averaged over 26,000 steps a day on the back of it. So much so, the update on this is after pressure from both our partners, we have actually unlinked each other. On our um tracking app, so we can no longer see how many steps we're doing to get rid of the competition because it was just so life destructive how much time is being spent on it. I did message you the other day, both of us have dropped significantly. My average is around twenty three thousand steps a day this year, which is the lowest for about six or seven years, but I'm quite enjoying the extra time it gives me. You know, three

• 25:53Martin Lewis?

  thousand steps is about twenty five minutes of walking a day extra, which is quite helpful. But I do get your point. To be fair, May Tal, which is her name, um it's probably about five foot eight and I'm I'm five ten and three quarters, which is basically five eleven, which is effectively six foot.

• 26:11Speaker 00

  Sure, that's what everyone says.

• 26:13Martin Lewis?

  So so I am taller than her, but I have to say, when you do this, because obviously my wife, Lara, is a tech journalist and has worn six fitness trackers uh of a week during a week to compare them. And recently she's did five fitness rings in a week to do all the comparisons of them. It does depend on which tracking tool you're using, which is why myself and the step nemesis, we were on the same tracking tool. So it's fair. That will be my question, Jackie. Are you and Tracy using the same fitness tracker? If you are, well, yeah, maybe you could shorten your stride or maybe you could just move your arm with the fitness tracker on a little bit faster.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 26:50Martin Lewis?

  That would be what I would do.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:51Martin Lewis?

  Just a little bit faster.

• 26:52Speaker 00

  Or go for extra walks behind her back.

• 26:54Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Quite right.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  Uh so were you using exactly the same device and app?

• 27:00Martin Lewis?

  Not exactly the same device, but the same from the same company, the same firm, trying not to say who it is.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  Right, yeah.

• 27:06Martin Lewis?

  And

• 27:06Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 27:07Martin Lewis?

  And but because of that, the underlying algorithm is pretty similar.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  I see.

• 27:11Martin Lewis?

  So it wouldn't have made that much difference. So if you were comparing, say, a Garmin to an Apple, you're gonna get differences.

• 27:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:17Martin Lewis?

  Which is why the steps are really about it's comparing yourself to yourself because they they're consistently inconsistent, which is what makes them work. And I think that's nearly the end.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's go back quickly to the club.

• 27:28Martin Lewis?

  You're getting obsessed by the club now, aren't you?

• 27:29Speaker 00

  I am getting obsessed because I want to get this right.

• 27:32Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 27:32Speaker 00

  So producer Simon, who stood in a couple of weeks ago.

• 27:36Martin Lewis?

  And does the main pod.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  He does the main pod, yes.

• 27:38Martin Lewis?

  Well, that's not, we're not calling it the main pod anymore. He does the pod with Adrian.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  Does Adrian's, yeah, not Adrian's, but your pod with it. Anyway, he came up with MPC, didn't he? Which is Martin's podcast contributor.

• 27:49Martin Lewis?

  Ooh.

• 27:50Speaker 00

  And I think you're like that because the initials are.

• 27:54Martin Lewis?

  MPC.

• 27:54Speaker 00

  Which is.

• 27:55Martin Lewis?

  Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. They're the ones who make the decisions. I quite like that. Okay, so that's going in the pot.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 28:01Martin Lewis?

  All right, so your final choice at the end of the pod, you've got QT's, you've got MPC, which is a bit formal, you know, your curator of questions. I think, you know, Martin's podcast contributor, but we just call it MPC Works, or A and other, not literally A and other, as in somebody else comes up with another, do suggest [email protected], both for your questions, but also your, what are you if your question has been read out in the podcast? And I'd like to say here and now, that if your idea is the one we pick to be the name of what we call contributors, then you automatically get that after your name.

• 28:43Martin Lewis?

  So the person who suggests this is by definition, if it were MPC, they're an MPC.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  Okay, okay. And then if you do come on the podcast, then you can put that after your name, you can put it on letterheads.

• 28:55Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, we're, we're happy with that. You can use it however you like. I mean, whether it has any formal or legal basis, or there's any copyright issues, I don't know. And that's on your own cognizance. But if you want to call yourself it, then you go ahead and do it. I mean, after all, Matthew is curator of questions. Do you not have that on the bottom of your email?

• 29:12Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, it's everywhere. I've got it tattooed. Yep.

• 29:15Martin Lewis?

  Perfect. Small on your back.

• 29:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:20Martin Lewis?

  All right, that's probably a good place to stop.

• 29:25Martin Lewis?

  And that is it for this week's Question Time. Don't forget to subscribe so you know when we release a new episode. We've put out a new Question Time episode each Monday alongside the podcast with Adrian on Thursdays. Aren't you lucky? Two doses of money-saving tips and tricks a week. Do make sure you send in your questions. You can email [email protected] and address them to Dear Martin.

• 29:47Speaker 00

  Dear Matt.

• 29:49Martin Lewis?

  It's Dear Matt.

• 30:05Speaker 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.

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