Shift debt to 0% while you can! | Car Finance update | ISA & inheritance tax

Martin’s leading this week’s podcast with an urgent warning for anyone carrying credit card: now is the time to act. He explains why he's concerned the top deals could get worse, runs through how balance transfers work, reveals the best options currently available, shares tips to maximise your chances of acceptance, and looks at when a loan may beat a credit card solution. If you're paying interest on existing debt, this is a must-listen guide to cutting costs and taking control. Martin also has an update on Car Finance Mis-selling. After months of waiting, there’s finally a key date in the diary for the next stage of the process. With millions potentially affected, he explains what happens next, what it means for consumers, and what you should be doing now. Plus, this week’s Tell Us asks: what have you quietly hidden, downplayed, or conveniently forgotten to mention to a partner, child or parent that cost a little more than expected? The responses range from scuba gear splurges and secret spending pacts to one particularly memorable hidden horse, complete with some excellent puns. Then it's time for Mastermind, where Martin tackles a common inheritance tax question: do ISAs count towards your estate? Along the way, for reasons that will become apparent, you'll also get to hear his unexpected Dumbledore impression. And to round things off, Martin reveals why he's been getting some stick from an Olympian. 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 he likes in his full English breakfast, what his thermostat’s set to, or you have a very complicated question about your 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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• 1:45Martin Lewis?

  Even if you put a complaint in, you would be lucky if it's at the end of 2027. If you have a substantial amount of debt that you're not sleeping about at night and that you can't cope with, here's what I would do. It could also see the end of all match redress schemes, which I think was a really, really good change. You have that amount of eligible credit. It is there. Use it. 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. And this is our big topic episode where each week we lead on one main subject to help you save. Usually, most of it comes from my BBC Radio 5 live show with Adrian Charles, but there's also bonus money-saving tips and tricks just for you lucky, lucky

• 2:25Martin Lewis?

  podcast listeners. And in today's pod, the big topic is for everybody who has existing debt on credit and store cards. In a nutshell, I'm concerned the deals available to cut the costs are about to get worse and they're going to get worse rapidly, so you need to sort it sooner. I'm going to run through how balance transfers work, the best deals, how to maximise your chances of acceptance, cards versus loans and a lot, lot more. So that's a must-listen if you've got debt on credit cards. I've also got an update on car finance misselling. I know millions are waiting for the news. Well, we finally have a date for the next steps and I'll talk you through what that means. This week's tellers: what do you or have you spent on that you quietly hid or

• 3:07Martin Lewis?

  downplayed to your partner or child or parent? And did they ever find out? And your answers include scuba kips, agreements between partners not to tell each other, and even a hidden horse with some very good puns generated on the back of it. Then it's on to Mastermind. And this week, the question is all about whether ISAs count towards your inheritance tax allowance. And you get the joy of listening to my Dumbledore impression. Don't ask yet. And then to finish, I'm getting some stick from an Olympian. Play the theme tune.

• 3:53Speaker 04

  I've got a question for that inheritance tax from a neighbour of mine who is on the...

• 3:56Martin Lewis?

  That's how you get in touch, no? If you're a neighbour of Adrian's, just knock on his door, ask him a question.

• 4:01Speaker 04

  Exactly. Well, he always feels sorry for me when, with your questions, when you bamboozle me with the Mastermind. So, well, yes. He says, if a surviving spouse has assets of 450k in property and 500k in cash, so that's 950 altogether, I'm just walking you through this.

• 4:20Martin Lewis?

  Thank you. I needed that.

• 4:22Speaker 04

  They then have to go into care and the property is sold. So assets are then 950k.

• 4:29Martin Lewis?

  Assets converted into cash, yeah. Houses converted into cash.

• 4:31Speaker 04

  Unfortunately, they then die, leaving a total asset value of 750k.

• 4:37Martin Lewis?

  Yep.

• 4:38Speaker 04

  What is the inheritance tax situation as there is no property asset now? Does the estate get taxed on the 750k less the 650k relief?

• 4:48Martin Lewis?

  So that's really interesting, especially because the Mastermind later will be touching on these types of issues, but not exactly that issue. So, look, when we do inheritance tax on the programme, I bring in a specialist because it's very complicated. So I'm going to give you a general answer. The question here is, if you have sold your property, do you still get the property exemption if that money is passed on to direct descendants? So remember, you get £325,000 per person inheritance tax allowance and then £175,000 extra if your main property is passed on to direct descendants. Now, the rules state that if that property was sold after 2015, I believe, then even if it was sold, if it was your main property, you can still leave that money and get the property exemption.

• 5:33Martin Lewis?

  The exact amount depends on when it was sold and exactly what the value is. But yes, in principle, the reason that was done is because what they didn't want to do is suddenly stop everybody selling their houses and downsizing when we've got a housing crisis, just because they wanted to keep that inheritance tax allowance. So there is an exemption in the rules that if you've sold that property and you still have the cash from the sale of that property effectively within your estate, when you pass on, you can still get the relief on the property, even if you no longer own the property. Now, the exact dotting the i's and crossing the t's, you will need to go and see a specialist about. But in general principle, I would have thought, was it 750 grand?

• 6:08Speaker 04

  Yes, that was the, yes.

• 6:10Martin Lewis?

  Roughly, I would think for that individual, we will ignore whether there's money passed on from a spouse and there's another amount from a spouse, would probably have, if the money was going to direct descendants, £500,000 inheritance tax free, which is the 325 normal plus the 175,000 for property. But there can be some, you know, ifs and buts, depending on what the sale and the value when it was sold and all that. But I would suspect it'd be 500 grand.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Car finance update. What have you got for us on that?

• 6:39Martin Lewis?

  So what we have been waiting for, people will remember, car finance has been an absolutely massive issue. And then, last March, the regulator, the FCA, announced a nine billion pounds match redress scheme for 12 million missold motor vehicle finance agreements. The big thing about the match redress scheme is this was a scheme where if you put in a complaint, it would be quicker. But if you didn't put in a complaint, you know, they were setting precedent here and saying that the motor finance firms themselves needed to find everybody who was missold on the basis, contact them and pay them out. That's what the match redress scheme means. So that was in, it was all looking good in March. It was all going to go ahead. And then four legal challenges were put in. Three by motor

• 7:22Martin Lewis?

  finance firms and one by a firm that basically provides leads and works for claims firms and other group legal claims. So they were saying that the money wasn't enough and the motor finance firms were saying it was too much. So everything on the match redress scheme went on hold. Well, we learnt on Tuesday this week that we now have a court date for hearing those four firms who are trying to stop the car finance scheme. Now, the frustration is, the court date, we were told, could have been in December or it could have been in February, and they've gone for February. So the court will hear this from the 16th of February until the 24th or 26th of February next year, and then it will obviously have to play out in the system. Meanwhile, firms will have to answer your complaints under

• 8:07Martin Lewis?

  the match redress scheme, but they will not have to pay you out until we know the result of the court case. So frankly, the payouts under this match redress scheme, I think, even if you put a complaint in, you would be lucky if it's at the end of 2027. If you haven't put a complaint in, it will probably be in 2028. And that is, of course, if the court upholds the match redress scheme as it is right now. If it changes it or says it wasn't viable, I mean, I have great concerns because if it does knock it down, I think not only could it be the end of this scheme, but it could also see the end of all match redress schemes, which I think was a really, really good change that we, you know, for many vulnerable people and people who aren't capable, to stop them, if they've been missold by a firm, having to actually put a complaint in that it should have been done automatically.

• 8:52Martin Lewis?

  So there is a lot riding on this at the moment.

• 8:57Speaker 04

  Shall we get on to credit cards then? Why aren't we doing this now, rather than in the actual immediate run up to Christmas?

• 9:04Martin Lewis?

  So, we did on the show a couple of weeks ago, we had the chief economist of Barclays Bank, and he said that the markets are factoring in for interest rate rises potentially over the next year. He didn't think it would be that high, but that's the scale of magnitude we're potentially talking. Plus, the strong money is on the first one will be in November. So, we have UK rates likely to go up. And the question is, what is the impact on that on the credit card 0% deals? We're specifically talking about balance transfer deals today. Because for me, they're the most important one. They're the one which allows you to cut the cost of existing debt so that you can be debt-free more quickly, because more of your money goes to paying off the actual debt, rather than paying the interest.

• 9:46Martin Lewis?

  My view on this, having been around and done this a long time, is

• 9:53Martin Lewis?

  when UK base rates go up, we can see subtle changes to 0%. There's the more obvious, the longer 0% may be shortened. There's the less obvious, that the one-off fee for doing a balance transfer may increase. There's the sort of less of a worry if you do it properly, which is the standard APR you go to after your 0% ends will increase. But that is a concern for anyone with existing debt. You know, four or five years ago, I used to say high street credit cards were 18.9%. And now I say they're 24.9% once you're outside the 0% period. And the most difficult one to spot, which I think we will see, and actually, my guess is this will be the most common, is that lenders will tighten their acceptance criteria.

• 10:38Martin Lewis?

  So they will still offer the same deals, but they will give the headline deal to fewer people. Now, the reason I'm talking about that is you have two types of deals. And when I go through the best buys in a minute, you will understand this. There are two types of deals on credit card 0% balance transfers. I phrase them this way, they don't phrase them this way. I call them definite deals and up to deals. A definite deal, if you have a definite 36-month 0% balance transfer, that means everyone accepted will get the full 36 months advertised. If you have an up to 0% balance transfer, so up to 36 months 0%, that means some accepted will get 36, and then they will subtly publish the alternative rates.

• 11:23Martin Lewis?

  They might say, others will get 32, others will get 20, others will get 18. So I suspect what will happen, the way the market works now, is we'll see fewer definite deals, more up to deals, and the backup rate, the non-headline rates of the deals will be worse. So they will still say up to 36 months 0%, but instead of the secondary and tertiary rates being 30 months 0% and 20 months 0%, the secondary and tertiary rates may be 25 months 0% and 10 months 0%. So it will be a subtle degradation of what's going on out there, which makes, you can see the complexity here, but ultimately, that's why, get rid of all that. If you've got existing debt on credit cards, especially if you are paying interest,

• 12:09Martin Lewis?

  I would sort out a deal sooner rather than later. And that's why we're doing it today. It was a convoluted answer, but hopefully people understand the basics.

• 12:17Speaker 04

  Got it. Ali, would it be worth doing a balance transfer even if I've had the credit card a long time to avoid higher interest charges?

• 12:25Martin Lewis?

  Yes, absolutely. I mean, in fact, the best time to do a balance transfer is when you've had the credit card a long time, because you'll be out of all introductory interest offers. So let's just go back to basics of what a balance transfer is. A balance transfer is when you get a new credit card that pays off the debts on your existing credit or store cards for you, normally up to 90% of the credit limit you're given. So let's say they give you a £1,000 credit limit. You could normally balance transfer up to £900 of it. You now owe the new card instead of the old card. So you've moved the debt to the new card, but it's at 0% for a period. There's often a one-off fee, it might be 3%. So if you shift £1,000, it's a £30 fee that goes on to the debt.

• 13:08Martin Lewis?

  So you now owe £1,030 at 0% for a period. And the big advantage of this is now all of your money is in effect clearing the debt, rather than servicing the interest, which most of your repayments pay. So you get debt-free quicker, as long as you don't borrow anywhere else. And just people always get a bit confused about the practicals. How do you do this? Well, when you apply, they will normally ask you if you've got balance transfer to shift. Once you're accepted, either on the app, or on the website, or by phone, you simply say, I would like to balance transfer or shift this amount of debt from these credit cards. They make the payment for you. You don't do it, the new card, the balance transfer firm does it for you when you fill it in. And they will then pay off your old card or cards for you. And you can do it on more than one card.

• 13:53Martin Lewis?

  So you could get a balance transfer, and if you have debt on three cards, you could clear all of them if your credit limit was big enough.

• 13:57Speaker 04

  Okay. Tony, I find it hard to navigate the changeover. Do I cancel the cards I am paying off with the new 0% card?

• 14:05Martin Lewis?

  So let's just separate this again. If you think of a balance transfer as a payment, it is paying off your old card. Now, it might not be enough to clear all the debt on your old card. If that's the case, then you're going to need to continue to pay the old card as well. But at least you'll be paying less on it, because the interest, you've got less money on it. And even if it's charging interest, most of that debt is now at 0%. You need to sort of think of this in the round. You know, if you've got £2,000 of debt, before it was £2,000 of debt at 25%. Now it's £1,500 at 0% and £500 at 25%. And in that case, by the way, you focus all of your spare cash on clearing the expensive debt, the 25% debt. You pay the minimums on the 0% card until you've cleared the expensive debt, because that's the one that's costing you the most.

• 14:50Martin Lewis?

  If you're asking me, once I've done the balance transfer and my old card is empty and I am not using it anymore, should I cancel it? Which people often ask because of credit score reasons. Generally, you may want to cancel it, because it means you have less available debt and credit, which is a good thing, although it improves your credit utilization. But generally, less available debt and credit is a good thing. You might want to cancel it. The only reason you might not do that is if you had other debts on cards and that card you cleared was cheaper in future. Or sometimes, your existing card, once it's clear or low, will write to you, giving you an existing customer balance transfer offer. So it might say you could shift debt to as at 7% for a year, or 0% for six months,

• 15:36Martin Lewis?

  even without you applying. And if you had a third card that had debt on it, you might want to utilize it. So I would suggest tactically, if you've got other debts, I'd probably keep it open for about six months or a year, just to see if they're going to give you an existing customer balance transfer offer, where you could cut the cost.

• 15:53Speaker 04

  Okay. Shaez, how many times can you do a balance transfer?

• 15:57Martin Lewis?

  As many times as you want to. You can continually keep debt on as 0% by balance transferring. And it's one of my golden rules, actually. You should always make sure, when your 0% period is about to end, you've either cleared the debt or you balance transfer it again. Whether you can get a new balance transfer depends on your credit score at the time. But there is no rule that stops you doing this. And certainly, some people out there who do a thing called "stusing", which is not for anybody in debt. Stusing is where you deliberately use 0% cards to make money by taking false debt and putting it into a high-interest bank account. So they tend to be people who've got good credit scores and good income and all of that type of stuff. They perpetually can keep debt at 0%.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  Okay. And two questions, I think, sort of along the same grounds, but you correct me if I'm wrong. Melanie says, is it better to look for a fixed loan? And Laura, I really feel for Laura here. She has approximately £4,500 of debt on a credit card, and my husband has about the same on his. We're both still within the 0% interest-free period and both work full-time, but we're financially struggling and feels like we're getting nowhere with paying off the debt. Do you think we were better off taking out a loan and paying off the credit cards with that? And then we would only have one payment towards the loan to pay off? I hate this feeling of financial insecurity and really want to get my debts and finances sorted.

• 17:16Martin Lewis?

  Okay. So there are two different things going on. They are the same question, so let's focus on the second one. What's happening here is we have two different things that are affecting. You have the rate of interest you are being charged, which is basically how much it's actually costing you to have the debt over the period. And the higher the rate of interest, the more it costs you. The longer you borrow for, the more it costs you. So you of course want the lowest interest rate possible. The second issue that's going on here is cash flow. How much you actually have to pay each month. So clearly, most people would like 0% interest and to pay less each month. But if you pay less each month, if there is a real interest rate, then you pay more in total.

• 18:00Martin Lewis?

  So let me give you two answers. My purest attitude would say I would always go with a 0% credit card over a loan. Cheapest loans on the market at the moment, even for large amounts, are 6% interest. They're 10%, 11% interest if you're borrowing smaller amounts. So you would then-

• 18:19Speaker 04

  So what's a small, what, just in the scheme of things?

• 18:21Martin Lewis?

  Under £3,000.

• 18:21Speaker 04

  Under £3,000. So, okay, so they're talking £9,000.

• 18:25Martin Lewis?

  They're talking £9,000. They're in the roughly 6% is the very cheapest if they could get it. And it is rate for risk, so it does not mean they could get the cheapest. They're talking 6% interest. And therefore, you would pay more in total by having a fixed-rate loan. And if you're talking about, I want this so we have less money coming out, then you're probably going to have to borrow over an even longer period that means it would be more expensive. So on a purest basis, remember, if your cards are on 0% interest right now, every penny that you're repaying is lowering your debt. If you move it to a fixed-rate loan, even if it's at 6%, some of the money you're repaying-

• 19:08Martin Lewis?

  Is just paying the interest and not clearing the debt. The thing that people like about a loan is they have a fixed time and they have a set payment and we just pay this each month and we don't have to worry about it. The problem with a credit card is it is an open-ended credit facility. You can keep borrowing, don't, right? And you can pay the minimums, right? And, and I don't know what the minimums are and how they'd relate to a loan. I suspect the minimum payment on a loan each month would be higher than you are both paying right now, unless you spread it over a long period. You can repay more than the minimums. I mean, in my perfect world, I would pay everything you can possibly afford to pay off on the zero percent cards while it's zero percent to try and lower that debt. So all of that money, and then I would balance transfer again, if you can, to keep it at zero percent.

• 19:52Martin Lewis?

  So every penny you've got is clearing the debt. You may find a psychological benefit by moving to a loan because you've got a structured repayment that's over a set time, you know.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  Which kind of keeps you honest, well, not keeps you honest, but keeps, it's the discipline of.

• 20:07Martin Lewis?

  Right, so for someone like me, who is very disciplined, I would always go with the zero percent card because there's no interest and it is therefore cheaper. As long as you can keep getting zero percent and keep balance transferring. Psychologically, you, and, and clearly that you read the last phrase, I mean, they are struggling, aren't they?

• 20:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:25Martin Lewis?

  So I'm not trying to tell them not to do it, but you need to go and look, if you can go onto an eligibility calculator, have a look at what type of loan you would get at what type of rate, put it into a loans calculator and do the contrast. My answer would be if you really need to for psychological benefit, that then you need to sleep at night, then do it. But if you want to know what's cheaper, then keeping on a zero percent card as long as you possibly can will be cheaper and paying off as much as you can. And what you could do is you could go and do the calculation and see how much the loan would cost you, then pay that amount off your credit card. In your head, consider it to be a loan each month. Now, if the repayments on the loan are two hundred pounds a month, then you each pay a hundred pounds off a month and you fix your repayments at that.

• 21:08Martin Lewis?

  So you've effectively converted it into a loan at zero percent. I'd love people's views on that, actually, if you've been in that situation, because I do it from a maths basis, but I understand there's an emotional and a psychological aspect to it.

• 21:19Speaker 04

  Chaney has got a tip, and I'm surprised you've never mentioned this yourself, Martin, if you've got credit card debt, then pay it off in full.

• 21:27Martin Lewis?

  Oh, no, I've, I've never, no, do you know, I could do it, I could say it and I could go in full.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:34Martin Lewis?

  So that everyone gets it. But actually, that doesn't apply here and it's important people understand why.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:38Martin Lewis?

  The, I'm not going to do it again. The in full message is one I developed to make sure that people who have rewards or cash back cards, so when you are using a card not for borrowing, you're effectively trying to neuter its borrowing ability to get it for rewards or for cheap spending overseas that it doesn't cost you. Because the key thing on a credit card is if you have a thousand pound debt on the credit card and you repay off a thousand pounds in the month, there's no interest. You have a thousand pound debt on a credit card and you repay nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds off in a month, you still pay interest on the entire thousand pounds, not just on the quid, pay interest on the entire thousand pounds. So the in full is to say to those people, it's not nearly, it's not close, it is in full that you need to repay.

• 22:22Martin Lewis?

  But in this case, you're talking about a credit card as a form of debt and, and that needs to be repaid. And therefore, what we're actually talking about, well, generally on the balance transfer, the aim should be to try and clear all the debt within the balance transfer period. So divide, you've got two thousand pounds divided by the length of the balance transfer, pay that as a fixed amount off each month, as long as it's more than your minimum repayments, and you're not in an in full because you're borrowing.

• 22:48Speaker 04

  Let's have a little look at the tell-uses this week. Go on, tell us about your tell-us.

• 22:53Martin Lewis?

  It was a what do or have you spent on that you quietly hid or downplayed to your partner or child or parent and did they ever find out?

• 23:01Speaker 04

  Okay, Debbie, I have an agreement with my husband. After telling him the real price of a pair of designer shoes in the sale about thirty years ago, he said, if I ever ask you for the price of anything again, just say it was five pounds. It's, it's easier listening to a lie than not the true price. We've been happily married for forty-three years, so it's worked for us.

• 23:23Martin Lewis?

  Nice. Now, whatever works for you, as long as you're financially solvent and it's all going well, you know, carry on. Darren, if you're a scuba diver, then there's only two ways to answer this, having spent the kid's inheritance on kit. One, oh, I've had it for ages. Two, it was a bargain, fifty quid. Scuba holidays go on a personal undisclosed credit card. I also have a network of friends' addresses for deliveries.

• 23:47Speaker 04

  Sally, a cleaner, used to tell my other half I did the cleaning, but I had a cleaner. He found out as she took in a parcel one day and the parcel people uploaded a photo of the cleaner holding it. He asked, who was this in our house? And I had to, I had to.

• 24:05Martin Lewis?

  Unless it was really a lover, it could have been a lover, couldn't it?

• 24:07Speaker 04

  Imagine her standing there with a mop.

• 24:11Martin Lewis?

  Catherine, when my mum and I went out to look for my wedding dress, my dad told mum not to let me spend more than a hundred quid. She laughed and said, my wedding dress cost more than a hundred quid thirty-five years ago. He was still asking if she was joking that evening. Oh, poor fellow.

• 24:27Speaker 04

  Katerina, I never need to downplay anything I buy. Why? Because I earn it, simple as that, really. That's the spirit, Katerina.

• 24:34Martin Lewis?

  Well, no, that's quite right. And look, this is about relationships and you, people have their own individual money and they're entitled to everything that they want. And actually, we have to be careful about coercive control, which is a sign of domestic abuse. And also, you know, if you're building up debt because of your spending, then I always say frankly, you know, I said, not a nice analogy, but I always think of debt is, debt in a marriage is a bit like an STD, right? Because even if you get divorced, even if you're no longer together, if you're financially linked, then it stays and can still affect the other person's ability to get credit. So it sticks with someone even once the relationship is no longer there. So there is a certain honesty if you were in those type of positions, but equally, other people have the right to privacy in their finances and not to be judged. So I think there's a balance in here.

• 25:16Speaker 04

  Ray says, my partner has a T-shirt, says, when I die, I hope she never sells my Land Rover for what she thinks I'm paying for it.

• 25:26Martin Lewis?

  DMP Diaries, which I think is probably Debt Management Plan, looking at where this is going, DMP Diaries. I hid just how bad my credit card debt had become. I was always cagey about money and eventually, when I was asked outright, I told everything. Over sixty-five thousand pounds of debt, understandably angry, but supported me through starting a debt management plan. The relief was enormous. Now, that sort of fits into the context of other things that we're talking about together. I have been asked many times over the years by someone who has hidden their debt, what to do about the debt. Let me give you what I would suggest you do. If you have a substantial amount of debt that you're not sleeping about at night and that you can't cope with, that you haven't told your partner or significant other about, here's what I would do.

• 26:11Martin Lewis?

  I would not break them the news of the debt because for obvious reasons, you're worried about what will happen. And we're assuming you're in a loving and trusting relationship here, but obviously this is a glitch to it. I would make an appointment at a debt counselling agency, National Debt Line, Citizens Advice Bureau, Step Change, or Christians Against Poverty, if you're struggling emotionally too. I would go and have your first appointment with them, where they give you the roots, they give you the light at the end of the tunnel, if you like. I would then go back and tell your partner about your debts because they can, you're going to need to work together and help you with it. But I would have what you're going to be doing about it within the conversation, so that you're providing them with the route out as well as just providing them about the problem, which allows them to see next steps and get on with it.

• 26:56Martin Lewis?

  That's probably how I would handle it. And look, you choose your own partner, you choose, maybe you need their help to go with it because you're too scared. But that's something that many people have told me has worked for them when they've been in that situation.

• 27:05Speaker 04

  Okay, I've just got, I've just got three more I need to go through.

• 27:09Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 27:10Speaker 04

  Things you've got to confess, you, you don't want to confess that you've paid for. Naomi says, a horse just happened to be the same flea bitten grey as my main horse at the time. It took days for him to notice, which is really funny considering you can see them from the house and.

• 27:25Martin Lewis?

  But you wouldn't want your partner to nag you about it, would you?

• 27:27Speaker 04

  Oh, Martin, please. Nikki says, a horse.

• 27:31Martin Lewis?

  I'll rein it in.

• 27:32Speaker 04

  I said, I told you once, and that is three strikes and you are out.

• 27:35Martin Lewis?

  Am I bridling you?

• 27:36Speaker 04

  Ah, stop it. Nikki.

• 27:38Martin Lewis?

  I've just got the bit between my teeth now.

• 27:40Speaker 04

  Nikki, honestly.

• 27:42Martin Lewis?

  Sorry, sorry, if I keep talking, I'm going to go.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  I'm going to take that honorary BAFTA off you or something. I mean, they're just.

• 27:48Martin Lewis?

  It's a special BAFTA, not an honorary, it's a special BAFTA.

• 27:50Speaker 04

  Okay, I'm going to take that special BAFTA off you. Nikki says, a horse, I was trading it for someone else. Once I'd sold it for a profit, I told my husband. And then Christine says, I'm now tempted to buy a horse, just to see if I can keep it under the radar.

• 28:05Martin Lewis?

  It must have been below it in social media, that's amazing.

• 28:07Speaker 04

  I mean, that, that's interesting, keeping a horse below the radar. If you've managed to hide a horse, then we'd be, you know, we'd be interested to hear. Shall we go back to some other credit cards?

• 28:17Martin Lewis?

  You know how much you paid?

• 28:18Speaker 04

  No, I don't want to know. No, I don't want to know. I'm going to get a blitz.

• 28:22Martin Lewis?

  That was six. If you're listening, I did six while I was focusing on my content of balance. That's not bad. Six, I think, was it five or six pounds? Anyway, it was probably enough.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  It was, it was five or six too many.

• 28:34Martin Lewis?

  Right, shall we go back to balance transfer? I'll give you a proper answer.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  Yes, I've just got a message.

• 28:37Martin Lewis?

  Feel free to send your horse puns in for Adrian for the rest of his show when I'm not here. He'll love it.

• 28:42Speaker 04

  Message from Martin. I've got around 5,000 debt over two credit cards. I'm trying to find a balance transfer to consolidate my debt. I can't seem to get a solid answer on what I can get approved for until I've signed up and then I get an answer. For example, I applied for a card which had been accepted for a £5 balance transfer. When I was signing up, I only got £200.

• 28:59Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so I think what this question is about is about credit limits, which is a really big issue on balance transfers. So let's just go through how you would want to do this. The first step is when you're applying for a balance transfer, use an eligibility calculator, preferably an eligibility calculator on a comparison site. An eligibility calculator is a tool which does a soft search on your credit file. Two types of searches. Soft search means you can see it has left a mark on your file, but it cannot, does not count for lender's credit scoring. Hard search is an application search when you actually apply, leaves a mark on your credit file and too many applications in a short space of time can diminish your ability to get future credit. So an eligibility calculator does a soft search.

• 29:41Martin Lewis?

  It will then tell you, let's, we'll talk about the comparison site ones, which of the top cards you're most likely to get, usually say by giving you a percentage, you've got a 90% chance. In some cases, if it's an up to card, and you heard me talk about up to's earlier, they will tell you which rate you will get. So it might be a 36 months, it'll say you're pre-approved at 36 months, or you're likely to get 32 months, and some of the eligibility calculators can do that. In a very few cases, they can also give you an indicative credit limit, but it is only in a few cases. The vast majority of cards, the questioner is quite right, forgive me, I've forgotten their name, that they do not tell you your credit limit until you apply.

• 30:23Martin Lewis?

  Now, what this leads to, and I've heard this many times, is they want £5,000, they've applied for 0% debt, and they get, in this case, £200, maybe £1,000, they get less than they want, and they're annoyed, and they're like, right, well, I'm not doing that. That's a mistake. Once you're at that point, the application is on your file, you have that amount of eligible credit, it is there, use it. £200 at 0% is better than £200 at 25.9%. So whatever you've got, use it, use the balance transfer that you've got, fill that up, and then, once that's done, you go back to an eligibility calculator and you try on another card. Because this is, and yes, this can have an impact on your credit score, but I always talk about credit score like saving. You know, many people say, well, they set my credit score.

• 31:07Martin Lewis?

  Yes, but the whole point of having a good credit score, it's a bit like you're saving it up to use it on something useful. And the primary use of a good credit score is to get a cheap mortgage. The second most important use of a credit score is to cut the cost of your existing debt. So yes, it might impact your credit score a little bit by shifting and applying, but if that enables you to spend less on your debts, that's what you've been saving it up for. Do not hold it back for some ephemeral, because I just like having a good credit score. Credit score is a tool, and again, you'll have heard me talk before, you don't actually have a credit score, it's just an indicative score given by the credit reference agencies, but people sort of see it and they try and manage it. It's just a tool to try and get you better products. So use it to get you better products that cost you less.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  Okay, why don't you run through some best buys then, before we move on?

• 31:55Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, so let's just go through that quickly. I'm just going to go through, these are the deals available at the moment. Clearly, whether you can get accepted for them or not is a question. So we have the longest definite deals, definite 0% deals right now, are HSBC and Virgin Money, which are both 36 months 0% for a roughly 3.1% fee. So every £1,000 you shift, £31 roughly will be added on top, and you'll be paying that, but it'll be interest-free for three years. So, I mean, that's, that's a long time to shift your debt and gives you a good chance to pay it off. There are some up to cards, including TSB, Barclaycard and Capital One. TSB is up to 38 months 0%, but it's up to, some customers get 32 or 35 months, this

• 32:40Martin Lewis?

  is the up to thing I was talking about. Barclaycard and Capital One are up to 36 months 0%, but Capital One has the lowest fee of the long cards at 2.9%. So if you go on an eligibility calculator and it tells you what length you're going to get, which many of them do with Capital One, so 36 months there is better than 36 months on the definite, because the fee is slightly lower. Then if you can repay quicker, a couple of good ones I'd point out, Virgin Money is a definite 24 months 0% for a 1.95% fee. So the fee is substantially cheaper, but you're getting shorter. But if you can repay in two years, great. And then a really good sweet spot for those who can pay off quickly, Tesco Bank's got a new card, which is a definite 20 months 0%, but just a 1.25% fee.

• 33:25Martin Lewis?

  So you can see that substant, you know, it's £12.50 per grand, not £31 per grand, but you get 20 months. But if you can clear it, if you can do the budget, go, yeah, I can afford to repay and clear my debt in that time, use that. And then we get to the top no fee deals. Top no fee, the longest is Barclaycard at up to 12 months 0% no fee, but you could get six months 0% no fee, because it's an up to. And Virgin Money is up to 11 months 0% no fee, you could get nine months. So again, Varan eligibility calculator, you may actually see that you're going to get longer on Virgin than Barclaycard, even though Barclaycard has the highest headline. Just a couple of other cards I'd mention, Vanquis is up to 24 months 0% with a 4% fee

• 34:09Martin Lewis?

  for poorer credit scorers, someone's had past county court judgments or missed payments. Capital One has a long poorer credit scorer card, Fluid has a long poorer credit scorer card. They should all be in your eligibility calculator. The big issue on those cards though, on poorer credit cards, is the go-to rate afterwards is more expensive. So instead of you going to 25% afterwards, in some cases, you're going to 40% afterwards once the debt's cleared. And the reason I mention that is, if you've got one of those cards that has a high go-to interest rate after the 0% end, when it goes to, then I would only shift debt that you're sure you can repay if your current interest rate is lower. Let me try and give you an example.

• 34:50Martin Lewis?

  Your current interest rate is 25%, the card is 0% for a year, and afterwards is 40%. Well, what you don't want to do is shift all of your debt, have debt left after the year, and it'll be at 40%. So only shift the debt that you're sure you can repay at 0% within the year, if you're doing that. If your card now is 25% and it goes to 25% afterwards, well, then you can shift all the debt, because you wouldn't be in a worse, worse position.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  Okay. And gee, due to a cut in hours at work and monthly pay, a family member's really struggling to manage his monthly credit card, would it be worth his while applying for a 0% card? His fear is that he won't be accepted anywhere else.

• 35:27Martin Lewis?

  That's a perfectly legitimate fear and may well be the case, but that is not a reason for not applying. I mean, absolutely. I once had someone, it's, it's an old friend of a friend, right, who was in this situation, and she asked me personally, she said, I've tried it, and I've only got a 20%, I've only got one card that's giving me a chance, and it's only giving me a 20% chance, so I probably shouldn't apply, should I? My answer was, hold on, this is the most important thing you need to do, you've got expensive debt. A 20% chance means two in 10 people in your circumstance will get it. You may be one of the two. She applied, was accepted, had £2,000 debt that she'd been paying expensive rates on that she now had at 0%.

• 36:09Speaker 04

  And there's no penalty to...

• 36:10Martin Lewis?

  Well, look, an application has a minor mark on your credit file. I mean, they don't know if you've been rejected, but it has a minor mark on your credit file, but what is the point of having the credit score apart from using it to try? So use an eligibility calculator, apply for a card that gives you a decent chance, if there is one there, and some people, there won't be one, but not doing it because you're scared of rejection is absolutely wrong. Rejection is the worst thing that can happen, and that's better than not trying. So absolutely, you should do it.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  Shane, all I get offered is six months at 0%. How can I get higher with lower credit?

• 36:40Martin Lewis?

  Again, eligibility calculator would be my answer, but if that's all they're offering you, then that's the way that you have to work through the system. What you need to do is you need to go and manage your credit score. You need to go onto one of the credit scoring tools out there that shows you what the problems are. Sometimes this is income, and it's worth just noting with credit cards, just to explain, two things happen when you apply. Credit score, have you been a good credit citizen? Can we predict your future behaviour will be good and you will repay based on the way you've behaved in the past, looking at your credit reference files and information we have on you and your application form details? Second thing is an affordability score. Can you afford to repay? How much can we afford to lend? So what tends to happen in credit scores, unlike a loan where you'll get a rejection for affordability, because you're applying for £5,000 and you can't afford to repay

• 37:23Martin Lewis?

  it, with a credit card, you won't be rejected for low affordability, you'll just be given a low credit limit, but a credit score can see you being rejected, so those two things are going through. I can see we're getting close to Mastermind, just a few more things I want to say on this to make sure I get it in. These are my four balance transfer golden rules to protect yourself. Getting a good card is not the only thing. Rule one, you must clear your debt before the 0% ends, or at least balance transfer it again, or you will pay the higher go-to representative APR, which is typically 25%, that is expensive. Rule two, never, ever, ever miss your minimum monthly repayment. If that happens, you can get your 0% rate taken off you, you know, if you miss your

• 38:08Martin Lewis?

  second month, and you're back at 25%. So what I suggest people do is you set up a direct debit to repay the minimum, if, if that's what you want to do. If you want to repay more on top, you can still manually repay more on top, but that's just, the direct debit is your, prevents me forgetting and losing the deal protection, and then you pay more on top each month manually, and you're allowed to do both, that's fine. But do not miss the minimum. I mean, that is a proper, hard rule, it can ruin everything. Three, do not spend, do not withdraw cash on these cards. Balance transfer rates tend to only be for debt shifted to the card, not new spending. There are some more rounder cards that do both, so be very careful. And also generally, if you're balance transferring, try not to build up more debt, do a budget, work through that.

• 38:51Martin Lewis?

  And, uh, which was my fourth tip, I just realised, I gave it within my third tip. So there's my four tips.

• 38:56Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:57Martin Lewis?

  At that point, Adrian...

• 38:58Speaker 04

  Go on.

• 38:59Martin Lewis?

  I can have a break, I can smile and relax, because, let's do the Mastermind theme tune.

• 39:11Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to Money Mastermind, Adrian. So far you've got 24 right and 44 wrong in this three option multiple choice, which means hurrah, congratulations, well done, I am proud of you. You are

• 39:28Martin Lewis?

  You are better than random chance and in an unprecedented move, we actually have a situation today, Adrian, that even if you got it wrong, you would still be better than random chance next week. You've got one spare. I'm proud of you.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  Got one in the back.

• 39:40Martin Lewis?

  Proud of you. Yeah, there you go. That must make me feel good.

• 39:42Speaker 04

  It's like West Brom having a 2-0 lead. It always ends, it always ends badly. Anyway, go on.

• 39:47Martin Lewis?

  So here's the setup. For those who don't know, it's a convoluted setup, but we'll get there in the end. Adrian is fretting over his tax return. You need to be a wizard to understand this. I wish, I wish I'd had the right education.

• 40:03Martin Lewis?

  A letter flutters through the letterbox, addressed to Mr. A. Charles, under the stairs studio, big whinging. Finding his return to taxing to notice, Adrian ignores it. Moments later, hundreds of letters explode through the same letterbox. The front door bursts open to a tall grey bearded wizard in flowing robes. Young Charles, I am Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts. You wished for a better education. As it happens, we need a teacher of muggle money studies. Our young witches and wizards can conjure gold, but know little about the magical mysteries of making money muggle

• 40:46Martin Lewis?

  work. The ministry tells me that week after week, you help muggles with their money. As you'll know, Adrian, the ministry info is famously error prone. So show us your skill and the post is yours. Which of these will an ISA not shelter you from? A. Income tax on dividends. B. Inheritance tax. C. Capital gains tax. And that's enough of that voice because I've now got a sore throat. I'm a little hoarse, to take it back to earlier.

• 41:25Speaker 04

  Right, okay.

• 41:26Martin Lewis?

  Okay, you got the question.

• 41:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:28Martin Lewis?

  I was pleased with my Dumbledore. Do you not even get a word?

• 41:30Speaker 04

  It was very good. I'm hanging on you. I've got other matters on my mind, trying to deal with the question.

• 41:36Martin Lewis?

  So in order to get the job, you need to tell us which of these will an ISA not shelter you from? Income tax on dividends, inheritance tax, or capital gains tax?

• 41:48Speaker 04

  It's capital gain. No, what you make in the ISA.

• 41:53Martin Lewis?

  It's ISAs. I'm helping you. All ISAs.

• 41:56Speaker 04

  All ISAs.

• 41:56Martin Lewis?

  All types of ISAs. Look at me being helpful.

• 41:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:00Martin Lewis?

  What types of ISAs are there? Tell me two.

• 42:02Speaker 04

  Was the shares one, and there's a cash one.

• 42:05Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, we'll stick with those. Okay.

• 42:06Speaker 04

  Okay. Income tax on dividends. I think it's A. I think, I think, I don't, if it's in an ISA and then you die, I don't know, is it A or B? If you're in an ISA and then you die, is, then is that part of your estate? Does that count? I mean, does the, does the tax benefit? I don't know. I don't know. I can't. Income tax on dividends, I don't.

• 42:34Martin Lewis?

  You're going for A? You're locking in A?

• 42:36Speaker 04

  It doesn't shelter you from income tax.

• 42:40Martin Lewis?

  That's a lot of news.

• 42:41Speaker 04

  No, no, no, hang on. No, I'm gonna go for B, inheritance tax.

• 42:47Martin Lewis?

  Our final answer.

• 42:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think the tax-free wrapper. I think dies with you.

• 42:54Martin Lewis?

  What are you playing the hallelujah for? I think they've just given it away.

• 42:58Speaker 04

  My final answer was B, was B.

• 43:00Martin Lewis?

  I haven't said play the hallelu-

• 43:02Speaker 04

  What? Was it B?

• 43:04Martin Lewis?

  It was, they've just messed that up.

• 43:07Speaker 04

  Go on, go on, what was it?

• 43:08Martin Lewis?

  It is B. It is B. But I was about to do my long lead in on to the reason it was B, but which I should-

• 43:14Speaker 04

  I'll get two hallelujahs then.

• 43:17Speaker 04

  See, you were so hurried to go final answer, I thought, well, he's obviously wrong because he's trying to hurry me into it. So, but no, inheritance tax, yes. Thank you very much. Cigar time, love it.

• 43:26Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so let's actually explain it. Right. Look, basically, ISAs protects you from the current tax that you have on them. So in a stocks and shares ISA, any capital may gains, though that's the gain that you make on a profit, any profits that you make when you sell it, they are not there because it's sheltered with an ISA wrapper. Income tax on dividends is pretty much the same as savings, you know, making interest on savings. So if you're getting income tax on dividends from your fund or shares within your shares ISA, again, that is protected. And not only that, remember, ISAs not just aren't taxed, they're not taxable. So they don't count towards your other allowances, your personal allowance or anything like that. They're totally sheltered. But when you pass an ISA on when you die, it is part of your estate.

• 44:10Speaker 04

  Okay, well, you don't, do you pass an ISA on or do you pass the sum on that's in the ISA?

• 44:14Martin Lewis?

  So both, in certain circumstances. So rule number one, the ISA stays, when you die, stays tax-free a continuing account until administration of the estate ends or the third anniversary of death, whichever comes first, but no new money can be paid in. So it stays tax-free. When it's moved on, then it counts towards your inheritance tax allowance. That, we talked about this earlier, £325,000, it would count towards that allowance. It's part of your estate. So it's just money that you've got. But your ISA allowance, there is a special rule for your spouse or civil partner, so your married or civil partner, not cohabiting, not your kids, that they can get an extra ISA allowance of the same as your allowance when you died. So if you've got 50 grand in ISAs, they can

• 44:58Martin Lewis?

  get an extra £50,000 tax-free ISA allowance. It's called the additional permitted subscription or-

• 45:04Speaker 04

  Even if they're maxed out on their own ISA.

• 45:06Martin Lewis?

  Even if they're right. It's, they can get your allowance, right? They can apply for it, but it's worth noting, you have to apply to your ISA provider to get it, and not all ISA providers will allow you to have it. But the rules have a provision, so you might need to go to a new ISA provider who offers it. And interestingly, I could give my child the money, but I could still pass the allowance on to my spouse.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 45:28Martin Lewis?

  And it works that way. So that has, Adrian, you're now, you've now got a couple spare. Well done.

• 45:31Speaker 04

  I'm three goals up. I'm 3-0 up.

• 45:32Martin Lewis?

  I'm glad you got it. I'm glad you're right.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  Fantastic. Premature with the hallelujah. I like it. Thanks, Martin.

• 45:39Martin Lewis?

  They're on your side, you see.

• 45:42Martin Lewis?

  So I finished the main podcast with Adrian and I am now joined by podcast producer Simon PPS himself. Hello, Si.

• 45:49Speaker 05

  Hello, delighted to be here.

• 45:51Martin Lewis?

  Now, I asked for a couple of things during that podcast that people have got in touch with, so hopefully you have them on your text console now. Did we, first of all, most importantly, did we have any people who had opinions about, even though they would go for a balance transfer is cheaper, they may go for a loan?

• 46:06Speaker 05

  Well, so Martin in Northampton, he got in touch. He said, I would do a balance transfer, Martin. Should mention the applicant should check the percentage of the minimum monthly payment. Some are only 1% when some can get 3%. That's a big difference to anyone's cash flow.

• 46:21Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, I think that is a good point. And like me, you do a balance transfer, but you do have to look at the cash flow. I don't think there are that many out there with only 1%. Now, the rules on minimum payments is the minimum, minimum monthly repayment that a card must have, is it must generally cover all interest, fees and charges, plus at least 1% of the outstanding balance. Now, it used to be the case, they would have minimum repayments that didn't even cover all the interest. So therefore, if you were in that particular position, you would be perpetually in debt. They can't do that anymore. But 1% of the outstanding balance wouldn't clear that much. Of course, in general, you want to be clearing as much, that means you've got rid of all the debt by the time the 0%

• 47:02Martin Lewis?

  period is end. But if you are on that minimum and you are worried about cash flow, then getting a card with a lower minimum payment and checking what the minimum repayment would be is something that we would look at too. So I think he's got a good point on that, yes. Any others?

• 47:14Speaker 05

  Well, we actually got a text in with a success story.

• 47:17Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 47:17Speaker 05

  No name sadly, but they say, after getting divorced-

• 47:20Martin Lewis?

  Well, we'll call them Anne. Anonimus. What did Anne say?

• 47:24Speaker 05

  They said, after getting divorced in 2012, I ended up with a large mortgage and £20,000 in lawyer's cost that I had no way of paying. I argued the cost, had them reduced, paid some of the debt, then got a number of 0% credit cards and paid the balance on the cards. It took me approximately five years to pay off the debt completely, but paid no interest. I continue to stewes in the region of £15,000, which is very satisfying. Thank you, Martin Lewis.

• 47:49Martin Lewis?

  Oh, that's like a Road to Damascus story, isn't it?

• 47:51Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 47:51Martin Lewis?

  That's a pure convert. Yeah, so first thing, just to translate that for people who don't know, started off by moving all the debts to 0% once you dealt with the fees and other things that she had, and then cleared it all at 0%. And let's just be plain, if it's at 0%, that means there is actually no cost to you of borrowing. And if I was going to get really technical, and then this is the time to do it, because we're in the pod only bit now, this is where we get really technical. In real terms, that actually means your debt is shrinking. What? How does that work, I hear you saying? Well, let me explain. Ultimately, if you have inflation running at, say, 3% or 4%, that means the value of goods you can buy, if you went into and bought a shopping trolley worth of goods that cost £100, the next year, the same shopping trolley worth of goods would cost £103 and the year

• 48:36Martin Lewis?

  after it would be £106 and whatever, assuming that inflation was stable. You get the point. So effectively, if your debt is at 0% and you're keeping it at 0%, and you have one shopping trolley's worth of goods this year, and you only have to pay the same monetary amount next year, then you're actually having to repay less than the cost of one shopping trolley's worth of good next year, which means in real terms, your debt is shrinking. Now, I'm not using that as a suggestion to keep everything at 0% debt for most people. Because for most people, you just want to get rid of that debt. It's dangerous, you don't want to encourage yourself to overspend, you don't want to run out of the 0% debt, not be able to get a balance transfer and suddenly it's at a high interest rate. But for those who know what they're doing and are careful and those who stew's, which

• 49:19Martin Lewis?

  is what she moved on to, which is deliberately having a 0% debt. So what this means, and we've done it on other pods before, I'm not going to go into it here and please don't do it without doing proper research and only if you're debt free and only if you're financially savvy. But stewzing effectively means I'm going to borrow at 0% from a card, I'm going to spend on my card and then that means I'm not using money from my bank account, the money bills up in my bank account, I'm going to put the money in my bank account into a high interest savings account or cash ISA, risk free and earn 4% or 5% on the money that the bank, the credit card company is lending me at 0% and that's what stewzing is. So it's really, really lovely story. And there's one other thing I want to ask you, but I think we've got a couple more questions we didn't get through on credit cards. Why don't we do those first, if that's all right, Simon?

• 50:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, so one of the questions came from Geoff. Another credit card feature, he says, once you stop earning a salary and retire, the companies are extremely reluctant to extend a decent credit limit. Despite having a clear credit history, it makes big purchases a challenge unless you have a large chunk of cash available not tied up in investments or savings.

• 50:22Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, so that's absolutely right. This goes back to that nuance I talked about before of the difference between credit scoring and affordability scoring. So you probably have a very good credit score, you've always had a good credit history, but because you have less income, they are not willing to give you as high a credit limit because they're questioning, can you afford to repay it? And even though that you've always had a history of good repayments, the affordability score will be what's hurting you here. So it isn't particularly the fact that you're retired, we don't like you, it's based on income. If your income's dropped, you're likely to get a lower credit limit.

• 50:51Speaker 05

  And Julie asks, my credit card is with my bank and the interest alone is £99.

• 50:56Martin Lewis?

  By the way, just a quick note, it's why just before retirement, while you're still in earnings, it can be a very good time to do an application for a credit card if you needed a decent credit limit.

• 51:05Speaker 05

  Good, good little tactical advice.

• 51:08Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 51:09Speaker 05

  Julie asks, my credit card is with my bank and the interest alone is £99. I pay £178 this month and because my credit is bad, I can't do a balance transfer. Any suggestions would be helpful.

• 51:21Martin Lewis?

  Well, I'm not sure within that question whether you've just asked your bank for a balance transfer or you've gone on to an eligibility calculator, one that includes poorer credit, credit cards, again with all the warnings I gave earlier. So my first step would be let's just double check that you've been on to a proper comparison based eligibility calculator that has a full range of cards on it to check whether you really can or can't get them. If you can't, at that point, because you're paying 25% interest, I would speak to my bank and ask, is there a way to convert my credit card debt into a structured loan at hopefully a lower level of interest that you're decidedly going to repay?

• 52:01Martin Lewis?

  If they don't allow that, then I would say we move into my sort of the final three questions and I talked a little bit about this earlier, but let me go and do this more bluntly. So the balance transfer is a solution for those who can deal with their debts and want to cut costs, but there comes a point where you can't deal with your debts and you likely need to go on a different tack. And these are the three questions I would ask anybody on this basis. Question number one, do you struggle to meet minimum monthly repayments or pay all the bills? Question two, is your total debt, not including mortgage and student loan, over a year's salary? Question three, do you have sleepless nights or depression, anxiety over debt?

• 52:44Martin Lewis?

  If you answer yes to any of those, then I would push you towards going to a free nonprofit debt counselling charity where, so you just, you draw a line and say, my debts are out of control for me and I need to go and get help. Now, when you do that, it makes borrowing more difficult in future, but it can be an enormous relief and it can mean your creditors stop chasing you, you might go into a debt management plan, you might even at the extreme, an IVA or bankruptcy may be best for you, but you're going to a nonprofit debt counselling agency who is not there to judge you, they're only there to help you. You know, I mentioned them earlier, Step Change, Citizens Advice, National Debt Line, Christians Against Poverty, and you should go and do that. And the biggest message I get when people do that, when they're in debt crisis, the

• 53:27Martin Lewis?

  best way I can sum it up is they just say, thank you, thank you for telling me about that, I slept last night. So hopefully, I don't know where you are in that pantheon, in that whole staging, but hopefully that gives you a few different ideas that you can go there.

• 53:40Speaker 05

  It's one of those things, isn't it? It's an easy thing to say, but doing nothing is the worst thing to do, isn't it?

• 53:45Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, so I, I always remember, my first TV show of my own was called, was an ITV show, daytime show called Make Me Rich in 2005. Note, I hated the title and tried not to get them to do the title because my whole thing, and I even said, can you put a question mark on the end of it? But no, because it was a time where I didn't have the say, not in the same way that I do now, I was starting off. But anyway, I used to go and do makeovers and I'd sometimes go into a family and one of the first things I'd do if they were in debt is I would combine all the debt and I'd work out how much debt they were in and we'd discuss it. And their faces would always drop because people who are in a lot of debt tend never to have added it all up because they can't face it. And the phrase that I would always say is I'd say to them, you feel like you are in

• 54:30Martin Lewis?

  a much worse position than you thought you were before, but in reality, you are in a far better position because now we are on the path to starting to deal with this. So even though it's like a slap in the face for people when they realise the total amount of debts, the fact that we were doing it, the fact we were in process, the fact I was there and then often I would signpost them to support elsewhere because, you know, we were filming a day or two, we weren't now being able to work with them like a debt management counselling firm could do. But it was like for me, this is, this is the beginning of solving it and the end of the problem. You shouldn't see it as the beginning of the problem, the problem was there, it was just hidden from you. So I agree with you.

• 55:08Speaker 05

  And the final question this week goes to Karen. We just use credit cards for cash flow, all our spending goes through them, plus TV subscriptions, go on the card rather than keep hitting the bank account, just one payment a month to fully clear the credit card.

• 55:21Martin Lewis?

  Absolutely. So you're paying off in full and if you're paying off in full, then credit cards can be brilliant, as long as you're setting up a direct debit, you make sure you do it, you never miss the repayments, because both you get section 75 protection that I talk about a lot, if you spend something that costs over a hundred quid, but also you get cash back. And while I'm on, a new top cash back credit card has launched this week, it's American Express Cash Back Every Day. It gives you 2% cash back on all spending up to 10 grand for a year, 1% above, though you do need to spend a minimum three grand on it to get the cash back. After year one, it's half a percent spending up to 10 grand and 1% above. You can't have had it if you had an American Express card in the last two years, but if you did all of your normal spending on that, it's not an excuse to overspend and make sure, I'm going to give you a try, Simon, make sure you pay it off.

• 56:04Speaker 05

  In full!

• 56:05Martin Lewis?

  Well, you went a bit sexier, I go more darts, you went for hey, in full!

• 56:10Speaker 05

  It's my default setting, sexy.

• 56:11Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, fair, fair. If you pay it off in full, then each month, then you're making money on the back of that one. So, and there's other cards out there, but that's the new one this week that I've not spoken about before because it's a new version of the deal from Amex. Amex isn't as universally accepted as other cards, but most big stores and chains do accept it. Now, Simon, the other thing I asked for, very important, probably the most important thing, did anyone have any horse puns?

• 56:35Speaker 05

  So we did get one in actually from James, he texted in, that woman with the horse just saddled herself with extra debt.

• 56:41Martin Lewis?

  Punplod it, punplod it from me. There we go, that's good.

• 56:46Speaker 05

  Just one more thing, Martin, while we've got you.

• 56:49Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 56:50Speaker 05

  Now, if you listen to the Question Time podcast last week, I was on it, we did our PPS, which I always like a little bit, we do at the end.

• 56:56Martin Lewis?

  Yes, it's a podcast producer Simon's PPS, PPS, it's PPS, yes.

• 57:00Speaker 05

  And last week I got athletics legend Steve Backley and Greg Rutherford to ask you a question.

• 57:07Martin Lewis?

  Which I loved.

• 57:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was a lovely moment, it's worth going back to listen to on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts from.

• 57:12Martin Lewis?

  Nice, oh, look at you, go on.

• 57:16Speaker 05

  They asked you what athletic event you will be best at.

• 57:20Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 57:21Speaker 05

  To which you gave this answer.

• 57:22Martin Lewis?

  I do my TV show with Jeanette Quachy, who came sixth in the Beijing Olympics in the 100 metres. And as I always say to Jeanette, we have a discussion over, now obviously she's still very fast and incredibly fit now, but the discussion we have is over what distance would I win? She says it's about 500 metres, I think it's about a kilometre, because she's a power sprinter, so she's incredibly fast and powerful, but she can't keep going. So actually, I could beat an Olympic athlete, I think I could beat Jeanette, I'm going to say, over a kilometre.

• 57:53Speaker 05

  Now.

• 57:54Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 57:55Speaker 05

  Jeanette hadn't featured in the question at all, she wasn't involved, yeah, she just catches this stray from you as you start to compare yourself to her. And I was producing Five Live Breakfast this weekend, Jeanette was presenting, and I thought it'd be appropriate because of the kind of journalist that I am, to give Jeanette a right of reply.

• 58:13Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 58:14Speaker 05

  Here was her response when we played that to her.

• 58:16Speaker 06

  What? Can I just say?

• 58:18Speaker 05

  Wow, Martin!

• 58:19Speaker 06

  I feel like he's put it out there in the ether, he can now beat me over a kilometre. I mean, respectfully, I love the man, but.

• 58:28Speaker 05

  But, but no.

• 58:29Speaker 06

  The competitive energy in me means I'm going to keep on going, Martin, I'm going to keep on going till the wheels fall off now.

• 58:36Speaker 05

  So look, when have you pulled a Martin Lewis? When have you overestimated yourself?

• 58:41Martin Lewis?

  What?

• 58:42Speaker 05

  When have you walked up a mountain for six hours when you shouldn't have done? Or when have you claimed that you could?

• 58:49Martin Lewis?

  Olympic running, running.

• 58:52Speaker 05

  Worth saying, Stefan is co-presenting with Jeanette there, a real ally backing her up. I'd like to have it on record, I would have just thrown you under the bus and have

• 58:59Martin Lewis?

  You have thrown, you did literally throw me under the bus. You played that clip, you were producing it, that is all your fault. Simon, where are your loyalties? You know, here I am, bigging you up each week, they don't put you on air, I put you on air.

• 59:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a fair point.

• 59:12Martin Lewis?

  Fair point. So, I mean, let me first of all say, Jeanette's sort of like doing all that, but we have had that conversation. And that is something we talk about. I mean, she said 500, I was being more generous to her by saying a kilometre and I could do. And as for Stefan to do a texting on overreaching yourself, well, let me say to Stefan and to Jeanette, let's make this plain. Prove that I'm overreaching myself. You say I'm overreaching myself, that's an assumption. I work based on evidence. If you're going to call it an overreach, then I think you actually need to prove it. I mean, I am slightly scared of a kilometre and then I think I might, I'd prefer to race over 5K. I mean, over 5K, I'm absolutely dead cert, because Jeanette just does not run distances, though she does

• 59:57Martin Lewis?

  do high rocks. And I think high rocks involve some running in it, and I'm a little scared. I mean, clearly, Jeanette is, has superior biomechanics, is an athlete, right, and is younger than me, but equally, she doesn't do longer distances. And as for competitiveness, I'm not short of a little bit of that myself, as you could probably hear. I'm slightly worried we're going to end up into some type of children in need videoed race off on the back of this.

• 1:00:24Speaker 05

  Well, the Five Live Sports Day next year is going to be quite intense, isn't it?

• 1:00:27Martin Lewis?

  Well, it is. And I think if that happens, I remember, I did once at the Olympic Stadium, they had a relay race, and they had seven teams of athletes, and a group of thought others, we'll call them, not going to use the word they used, people known, known people, if you like. And for me, to chance to run in front of a crowd, I mean, it was 100 metres I have to do. And I got sprint training for that, because I've never sprinted. Wow, I mean, the risk to my hamstrings was horrendous sprint, I'm not sure I could do it anymore. So if that race were to happen, I think I would have to, it's annoying, because I train for, I run, you know, 10Ks, 15Ks, and I'd have to sort of change my training to make sure that I had a little bit of faster speed over a kilometre. I wonder if Jenny Meadows is available. Yeah, she, uh...

• 1:01:08Speaker 05

  Well, you trained Keighley Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell to the world's great athletes.

• 1:01:12Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, I think Keighley, Georgia, and me. I could join the training club, it's the right distance, 800 to 1500 metres. If we're doing it over a kilometre, I might have to, because Jeanette, you know, she's got all these athletics friends, I might need some help. Anyway.

• 1:01:25Speaker 05

  So weirdly, at the end of Jenny Meadows' career, I was a child at the time, and I went to like a summer play schemey athletics camp type thing in Manchester, and she was there as a coach. She was sort of, presumably she was sort of thinking about coaching as a future. So I have, I have been trained by Jenny Meadows.

• 1:01:41Martin Lewis?

  So then, in fact, you could train me.

• 1:01:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:43Martin Lewis?

  I mean, we could sort of do it one level down. I could have Jenny Meadows train Simon.

• 1:01:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Martin Lewis?

  PPS could be my trainer out there. Yeah, I don't know, I'd have to, anyway.

• 1:01:52Speaker 05

  So we'd need to negotiate.

• 1:01:52Martin Lewis?

  I'm not sure, I'm actually willing to humiliate myself, potentially in that way, although I still, I, I don't know. I don't know whether or who would win or not. I think it'd be close. I think it'd be close. From what Jeanette says, unless she's doing that whole, you know, at school, oh, I haven't done any homework, I haven't done any homework, I just got topping the test. Oh, I don't really train over longer distances, I just ran a kilometre in three minutes. Unless she's doing one of those. Anyway, thank you for playing that, Simon. Thank you for literally, I mean, literally stirring between the two programmes that you work on. And for those, just in case you don't know, Jeanette is my co-presenter on my TV show, we are good friends. So this is all being done from both sides in the right light. Competition amongst friends, as opposed to being mean to each other. She's wonderful.

• 1:02:40Martin Lewis?

  And that is 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 absolutely anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. If you've enjoyed today's show, please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast. And why not subscribe and leave us a review? Then your pockets will be pleased with you, and we will be too. Poetry. And if you haven't enjoyed it, and you've been listening this long, well, sometimes I tell you off and say that you should have made a decision and you should have turned it off. But this week, I'm just going to say, maybe you didn't enjoy it, but you found it interesting or useful and decided you wanted to stay on anyway. In which case, it was a valuable decision, and thank you for your ears.

• 1:03:36Speaker 07

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

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• 1:05:21Speaker 07

  This week on The Interface, millions of kids have grown up on camera with their childhoods turned into content. There's a new law in California that gives influencers the right to be forgotten, and it could impact adults, too.

• 1:05:31Speaker 02

  And an attack on Russian data centres started a rumour that all the evil disinformation

• 1:05:37Speaker 07

  bots had been deleted from the internet. But the truth might actually be a lot scarier. For our take, join me, Jess Maddox. And me, Thomas Germain, for The Interface. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.