Question Time: Help to Buy ISA v LISA? Sell shares each year to use Capital Gains allowance? Broken broadband compensation

In our Question Time podcast, Martin Lewis gives you answers on anything and everything, including: I want to buy my first home, should I move money from my Help to Buy ISA to a LISA? Is it best to sell shares each year to use my annual capital gains tax allowance? Help! My broadband’s broken, what rights do I have to compensation? My phone contract’s been hiked, can I leave penalty free? Plus, you ask Martin his dream golf four ball. 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 if he’s a still or sparkling person, his favourite suspension bridge, 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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• 1:47Martin Lewis?

  This would be absurd, but sometimes absurd things happen. Unfortunately, people have thought it before you and there's some rules to make sure it isn't quite that simple.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  You briefly talked about capital gains allowance. It prompted me to look at how I could be able to diversify my savings.

• 2:02Martin Lewis?

  I would dream one day of going and having a round at Augusta. 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 within reason. This week, you've asked me, I want to buy my first home. Would I be better to move the money I've got from a Help to Buy ISA into a lifetime ISA? Is it best to sell shares each year to use up my annual capital gains tax allowance? My broadband's broken. It's a nightmare. I work from home. What rights do I have? Can I leave my mobile contract if they've hiked the bills? And your final question, what's my dream golf four ball? Play the theme tune.

• 3:02Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to the Question Time episode of the pod. And let's bring on he who must be obeyed, the curator of questions himself, Mr. Matt Burnham.

• 3:15Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 3:16Martin Lewis?

  Podcast producer Matt, for those who don't know.

• 3:18Speaker 04

  Or, yeah, curator of questions.

• 3:20Martin Lewis?

  Curator of questions. And I think you're growing, you were objected at first. I think you're growing into it.

• 3:24Speaker 04

  I don't mind it. It's quite nice. I've got a little, a little, what's it called? Nickname.

• 3:28Martin Lewis?

  Yeah. And you could put the letters after your name.

• 3:32Speaker 04

  Someone has emailed in and, and already done that. So they're one step ahead of you.

• 3:37Martin Lewis?

  Matt Burnham, COQ. It's beautiful, beautiful.

• 3:41Martin Lewis?

  Let's move swiftly on and start, I'm sure, as the format demands, with a read.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  Of course, and I picked a good one for you.

• 3:50Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  It's from Felice. She says, hi both. Nobody has been able to help me with this.

• 3:55Martin Lewis?

  Well, let's see if we can.

• 3:56Speaker 04

  Yet. A challenge to the curator of questions, she says. We already know that generally lifetime ISAs are better for first time buyers looking to save for a deposit because they're eligible to be used for a higher value home, even outside of London. For those of us who put a quid in a Help to Buy account before they were ended and have been steadily adding away. Over the years since, is it worth getting the money we've saved out and putting it into a lifetime ISA instead? Will we face a penalty when we do that because the withdrawal is not for the purchase of a home? And at what point would that penalty be offset by the amount we can gain from the government bonus on the money if we switch? Hope it's not too much of a headache to answer.

• 4:35Martin Lewis?

  Not a headache at all. It's a lovely little technical question that I'm very happy to get my teeth into. So, for those who don't know, the Help to Buy ISA was the predecessor of the lifetime ISA. You are perfectly entitled to have both of them, but you can only use one of them to get the 25% bonus you get on savings towards your first house. So you can have money in both of them, because especially the lifetime ISA can also be used towards later life savings, money that you can take out once you're aged over 60. Now, you said in your question, I think, Felice, that lifetime ISAs are better for first-time buyers looking to save for a deposit. It's not that clear-cut.

• 5:18Martin Lewis?

  They both have pros and cons. In brief, the big pro of the lifetime ISA is you can put more money in each year, which means, of course, then if you go and get your qualifying house, you're going to get more free cash because you can put up to £4,000 a year in a lifetime ISA. You can't put anywhere near that much in a Help to Buy ISA. I think it's £2,400 a year, if you exclude the first year. And then, once the money's in, the lifetime ISA can be used on any UK residential mortgage with a property worth up to £450,000, whereas the Help to Buy ISA is a property worth up to £250,000, except in London where it's £450,000.

• 6:01Martin Lewis?

  So, based on that, you would absolutely think that the lifetime ISA is a winner over the Help to Buy ISA. And also, because the lifetime ISA money is paid at exchange, whereas the Help to Buy bonus is only paid at completion, so with the lifetime ISA, you could also use the money in there to help you with your deposit that you're giving whomever you're buying the house off, whereas the Help to Buy ISA, you can only use it towards your mortgage deposit. But the Help to Buy ISA does have one big benefit over the Lifetime ISA. And that is that if you withdraw your money not for buying a qualifying property, there is no penalty. You will get back all the money that you have put in and the interest. You won't get the 25% bonus because you're not buying a qualifying property,

• 6:47Martin Lewis?

  but you won't lose any money either. With the Lifetime ISA, you get a 25% bonus once you put the money in to be used as on a first time property or after your age 60. But if you take the money out before age 60 and you're not using it to buy a qualifying property, even if you're using it to buy a property that's only just above that 450,000 threshold, so 460,000, say, then you pay a 25% penalty. Now, this is where the maths gets a little complicated. What does that mean? So you get 25% and 25% is taken off. But as your 25% being taken off is off a bigger number than the 25% was being added on top of, I know, I'm sorry, then effectively you lose 6.25% of your money.

• 7:31Martin Lewis?

  So if you've got 10 grand in your Lifetime ISA, when you take it out, you will only have 9,375 pounds. You're effectively paying the fine to the state of 625 quid on 10,000 pounds. If you've got 10,000 pounds in a Help to Buy ISA and you take it out not for buying a qualifying property, you get your 10,000 pounds out. But remember, you have to have had a Lifetime ISA open for a year before you can get that first time buy bonus. So if you don't have a Lifetime ISA open and you're planning to buy within the next year, that's a problem. Definitely stick within Help to Buy. If you have a Lifetime ISA open even with only a quid in it, then any money you added to it now, you would be able to get the bonus on

• 8:15Martin Lewis?

  because it's been open for a year. So that's the first rule. The second rule is, should you move it into a Lifetime ISA? If you're going to be buying, definitely going to be buying a qualifying property under 450,000 pounds, then it gets tricky.

• 8:32Martin Lewis?

  So now we will assume you have money in a Help to Buy ISA and you have an open lifetime ISA or you won't be buying the property within the next year. My next question for you is are you definitely going to be buying a qualifying property under £450,000? If the answer is no, you're probably safer to keep your money in the Help to Buy account because there's no risk of a penalty. If the answer is yes, my following question, it's like I'm doing a live radio decision tree here. My following question is,

• 9:12Martin Lewis?

  are you buying a property under £250,000? Because then you would still get the bonus in the Help to Buy ISA if you used it. I'm going to assume you're not because of the fact that you're asking the question. So that you're going to be buying a property between £250,000 and £450,000 outside London, so you would only get the bonus on the lifetime ISA.

• 9:34Martin Lewis?

  Well, then it's a no brainer. In that case, move your money out of the Help to Buy ISA and as long as your lifetime ISA has been open for a year, put it into the lifetime ISA because you will get the bonus. As simple as that in a lifetime ISA. And even though you can only move up to £4,000 a year and you could have more in the Help to Buy ISA, you're not going to get the bonus in the Help to Buy ISA. So you may as well put it in the lifetime ISA and get the bonus on whatever you can put in. Now, if you're buying after April, you could put four grand in now and you could put four grand in after April, April the 6th to maximise your bonus. If, I've misassumed, and you're buying a property under £250,000 and you've got the money in the Help to Buy ISA versus a lifetime ISA, then it gets more complicated because you will get the bonus on the money in the Help to Buy ISA.

• 10:20Martin Lewis?

  So then what you have to look at is, what is my time before I will be buying? Would you be able to get more money into the lifetime ISA by the time that you buy than you would be able to keep into the Help to Buy ISA? Because the bonus that you get is simply on the amount of money that you can put in. So, does the £4,000 a year you can put in a lifetime ISA outweigh the £2,400 you can put in a Help to Buy ISA? But remember, if you've got £10,000 in a Help to Buy ISA, it's going to take you time to move that across to the lifetime ISA and you won't be able to make extra contributions during that time. And a final note on this, the amount that you can put into a Help to Buy ISA is capped at £12,000. The lifetime ISA is uncapped because you can put £4,000 a year in, but it would take

• 11:04Martin Lewis?

  you three years to get to that £12,000 figure because maximum £4,000 contribution. And the Help to Buy ISA is planned to be closed down in 2029, but of course, the government is doing a review on this whole thing and we don't actually know. And I suspect they now would prefer to be more like the Help to Buy ISA model rather than the lifetime ISA model. So who knows what will happen on that? I think that is the full answer. And do you know, it was even trickier than I thought when I started talking, but I think that we've got there. The answer is it depends, but hopefully I've given you enough to understand. If not, just go listen back again more slowly and hopefully that'll get you there. Play me out at 0.7 on your speed adjuster.

• 11:49Martin Lewis?

  Right, Matt, that was a complicated one. Please tell me, it's going to be a caller, I know, curator of questions, he is nothing but rigorous to his format. It's going to be a caller, but tell me it's a simple one?

• 12:01Speaker 04

  I wish I could say it is.

• 12:02Martin Lewis?

  Oh, no.

• 12:03Speaker 04

  I've got a caller for you. We've got Ruth, she is in London, and she's here. Hi, Ruth.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Hi, Martin and Matt.

• 12:10Martin Lewis?

  Hello, Ruth. What can I do for you?

• 12:12Speaker 03

  So, Martin, you briefly talked about capital gains allowance a couple of weeks ago, and it prompted me to look at how I could be able to diversify my savings so that I can use this allowance each year as well as the personal savings allowance.

• 12:29Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  So, my question is in two parts. Currently, I have some money vested in an equity fund, and I want to know how the income on this fund would be allocated in terms of... Fixed income and capital gains income. And when would this, each portion of this be accessible to me in the context of being taxable?

• 12:56Martin Lewis?

  I think you're probably doing a good thing because investment is a good thing if you're putting money away that you don't need for a long time. But I'd always be slightly careful of letting the tax tail wag the dog. You know, choosing what you choose to do based on having a tax allowance on it, I think is something you need to be. It can be useful, but you should be careful. But still, I think the move towards investment for many people, we under invest in this country is probably a good thing for you and you've gone through that. Capital gains is never about income. Capital gains is about profit. Income could be interest or dividends. So I think it's really important, now just to check, this is outside of an ISA, isn't it?

• 13:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I've used my ISA allowance for this year and so I've got some money left over.

• 13:38Martin Lewis?

  So this is, this is a normal investment. Well, let's just go, capital gains is a tax on profits. So for it to be a capital gain, you need to be buying something at a thousand pounds and selling it at two thousand pounds. Then you've made a thousand pounds profit. That is what capital gains is. So have you sold any of that equity fund?

• 13:59Speaker 03

  No.

• 13:59Martin Lewis?

  So then there's no capital gains at the moment. Have you earned interest and or dividends within that account?

• 14:07Speaker 03

  I would assume so.

• 14:09Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so just to be really clear. The interest is interest, like savings interest, and it counts towards your savings interest category.

• 14:21Martin Lewis?

  Any interest you've earned, even if it's in a stocks and shares account, which I think confuses people. Is that, were you confused on that or not?

• 14:30Speaker 03

  That makes sense.

• 14:31Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, and dividends is dividend tax and you get a five hundred pound annual dividend tax allowance. So when you have money in stocks and shares, there are effectively three different taxes that are involved. So on the profit, when you sell it is capital gains. Any interest you might have from cash, say, sitting in your stocks and shares account that's unused is interest, like savings interest. Any dividends you've been paid are taxed as dividends and there is a dividend allowance and dividend tax rates. So there's sort of three different tax regimes, if that makes sense.

• 15:06Speaker 03

  That makes sense.

• 15:07Martin Lewis?

  Cool, so let's move on to the next bit.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  So this is more of a clarification than a question now. If I wanted to capitalise and maximise on the capital gains allowance each year.

• 15:23Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  Is it therefore best to sell my position uh within each tax year and reinvest rather than holding my position for say five years and accumulating that capital gains and being more at risk of being over the capital gains allowance when I eventually do sell my position?

• 15:49Martin Lewis?

  Gotcha. So what this is, is when we talked about it on the show the other day is this comes from me saying the problem with capital gains is you don't get an only allowance for how long you've held it. So if you buy something at a thousand pounds today and sell it tomorrow, you've made a thousand pound capital gain and it's subject to capital gains tax. If you bought it for a thousand pounds 10 years ago and sell it tomorrow for two thousand pounds, you've made exactly the same gain and would be taxed in exactly the same way. They don't take into account the fact that you've held it for 10 years. That's the premise of your question, yeah?

• 16:20Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 16:21Martin Lewis?

  Okay. So now I have to say this is not my specialist subject, so I'm giving you a general idea and you would need to speak to a specialist on it.

• 16:30Martin Lewis?

  You do, it is worthwhile using your capital gains tax allowance if you want to, but there are risks to it. Now, the main way people do it is what's called bed and breakfasting. The tax year dates are not what's relevant here particularly. That just is crystallising when you sold it and whether you're using that year's allowance or not. If you wanted to sell an asset, so let's say you're selling shares in Matt PLC, which I'm sure will be a very lucrative investment, Matt. So you're selling shares in Matt PLC because you want to, but you want to hold them and you want to buy Matt PLC back. You would have to sell shares today and then wait at least 30 days before you bought it back for you to get that crystallisation of the capital gains.

• 17:15Martin Lewis?

  It's the 30 day rule. So you can't sell and buy back the next day, which of course means there's a risk in that time. You sell shares in Matt PLC, the price of Matt PLC rises in the meantime. So when you use your money to buy back those shares, you've got less shares than you would have done had you not sold it. And that's the risk that you're looking at. Now, there is, if it's a fund you're talking about, so let's say you've got, for ease, not recommendation, you've got an S and P 500 tracker fund. You could sell your S and P 500 tracker fund today and then buy a different S and P tracker fund straight away because that's not the same

• 17:55Martin Lewis?

  asset. And that, I believe, and I was checking on a website for this as I was doing it, from Aberdeen, advisers say this, that that would not breach your bed and breakfasting rules. But I need a little bit of brackets because I was just checking that online to see how that works. So do you see what I mean? There's the 30 day rule that you have to take notice off.

• 18:14Speaker 03

  Okay, understood. I didn't realise that. That's very good to know. Thank you.

• 18:20Martin Lewis?

  And so therefore, that is the issue. The issue is, yes, you're crystallising it for sales purposes. So, you know, once you're getting up there, then you're crystallising the gain so that you could, you know, so what you're saying is if I made £3,000 gain, I may as well say it then, use all my £3,000 capital gains tax allowance, my tax free allowance for selling capital gains tax at that point, and then buy it back, and then hopefully it'll continue to grow and sell it in future again, and crystallise another gain. Well, you can only do that with the 30 day gap in. Or you could, of course, if you have losses elsewhere, offset the losses against the gains. And that's, you know, there's a whole complexity in that too. So you're sort of thinking the right way, but unfortunately, people have thought it before you and there's some rules to make sure it isn't quite that simple.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  Understood. Thank you.

• 19:06Martin Lewis?

  Phew.

• 19:07Speaker 04

  Matt PLC, I like that. It's got a nice ring to it.

• 19:09Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, I won't be investing.

• 19:15Martin Lewis?

  Now Matt, I am demanding at this point, a simple question for you. I have worked my little cotton socks on, I'm not sure they're actually cotton, but let's just go with it. And I would like something that's slightly less brain taxing now.

• 19:31Speaker 04

  This one sounds simpler. It's definitely shorter, so I don't have to read as much.

• 19:35Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 19:35Speaker 04

  It's from Dawn. She says, "Good afternoon. My broadband provider have this morning cut off my broadband without any notice, meaning I'm now unable to work," she says, "I work from home. Nor am I able to watch TV or use any wifi. I'm told by my provider it will take them three working days to send out a new router and reconnect. Please can you help me because without being able to work at home, I'm probably going to be out of a job, not to mention a loss of earnings."

• 19:59Martin Lewis?

  Ah Dawn, I can absolutely understand the frustration of that. I mean broadband these days, especially for someone who works at home, it is absolutely necessary utility. The rules aren't particularly great, I'll be honest. If we go for the standard Ofcom compensation rules, you should get basically a tenner if it isn't fixed within two full working days after you report it. And then £10 for each full day it's still not fixed after that, usually paid as credit onto your account. And I'm sure you're sitting there going, "But I can't work, I can't do anything." Those are the rules. Now, I am not a lawyer. I don't know whether there would be a consequential loss case that you could take and you could consult a lawyer, but let's be honest, you're probably not going to.

• 20:44Martin Lewis?

  It's way too much hassle and you're far more worried about your work. My hope, have you got mobile with a decent data on it that you can use as a tether? Is there somewhere else that you can go and you can work? It's an absolute nightmare, but there's no real practical what can you make them do at super speed fix. I mean, they're going to take three days. You're probably going to end up getting 20 quid for it. It's nowhere near enough in your head, but those are the standard rules. If anyone's been in that situation and ever done more and pushed more, do get in touch. I'd love to hear what happened to you in those cases. But there are rules, they're just not that good in your case. I'm so sorry.

• 21:24Martin Lewis?

  Are you sitting there thinking, oh, I know what I wanted to ask him? Well, this is your opportunity. If you've got a question, then just send them in to [email protected]. And please do start them, Dear Martin.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  No, Dear Matt.

• 21:39Martin Lewis?

  Dear Martin.

• 21:40Speaker 04

  Dear Matt.

• 21:43Martin Lewis?

  Right, Matt, so at this point in the podcast is where we do that you can ask me anything and everything and you tend to put a question to me, which is not on money, which I have to answer. What have you got? What weird and wacky, out of the park question do you have this week?

• 22:01Speaker 04

  It's nice, isn't it? Because it lets the listener learn more about you. It's like humanising you. So I've got one from-

• 22:07Martin Lewis?

  I'm not human.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  I've got one from Ollie. He says, hi team, who would Martin pick to play with him in his dream four ball and at what course? Now, what's four ball?

• 22:18Martin Lewis?

  A four ball, so this is Ollie who realises that I love my golf, even though I'm not very good, I'm about a 17, 18 handicap, and a four ball is where four of you are playing together. It could be a teams' contest, you could all be playing independently.

• 22:33Martin Lewis?

  So what course is obvious? I would like to play at Augusta, where the US Masters is. You know, you watch it on the telly, it's an incredible course, it would be way too difficult for me, but I would love, I would dream one day of going and having a round at Augusta.

• 22:46Speaker 04

  Who would I have with me?

• 22:48Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so you'd probably have to go with Rory McIlroy.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  Obviously.

• 22:52Martin Lewis?

  You probably want Rory McIlroy.

• 22:56Martin Lewis?

  I'm also, because I think I'll go for one of the, I might go, and I've got a reason for this, I might go for Nick Faldo as well, who still does commentary now and is obviously, you know, a great golfer still. My third person, I'm gonna go for my friend Joel.

• 23:14Martin Lewis?

  Who I'm incredibly competitive with at golf and we play year-long tournaments where every game we play each other is counted and he in the first year actually got a little trophy that I got for the first year but he beat me last year and I have to give him the trophy back which I'm not looking forward to. And I would choose Joel, one, because it would be nice to have a friend with because I'm not so good at meeting strangers and I don't know Rory or Nick Faldo, so it'd be quite good to have someone who could support you through that. But also, most importantly, I think we're playing pairs and I would tell Joel that he is playing with one of the greats of the game and he would play with Nick Faldo, who is a great golfer, but probably in his mid-60s now. And I would play with Rory McIlroy, who's a current champion and who's clearly going to beat Nick Faldo if everything goes right.

• 23:59Martin Lewis?

  And as we're playing in teams, I would win and it would count as an extra point to my scorecard against Joel and that would make it even happier for me.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  Is there anyone you're not competitive with? You had your steps, your steps competition?

• 24:10Martin Lewis?

  I'm competitive with people who like competition, I scrabble as well with Mrs M S C.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Have we got a competition?

• 24:17Martin Lewis?

  Well, who people address, I suppose.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  Ah, I suppose.

• 24:23Speaker 04

  Okay, Matt, caller time?

• 24:25Martin Lewis?

  Caller time, Robert in Rotherham. Hi, Robert.

• 24:28Speaker 05

  Hi, Martin, you okay?

• 24:30Martin Lewis?

  I am, hello, mate. What can I do for you?

• 24:32Speaker 05

  Right, all it is, a bit of advice. I upgraded with Sky Mobile last year. I've got three contracts, me, my son and my mum. Because I was Sky VIP, they offered it me at £5 a month. Which isn't a lot of money. They then have raised the money to £8 a month this month. When I phoned up just to question it, they'd never sent me an email, so I phoned up to question it. They said it was the price hike. And I said, why has it gone up 60%? And they said, it's because we haven't put it up in the last two years. So I questioned that and left it at that and then they said to me, in November, it's

• 25:15Speaker 05

  going up to £15 a month. But I would still be in contract while November 2027.

• 25:23Martin Lewis?

  Okay. So, they haven't notified you formally of this price hike?

• 25:29Speaker 05

  No, no email.

• 25:31Martin Lewis?

  And clearly because it's Sky, you weren't told in advance that this would be happening?

• 25:35Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 25:37Martin Lewis?

  Well, I mean, it's interesting. They haven't notified you. They should notify you. They have a requirement to notify you. So something has gone wrong there. But even so, within 30 days of being notified of a price hike, and it's crucial, it's the notification period, not when the price goes up period. Under Ofcom rules, because you were not told of this price hike when you signed up, you can leave this contract penalty free.

• 25:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've already left. I asked for the pack code. I've already left now. But I just don't want it happening to anyone else.

• 26:05Martin Lewis?

  No, but what I think you need, you need to be careful of, you should, you know, you've got your pack code. There may be because they haven't given you notifications. You've just got to be slightly careful. They haven't given you notification that they're not going to charge you a penalty leaving fee because it has to be triggered by the notification. So I'd like you to call them if you would.

• 26:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:25Martin Lewis?

  And just double check. You say, you've, you've increased my price. You didn't give me notification, but you've told me on the phone that you are. So I am exercising my right to leave within 30 days penalty free, and I want to check there's no penalty for doing so. I just, I'd call them up and make that check. But yeah, I mean, it's something I've been widely warning on. Sky, Sky in a way is slightly more transparent than what happened with O2 when it said it was going to hike people's prices by a certain amount, but heighten them by even more. Sky simply says, we will not tell you in advance of what the price hikes will be, but we will always let you leave within 30 days of notification. And so you can get out, you can go somewhere else, and it cannot charge you a penalty for doing so. But because you've got that 30 days of notification and you're saying to me, I haven't had notification,

• 27:10Martin Lewis?

  that's the only little bit of worry for me on your situation.

• 27:13Speaker 05

  Right, okay. So just give them a ring.

• 27:16Martin Lewis?

  Give them a ring and check and, and make sure that you are full, filling in within the Ofcom rules. You know, I'm just thinking if you left, and this would be absurd, but sometimes absurd things happen. You left yesterday and you get your, your letter is sent today that arrives tomorrow. Then there's an argument that you did not get it within 30 days of notification. Do you see what I mean?

• 27:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:39Martin Lewis?

  I just want to be slightly careful on that.

• 27:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, I can do that.

• 27:42Martin Lewis?

  All right. Good luck, bud.

• 27:44Speaker 05

  Okay, thank you. Bye.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  It's producer Matt here, recording this after we finished recording the podcast because I contacted Sky and a spokesperson told me we don't take decisions like this lightly, which is why we've not increased mobile prices mid-contract for more than seven years. This change reflects the ongoing cost pressures being faced across the industry.

• 28:06Martin Lewis?

  And that's it for this week's Question Time. Do not forget to subscribe so you know when we release a new episode. We put one out each Monday alongside the regular podcast with Adrian on Thursdays. Aren't you lucky? Two doses of money-saving tips and tricks a week. Do ensure you send your questions in, if you've got some to ask, to [email protected] and address them Dear Martin. Dear Matt. Dear Martin.

• 28:46Speaker 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.

• 29:22Speaker 06

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• 30:06Speaker 06

  And whether you're debugging code at midnight, building a financial model, or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at claude.ai/solve. That's claude.ai/solve. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. claude.ai/solve.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO, and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.