Question Time: Can I back-claim Child Benefit? Change broadband before April? Why does my 7% regular saver only pay 4%?

It's a geek edition of our Question Time podcast! This week Martin Lewis gives you answers on your questions asking him anything and everything, including: should I wait until April to change my broadband to avoid the price hikes? Can I back-claim child benefit, now I know I’m eligible? Why did my 7% regular saver pay me half of that in interest? If I have to buy credits to purchase a game, can I get a cash refund if it’s faulty? I have a disability, so I need others to drive me in my car, how do I get insurance? Plus, does Martin find the ‘Dead Ringers’ impression of him funny? You’ll have to listen to find out! 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 got hay fever, which galaxy is his favourite, 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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• 1:46Martin Lewis?

  Hello, this is the Martin Lewis Podcast Question Times edition. If you've got any questions you'd like to ask, please record them now.

• 1:53Speaker 04

  I don't recall the child benefit form explaining clearly what you could be missing out on.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  What are my consumer rights if there's something wrong with a game?

• 2:01Martin Lewis?

  You're going to need some specialised help. Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our Question Time edition, where you get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. This week, it's a geek-tastic pod. Yes, some of the questions have gone seriously to nerdville and I have to tell you, I've enjoyed it. The questions were: Should I wait till April to change my broadband to avoid price hikes? Can I backclaim child benefit now I know I'm eligible? Why did my 7% regular savers account only pay me half that in interest? If I buy credits to get a game and then it's faulty, can I get a refund in cash? I have a disability, so I need others to drive me in my car, how do I get insurance?

• 2:46Martin Lewis?

  And Martin, what do you think of the dead ringer's impression of you? Play the theme tune.

• 3:06Martin Lewis?

  Hello everybody and welcome to this week's Question Time edition. And back with us again, it's the curator of questions himself, Dr Professor Sir Matthew Burnham Esquire.

• 3:21Speaker 05

  Let's just keep adding titles until you run out. What was that, Dr Professor?

• 3:25Martin Lewis?

  Sir Matthew Burnham Esquire. All of which I should note technically are false titles, but it's an honorific and why not? You weren't with us last week, Matt.

• 3:34Speaker 05

  I was not.

• 3:35Martin Lewis?

  Did you listen to Question Time while you were off?

• 3:37Speaker 05

  No, I didn't, no.

• 3:39Martin Lewis?

  Matt?

• 3:40Speaker 05

  I know.

• 3:41Martin Lewis?

  I mean, Simon did a great job and we made a couple of jokes about you and you didn't get them to hear them.

• 3:46Speaker 05

  So are you going to tell me what the jokes are? Do I need to listen?

• 3:48Martin Lewis?

  No, you need to go back and listen. You can go back and listen on two times speed, you're very capable of doing that, but I, you should have listened.

• 3:55Speaker 05

  I should have listened.

• 3:56Martin Lewis?

  I hope you were doing something that was extremely good fun if you felt you shouldn't listen to the Question Time podcast.

• 4:01Speaker 05

  I was actually. So when we record this on the Thursday, I was at a wedding. My partner's friend was getting married.

• 4:10Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 4:10Speaker 05

  I think that's a good excuse.

• 4:11Martin Lewis?

  It's a perfectly reasonable excuse, but I mean, there's been another six days since then. You could have listened to the podcast. It's a podcast. It's not a radio programme.

• 4:17Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 4:17Martin Lewis?

  You don't have to catch it live.

• 4:18Speaker 05

  That is true, and I could listen on my walk into work.

• 4:20Martin Lewis?

  You could have listened on your walk into work. Well, maybe next week we'll discuss last week's podcast.

• 4:24Speaker 05

  Okay, you're going to quiz me.

• 4:28Martin Lewis?

  All right. I hope you're well, buddy. What have you got for me this week?

• 4:30Speaker 05

  Shall we start with a question on broadband? This one is from Jamie. He's Ian Wedditt in to Martin Lewis podcast at bbc.co.uk. He starts, Dear Martin, and in brackets, care of Matt, couldn't think of a smart slash amusing way of addressing you both. Sorry.

• 4:44Martin Lewis?

  That's fine. That's fine. You've got the Dear Martin. That's what matters.

• 4:47Speaker 05

  Maybe a funny one does help, but I'll just take that. He says, my broadband deal is coming to an end at the start of next month, early March, and I'm looking to switch.

• 4:57Martin Lewis?

  I've got the question in front of me here now, and you missed a line. I like that line. Why have you missed that line?

• 5:02Speaker 05

  Where have I... Sorry, I did. He says, I hope you both well. Love the podcasts and thank you for the money-saving help over the years.

• 5:11Martin Lewis?

  Thank you very much.

• 5:12Speaker 05

  My broadband deal is coming to an end at the start of next month, early March, and I'm looking to switch. I am, of course, utilising a well-known comparison site, unnamed, to find the best deals, in my case, around £20 a month. However, almost all the cheapest providers are ramping up their prices in April, usually by £4 or so. For the prices I've seen, this is around 15% way above inflation. When my current deal expires, I'll go on to a rubbish rate around £20 a month over what I could pay if I switched to a new provider, but am I better to wait until April? I know if I sign up for a new provider now, the price will go up then, but will the price of new deals go up by that much when it gets to April?

• 5:56Martin Lewis?

  What an interesting question. So, yes, you're quite right. Most companies now have to obey the Ofcom pound and pence rule that says that if they're going to increase prices during the contractual period, then they have to tell you in advance of exactly in pounds of pence how much that hike will be. And the net effect of that has been we see even bigger mid-contract price rises than we did before. They're now transparent. But they're bigger than before, when it was just linked to inflation plus a few percent. And certainly for those people who have relatively cheap deals, the the effect of the price hike, a 4% price hike is way, I mean, 15% is way above inflation. Inflation's around 3%, so even if it were to be 3% plus 3%, that'd be 6%, that isn't 15%.

• 6:39Martin Lewis?

  So yeah, I mean, I have, we've discussed ad nauseam on the main pod, my problems with the Ofcom regime on this. And I don't think they've got the right solution, but it is what it is. So this question is really interesting. Effectively, you're saying there are cheap broadband deals now. I know they're going to go up, but if I wait until April, will they still be the same price as now? And they'll only be telling me they're going to go up by £4 in the following April. And therefore I will have longer on a shorter price pan. And my answer to that, which is a really clever question, Jamie, is, I don't know.

• 7:11Martin Lewis?

  And and that's because the way the broadband market works is based on short term promotional deals. Right? You always want to be going via a comparison site or a site that does comparisons in the least. Because what most broadband companies do is on their own sites, they have to offer existing customers the same deal that they're giving new customers. And they do that by tariffs, but then what they do on the comparison sites is they use marketing or incentives. So it could be they're giving you a £50 Amazon voucher or a £100 prepaid card. And that's how they get price competitive on the comparison sites, where there's more elasticity of demand, where where people who are price sensitive are going. Now, the the way they set those prices is both in relation to their own underlying price,

• 7:55Martin Lewis?

  but also to the prevailing market conditions at the time. So if you're lucky enough to spot it when there's a price war and they're all going for it, then I think it is perfectly possible after April, you will be able to get a deal that net over the two year contract, including the price rises, is cheaper than the deals that are available right now. But I can't guarantee it and I can't guarantee when. Now, one of the interesting things about this, that because of the way compliance works, I have to be careful what I say. Let's say there are websites out there that send out emails each week, right? And they have lots of people who read them. When they cover broadband,

• 8:38Martin Lewis?

  then often what the providers will do, once they know they're covering broadband, is they will all try and give promo prices so that they can be cheapest on that particular week. And that will often move markets when there are sites that do that type of thing, who are covering those subjects. So it really will depend on that type, I hope I manage to make sense of that, on that type of coverage, whether that's happening in April or not, whether that's a top story or not in the various different places that do this. The safest thing to do, £20 a month with it going up by £4, so £24 is not bad for broadband. Most people are paying 50, 60 quid and I bet you're getting a faster speed. So the bird in the hand thing would be just to do it now. But if you want to be dicey, live life on the edge, you could wait and hope in April it gets cheaper.

• 9:23Martin Lewis?

  It is certainly not implausible that that will happen, but I just can't give you a firm answer because we're not there yet. Is that a good answer? Matt, what do you think of that answer, Matt?

• 9:32Speaker 05

  I'm a bit confused, I can't lie.

• 9:33Martin Lewis?

  Tell me why.

• 9:36Speaker 05

  So he's asking if he stays for another month and then gets a new broadband deal. Is that what he's asking?

• 9:44Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, so what he's saying is, let's say he's paying £20 a month now. His contract's going to end now and so next month he'll pay £40.

• 9:54Speaker 05

  Right.

• 9:54Martin Lewis?

  Right? He's saying, should I wait, pay one month of £40 and then in April, will there be deals now that are cheaper? Because what's happening now is he's signing up for a deal for 20 quid, but he's being told it's going up 4 quid in April. So in reality, for most of the first year of his contract, he's paying 24 quid a month. But he's saying, but if I waited till April, because they only put next price up in April, will I just be able to get a deal at £20 a month? And it won't be the £4 higher? And I'm saying, well, it depends.

• 10:22Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 10:23Martin Lewis?

  And I think actually you've crystallized this for me in a way, because I think... What we actually have to factor in is it has to be over 20 quid cheaper over the next two years for it to be worth you holding off because you're going to pay 20 pounds a month for the cost of waiting one month to get the new deal. I would say on the balance of probabilities, I don't know, but on the balance of probabilities, I just, if there's a good cheap deal available that's right for you at the moment, I'd go and get the good cheap deal that's available that's right for you at the moment and just accept that you're going to have those price hikes coming in.

• 10:58Martin Lewis?

  I quite like that nerdy one to start. I do like a geeky one, Matt. Next one, I'm guessing, is a caller.

• 11:05Speaker 05

  Well, normally, yes, but this question I like so much. And I asked Jennifer, who emailed it in, if she could come on and she's got meetings, she's too busy. And I was like, but I really want to get you on. So why don't you record the question? We'll play it and then you can answer her question.

• 11:25Martin Lewis?

  So it's a voice note, a voice note?

• 11:26Speaker 05

  It's a voice note.

• 11:27Martin Lewis?

  It's a voicemail.

• 11:27Speaker 05

  It's almost like a caller because all of this is recorded, but it's not.

• 11:35Martin Lewis?

  Hello, this is the Martin Lewis Podcast Question Times edition. If you've got any questions you'd like to ask, please record them now.

• 11:43Speaker 04

  Hi, Martin and Mr Burnham Esquire. Jennifer here from Manchester. I've been following Martin from the very start, so I consider myself pretty financially savvy. But something in your recent podcast got me thinking, I've missed something and now I'm wondering if to kick myself. I had my child in 2021 and I opted out of child benefits because I had understood I wasn't eligible. I think I earned around 60,000 pounds at the time. I wonder if I would have been eligible for something at a reduced rate, having listened to your podcast. But have I now lost the opportunity to claim child benefits for the past five years?

• 12:23Speaker 04

  From 2021 to 2024, I was operating under about one to two hours interrupted sleep per night. That was on the good nights. I don't recall the child benefit form explaining clearly to a sleep deprived parent what you could be missing out on, or that there are stepped benefits depending on your income. From what I've seen, it seems that you only have three months to claim backdated payments, which isn't a very long time. I'm also wondering if perhaps the thresholds for claiming child benefit have changed since 2021, but I'd be grateful for your clarification. I don't know if it makes a difference. My husband's

• 13:06Speaker 04

  salary was lower than mine in 2021. It would have been higher than £50,000 though. Thanks so much for everything that you do. I really appreciate it.

• 13:16Martin Lewis?

  Oh, thank you, Jennifer, and thank you so much for your voicemail question. Right, let's go through this. Yes, things have changed since then. When you were first claiming, the rule is always, it's based on, if you're a couple, it's based on the highest earner's income. So the second earner is irrelevant. It's the highest earner's income that matters. So that's you. When, in 2021, when you started claiming this, the rule was you started to lose, effectively lose, it comes back through a charge through the tax system, but let's not worry about that. Let's just work about whether you would net gain from it. You started lose child benefit at £50,000 and you lose it totally at £60,000 of highest earner's income. That changed, and it's something, the whole highest earner thing is something

• 14:00Martin Lewis?

  I have a real problem about. It's completely unfair on single parent families and single earner families. But hey, we won't do that now. Because of campaigning on that, in April 2024, they did change the thresholds. So the thresholds which are now in place and have been in place since April 2024, a change from Jeremy Hunt, was that you start to lose child benefit at highest earner's income of £60,000 and it's totally gone at highest earner's income of £80,000. So if you now earn under £80,000, you should

• 14:39Martin Lewis?

  Claim child benefit. If you're between 16,000 and 80,000 pounds, you will then have to pay some of it back through the tax system, but net, factoring both in, you would still be up. You are quite right to say that you can only backdate three months, I'm afraid. So if you've been eligible longer, I don't have any suggestions for you, because I don't think there's a procedural impropriety in what they've done that you would be able to argue here. But, I mean, you could check it with the lawyer, but I doubt it. So you're claiming back three months, so doing this as quickly as possible is important. It is also worth me saying, while we're talking child benefit, that it is the act of claiming child benefit that triggers national insurance credits for those who aren't working.

• 15:20Martin Lewis?

  So child benefit is always best claimed by the parent who is least likely to be working by some point over the next 16 odd years, so that it's going on to their file. In both you and your husband's cases, you're both working, so you'll be getting national insurance credits from work anyway, so it isn't an issue. And the backdating if the wrong person has claimed, or you didn't claim and you're not getting your national insurance credits, which of course count towards your total pension entitlement, that can be backdated longer than three months. But yeah, I totally get the sleep deprived stuff. We've all been there, or all of us who have children have been there. We know exactly what it's like. It is a very tough stage of life. You weren't focused on it, you know, it's just frustration. But I think if you possibly can, I would be trying to claim your child benefit now if you've got earnings under 80,000 pounds, and your husband is also earning under 80,000

• 16:05Martin Lewis?

  pounds still. Above that, you're not entitled. And these single earner, highest earner cutoffs are a real problem. You have another one where your eligibility for funded childcare and what's called the tax-free childcare system cuts off if you've got a single earner earning over 100,000 pounds, regardless of what the other person in the family earns. And that is, you know, effectively increases marginal tax rate when it's already increasing. But I'm going off on tangents, I shall stop there. I hope that answers your question, Jennifer. Just realised, you can't say yes it does, because it was a voice note. Hopefully it does. Can I also say, I was secretly very happy with my voicemail recording thing, and who got the timing?

• 16:50Martin Lewis?

  The timing was perfect. Who did it? So that was Lindsay pushing the buttons. Oh, Lindsay, Lindsay, you nailed it. You nailed it. That was cool.

• 16:59Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so we've done written question, voice note question, gotta be another written question.

• 17:04Speaker 05

  Of course, I'll read this one if you'd like.

• 17:06Martin Lewis?

  Yep.

• 17:07Speaker 05

  Okay, one from Raquel, she's emailed in. Hi Martin, thank you for your great show, you're helping a lot of people.

• 17:13Martin Lewis?

  Aw, thank you.

• 17:14Speaker 05

  No mention of me. Uh, I save regularly into an account that has an interest rate of 7%. I thought for a full year deposit of £3,600, I should get £252 of interest. Why do I receive only a fraction, £136, if I recall it right? Thank you very much.

• 17:33Martin Lewis?

  Oh Raquel, this is a very, very common question and I can answer it for you and it's actually very interesting. Because in last week's podcast, Matthew, we discussed regular savings accounts in two of the questions. But you won't know that yet because you haven't listened to last week's Question Time podcast yet.

• 17:50Speaker 05

  No.

• 17:51Martin Lewis?

  Anyway, so, regular savings accounts are accounts offered often linked to a bank account where you get high rates of interest. I think the highest one at the moment is Zopa at 7.1%, but you've got First Direct at 7%. And there are also some building societies that offer them even if you don't have the bank account with about 6%. The key to them though, is they're for regular saving, they're for putting £1, £2, £300 a month in, each month. They're not for lump sums, they normally last for a year, some of them allow you to take money out. And let me be very plain, on the money you have in them, they are the highest interest rate possible. When you're at 7%, it is a real 7%. But here's the confusion, Matt, I'm gonna do this with you, there might be a little bit of maths involved, are you up for it?

• 18:34Speaker 05

  I am, maths is not my strong point.

• 18:35Martin Lewis?

  But we'll go, because this is a conceptual explanation.

• 18:38Speaker 05

  Go on.

• 18:39Martin Lewis?

  Okay. So, you have an account that you're putting £300 a month in. So, at the start of, at the first month you have nothing. After month one, you've got £300. After month two, you've got £600, maybe a bit of interest. After month three, £900, and so on and so on and so on. Until the end of the year, you've got £3,600 in.

• 19:01Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 19:02Martin Lewis?

  Which is what Raquel's asking about.

• 19:03Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 19:04Martin Lewis?

  What is your average balance, over the year roughly?

• 19:07Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 19:10Martin Lewis?

  What would you think?

• 19:14Martin Lewis?

  I don't know. I'm gonna try and help you. Help me. You start on nothing. Yeah. You end up with £3,600.

• 19:22Martin Lewis?

  Is it half? It's half. Ah. It's half. Yeah, you got it there. Well done. Thank you. Which is 1,800 quid. So, that is conceptually how you have to think about it. Now, what you're saying to me, what Raquel said to me in the question is, I've got a full year deposit of £3,600, I should have £252 interest, which is 7% of £3,600. But you haven't had £3,600 in for a year. You only get interest on the money paid in your account. In the first month, you only had £300 in. In the second month, you only had £600 in. It's only after exactly 12 months that you've got the £3,600, the maximum, in. So a better way to conceptually think about this is your average balance over the year was 1,800 pounds. What's 7% of 1,800 pounds?

• 20:06Martin Lewis?

  He says slightly panicking as he asks the question himself. Well, 70% of £1,000 is 70 pounds, and 7% of 80 pounds is 56 quid. So that's 126 pounds, plus you'd probably get a little bit more for compound interest on top. So I would estimate, doing off the top of my head, it's 130 quid. And I think you said in your question it was 136 quid. So that adds up to me. So it's always basically, I mean, another way to do it is you get a little over half what you would calculate it to be if you did it based on your 3,600, you're maxing it out. And people always come to me and they say, "It's a sham. They said 7% interest. It wasn't 7% interest. You know, they gave me way less than 7% of the final balance." It's only on the money that you've got in there. Now, if we think about this conceptually, a good way to think about this is imagine

• 20:50Martin Lewis?

  that you had that amount of money and you wanted to put it in a regular savings account. So you've got £3,600, you want to put it in a regular savings account. Let's remember the £3,600 you have at the start is sitting somewhere. It's not nowhere. So you might have that in an easy access savings account paying 4%. So after month one... You've got £300 earning 7% in the regular saver and you've got £3,300 earning 4% in the easy access savings. After month two, you've got £600 in the regular saver, you've got £3,000 in the easy access account earning 4%. And if you think about it that way, then you would understand, well, of course, they're not going to give me interest in the whole £3,600 because I was earning it elsewhere. I was earning it on the easy access account

• 21:35Martin Lewis?

  because it was in the easy access account at the time and they should have been giving me interest. And that, I hope, is a way of thinking about it. And some people do actually do that drip the method so that they're moving money from easy access into a regular saver where they get more interest in a way that that works for you. I got all excited about that. That's the second geek question. This is a great show for me. I mean, the listeners might be sitting there thinking, oh my God, this is nerdy, but I'm enjoying myself.

• 21:58Speaker 05

  Well, at least one person is.

• 21:59Martin Lewis?

  Excellent. Two, Matt. You should have said two.

• 22:01Speaker 05

  Two. You and Rosie.

• 22:03Martin Lewis?

  Okay. You mentioned Rosie, wonderful Rosie who sits with me, who works with me on all of these things and who was this week, really, she's done a great document, hasn't she, Matt?

• 22:13Speaker 05

  She has. She's put in links so we can click to the questions. Honestly, it's very exciting.

• 22:17Martin Lewis?

  It's very exciting. Rosie is now the guru of Google Docs. That, maybe that's the title, Google dot guru, Google dot Google guru Rosie. It's G R G R. Goog- no, it's not.

• 22:28Speaker 05

  G D G R.

• 22:30Martin Lewis?

  G D G R. Let's just get on to the next question.

• 22:36Martin Lewis?

  Right, Matt, you must have a caller. We've got to have at least one caller in the show.

• 22:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, we'll have a caller. We'll actually speak to a human being. So we've got Alex. He's in Bricksworth. Hi, Alex.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  Hello. Hi, Matt. Hi, Martin.

• 22:49Martin Lewis?

  Hello, mate. What is your question?

• 22:52Speaker 00

  So my question is, I was buying a game online the other week and I noticed I had to pay for credits first and then use those credits to purchase the game, which just got me thinking, what are my consumer rights if there's something wrong with the game and I want to return it or, you know, get my money back?

• 23:10Martin Lewis?

  That is a very interesting question. So, I mean, the first thing is the rights would attach themselves to the purchase of a digital item. I presume it's a game for downloading that you're buying, rather than something physical.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's right.

• 23:23Martin Lewis?

  So you would have all your standard sad fart consumer rights, you know, item must be of satisfactory quality as described, fit for purpose and last a reasonable length of time, sad fart, rights on the digital item itself. I think, I presume your question is about, are you owed cash or are you owed credits back if it were to go wrong?

• 23:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 23:43Martin Lewis?

  So, it's a grey area, is I think the first place to honestly say. And ultimately, as in all these things, the frustration with consumer rights, and if I do hark back to when I gave evidence at Parliament to the Consumer Rights Act, I raised this was my main point then, is ultimately, there's no ombudsman, there's no easy way to find out, your only way to push this would be to have to go to court, which is not what you want to do. Certainly, you're not going to do it for a game, are you? Let's be honest.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  No, of course not, no.

• 24:14Martin Lewis?

  Which, no. So if you were to do this, we've got to be, we can be practical, we can be legal and we can be practical. Now, I would think, and sort of thinking through this, if they said, you want to buy this game, you have to buy credits to buy this game, and you bespoke only purchased the amount of credits to specifically buy that direct game, I think you would have a very strong argument that you should have the refund in cash because you weren't buying credits for their own sake, you were only buying the credits as a means of a mechanism of purchasing the game. Is that, is that the situation you're describing?

• 24:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 24:51Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so I think then, in that case, I think you'd have a strong argument for a cash refund. Unfortunately, though, if they refused, you would have to take them to court to do it, which would be a problem. It is worth me contrasting a slight difference. If they said, hey, we operate a credit system on our site, why not buy 100 credits and you can buy lots of different games with it, and you were therefore, at some point in the future, you hadn't bought your credits as in a sort of hypothecated directly to buying one game, you'd just bought credits To generally be able to use the facility of buying games at that store. Then I think you would have far weaker rights to demand a cash refund. You would just be able to demand a credit refund. So my best guess, and if there are any consumer lawyers listening, I would love your view because this is a legal question.

• 25:36Martin Lewis?

  My best guess is I think you'd have a very strong case for getting your money back if you only bought the credits to buy the game.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  Okay, so in future, if buying more games, it's probably better to err on the side of caution then, I guess, and just download enough credits.

• 25:52Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, well, that's the question, is it? Because unless they're giving you a big discount for buying more credits.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  Ah, true, yeah, true.

• 25:59Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, but then again, that's all. If it's a one-off purchase, it's a one-off purchase. If it's a store that you're going to use a lot. Well, in which case getting credits back wouldn't be that big a problem for you anyway, would it? Because you'd buy it again. So I think I'd probably factor that in there.

• 26:13Martin Lewis?

  That was an interesting question. I just hope I've got the answer right. It is a complex piece of law. So it isn't 100% me. So please, please have a little, give me a bit of wriggle room in that one, if you don't mind, Alex.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course. Yeah, thank you very much.

• 26:25Martin Lewis?

  My pleasure. Thank you for getting in touch. Appreciate it.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, cheers. Good to speak to you. Thanks, both.

• 26:29Martin Lewis?

  Bye bye.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  Cheers.

• 26:32Martin 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.

• 26:47Speaker 05

  No, Dear Matt.

• 26:48Martin Lewis?

  Dear Martin.

• 26:49Speaker 05

  Dear Matt.

• 26:51Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so Matt, at this point in the podcast, this is where you put me to the test with something that's nothing to do with money normally. What have you got for me?

• 26:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, something to lighten this up a little bit. Fun question from Andy. He's emailed in. He says, Dear Matt and Martin. To Martin.

• 27:06Martin Lewis?

  Well, first of all, Andy, right order, please.

• 27:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, that is the right order. Thanks, Andy. He says, "Do you find the impersonations of yourself on Dead Ringers and other comedy shows funny?"

• 27:19Martin Lewis?

  I don't know, they did impersonations of Matt on comedy shows.

• 27:22Speaker 05

  Hey, Martin, "Do you find the impersonations of yourself on Dead Ringers and other comedy shows very funny?" And he then goes on to say to Matt, "Do you find the impersonations of Martin on Dead Ringers funny? Love the podcasts."

• 27:34Martin Lewis?

  Why didn't you answer first, Matt?

• 27:36Speaker 05

  Well, when I first saw this, I was like, "I don't know what he's talking about." And then, when I thought about it, I have seen these, I have heard these, and they are funny. I don't know the guy who does it, but he has nailed you.

• 27:49Martin Lewis?

  So I know John of old, and John and my wife used to be mates. So it is quite amusing, in the fact. I take it as, at the moment, it's always been relatively flattering. I have to say, and there's no slur to John's skills here, I don't think vocally he sounds like me. I think there's some of the cadence of delivery when I go fast that he's got. And I can see the fun in the way that it's done, you know? So you get yourself a cash icer, and you take your cash icer, and you take it from your points on the back of the cash icer, and you put the cash icer back into it, and then suddenly, boom, you've got £4,000 and you can buy a missile. And that's the type of stuff that they do. And I get that, but I don't think it actually sounds like me.

• 28:34Martin Lewis?

  I'd just like to say that point. I don't think it sounds like my voice. My voice is a lot deeper than that. "Do what you feel they hear are beneficial to the important messages that you convey." Well, look, I mean, if we go back to the whole spitting image, which you're too young to remember, Matt, but the whole spitting image thing was a real issue, certainly for the Social Democratic Party and the Lib Dems, and their big David Owen and little David Steele, and I think reputationally, that people tended to think of them almost as their spitting image characters. So there's always a risk in that. I don't think Dead Ringers, I don't think it does that. I take it in good humour that it's taking the Mickey. I don't think of it as a hindrance of the message at all. To be honest with you, I don't think it... I think if they tried to...

• 29:19Martin Lewis?

  If they got closer in their explanation to something I would actually say, then it might become a problem because I'm always very paranoid of people sort of representing me and giving misinformation out. But it isn't that. I do find it quite funny, but I think the voice needs a little bit of work. Sorry, John, sorry. Matt, just in case, I don't know if you've allowed the rights, why don't you play a little clip of it here so people can hear?

• 29:41Speaker 05

  Okay, so if you hear the clip next, then I'm able to play it. And if you don't hear the clip, then I'm not allowed to play it.

• 29:47Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, but you wouldn't put this bit in anyway.

• 29:48Speaker 05

  No, but I would.

• 29:50Speaker 06

  Stop everything, help has arrived.

• 29:54Speaker 06

  Who are you? How did you get in here? I am Martin Lewis, money-saving expert.

• 30:05Speaker 06

  And I got in here because I helped your head of security save 62% on his broadband.

• 30:11Speaker 06

  Now, if you want to make your defence spending go further, then you must do exactly as I say. First, tell me, how many fighter jets have you got in an ISO?

• 30:22Speaker 06

  What? None. Then things are worse than I feared.

• 30:29Martin Lewis?

  And Matt, after all that, this is the real me still here. Let's do one final question. What do you have?

• 30:36Speaker 05

  I've got a question from someone who wants to remain anonymous.

• 30:39Martin Lewis?

  John, John, we're gonna call them John.

• 30:41Speaker 05

  Well, someone actually did say that we should call people different things in the podcast. Miss Mini Penny or Mr. Iva Schilling?

• 30:50Martin Lewis?

  Iva Schilling I quite like.

• 30:52Speaker 05

  Iva Schilling.

• 30:53Martin Lewis?

  Iva, so what's Iva asking?

• 30:54Speaker 05

  Iva is asking about car insurance. So he's emailed in, he says, hello, Martin, and then in brackets, slash Matt.

• 31:02Martin Lewis?

  Acceptable.

• 31:03Speaker 05

  Acceptable. Will you help me highlight the problem disabled people have with getting car insurance when they themselves are physically unable to drive but need a vehicle to get around?

• 31:11Martin Lewis?

  Oh, I've not heard of this before, so... Go for it, yeah.

• 31:15Speaker 05

  Okay, so the situation is that I own my own vehicle and have done for thirty plus years and have always had an any driver policy.

• 31:23Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 31:23Speaker 05

  Quite a few years ago, any driver policy started requiring a named driver. Initially, that was fine, as I could use my parents, but as they became older, they themselves aren't driving. This means I'm now in a difficult position, as the people I allow to drive me are agency staff and they change. He says, FYI, the mobility scheme isn't appropriate here, as the down payment required roughly every three years is prohibitively high, last checked over £10,000 for a wheelchair accessible vehicle, on a vehicle costing circa £30,000, and his current one is 16 years old. If you do broadcast this on your excellent podcast, I'd like to remain anonymous, please.

• 32:02Martin Lewis?

  Well, we're going to carry on calling you IVA, IVA, and but of course, your anonymity is absolutely fine.

• 32:08Martin Lewis?

  So, I mean, this isn't, this isn't a subject I have a great deal of expertise on. The any driver policies I am aware of, but I understand that it's a named driver. Now, my instinct, you've probably already done quite a lot of hard work on this. My instinct would be that this isn't the type of thing that comparison sites are going to help you with. And this is an area where you're going to need some specialised help, and that would mean a broker. I'd probably be thinking of someone like Adrian Flux or Howden would be the type of brokers who would look at these type of policies. I think you're going to need to speak to a human being where you can explain the type of cover that you require, and they're probably going to have to build you a policy.

• 32:49Martin Lewis?

  There is a chance it'll be classed as a commercial policy as well, I would think, because effectively you're letting someone, while not an employee of yours, someone who is doing it in a work capacity, drive you to help you through this system. So I would be thinking that would be the best system. If you only had one or two people who would be driving your vehicle, then you might want to put them in as named drivers and then just have the annoyance of having to pay the fee to change the named drivers a couple of times each year if they, if they do change. But I sort of, I'm getting the indication from your question, that isn't the scenario that you're in.

• 33:24Martin Lewis?

  It's frustrating that there isn't a simpler policy, isn't it? I don't know if any of the disability charities have done any work on this. And maybe if anybody is listening who knows more about this than I do and who has experience or anything that they can write in, get in touch to help either. It's [email protected]. But maybe I've pointed you in the right direction either. I wish you the best with it. Thank you so much for your question.

• 33:50Martin Lewis?

  That's it for this week's Question Time. Don't forget to subscribe so you know when we release a new episode. We tend to put out a new Question Time episode each Monday alongside the podcast with Adrian on Thursdays. Aren't you lucky? Two doses of money-saving tips and tricks a week. Do please send in your questions if you'd like to [email protected] and address them Dear Martin. It's Dear Matt. Dear Martin. Dear Matt.

• 34:32Speaker 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 [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.

• 35:07Speaker 02

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• 36:19Speaker 08

  How do you build a career you're proud of? It's easy to get caught up in the impact you hope to have or the legacy you want to leave behind. But how much of that is actually within your control?

• 36:30Speaker 09

  Something that I believe is that legacy is totally out of your control. Like legacy is something that other people determine. But what is in your control is is contribution and your actions around that.

• 36:42Speaker 08

  I really grew up, you know, into my twenties, maybe even thirties, thinking that, that like, if I didn't do something that meaningful and important, then like, I hadn't done something worthwhile. Find out how to build a career you're proud of in this episode of my podcast, Work Life, featuring actress and director Bryce Dallas Howard. And don't worry, we'll get into the nepo baby conversation. I'm Molly Graham and you can find Work Life, a podcast from TED, wherever you listen.