Question Time: Will payrise mean I lose child benefit? I’m on tracker mortgage should I fix? How do I become you?

Martin Lewis is back with another bumper listener Q&A, tackling everything from Child Benefit and consumer rights to career advice and mortgage strategy. He explains whether a pay rise could affect your Child Benefit entitlement and whether salary sacrifice could help. Plus, Martin answers a question from a homeowner on a tracker mortgage, revealing why it can be worth securing a mortgage deal up to six months in advance. He explains how having an offer in your back pocket can provide valuable protection if rates rise, while still leaving you free to walk away and choose a better deal if rates improve. He also helps a listener caught out by an auto-renewing subscription that doubled in price, explaining what rights consumers have and whether there's a way to challenge the renewal or cancel. A student asks Martin what it takes to do his job. The question sparks a candid conversation about journalism, broadcasting, consumer campaigning and building expertise. Martin shares lessons from his own career journey, offers practical advice for anyone hoping to work in the industry, and reflects on what really matters when building a career. Plus, two of Britain's greatest athletics stars, Steve Backley and Greg Rutherford, put their own questions to Martin for the PPS segment. And caller Anne, is a recent convert to the ways of Martin Lewis, she joins Martin to share the successes she's enjoyed since putting his tips into practice. As always, expect practical guidance, straight-talking answers and plenty of Martin Lewis wisdom you can use in your own life. 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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• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 1:46Martin Lewis?

  It's worth the time. It's not necessarily worth doing, but it's definitely worth the time to explore it.

• 1:51Speaker 04

  It's better to see it with a warm hand than with a cold one.

• 1:54Martin Lewis?

  I've just thought of an analogy. I'm not sure I should choose it. I've got to do it anyway because it's coming to my head. Really, really interesting question. Surely the highlight everybody is waiting for. The show's been building to this, hasn't it? 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 episode where you are as Squires, extremely savvy questioners, get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything within reason. And this week, you ask me, I'm worried a pay rise means I'll lose child benefit. Will salary sacrifice help? If I'm on a cheap tracker mortgage, is it still worth looking for a fix right now? A DNA firm just auto-renewed my subscription at twice the cost.

• 2:38Martin Lewis?

  Do I have a right to cancel? Then we've got a lovely success from Anne and multiple success from a new convert to the ways of money saving. And finally, a student asked me what she needs to do to have my job. Play the theme tune.

• 3:12Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to this Question Time episode of the podcast. Yes, this is the one where you get to ask me questions on anything and everything, open brackets, within reason. And we have got an upgrade this week because there is no curator of questions. Instead, we are graced with the presence of PPS himself, podcast producer Simon, a man with more fans than a Calcutta office building in July that does not have aircon. Simon, how are you?

• 3:46Speaker 05

  Well, I'm excellent. I feel a million dollars after that.

• 3:49Martin Lewis?

  Did you like that build up?

• 3:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, really pumped up my tyres, yeah.

• 3:52Martin Lewis?

  Matt gets all his titles, but I can't give you titles.

• 3:55Speaker 05

  But you give your sincerity, don't you? You meant every word of that, didn't you?

• 3:58Martin Lewis?

  Every single drip and drop and syllable and vowel was completely sincere, yeah.

• 4:04Speaker 05

  Oh, wonderful. And because, because you know, I'm always a faithful, I've got a PPS to play to you at the end, I think you're going to really enjoy.

• 4:12Martin Lewis?

  Okay, well, obviously getting traitor vibes coming in on that one. For those who don't know, who've not heard PPS do it before, podcast producer Simon, because he's called PPS, he has to do, my challenge to him, he's always got to do a postscript, he has to come up with something different and novel and original at the end of the podcast. So that's what his PPS is.

• 4:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it's definitely worth staying tuned for.

• 4:32Martin Lewis?

  Definitely. If you're here just for the information, you might want to turn off earlier after we've done the question. But anyway, yeah. All right, you've set the bar. We know where we need to go. But I think now is time that we actually do what we're here for in the Question Time podcast and answer some questions.

• 4:48Martin Lewis?

  So what's your first one? I'm hoping it's a read and we're all in normal format.

• 4:53Speaker 05

  Yes, I thought we would start with one about salary sacrifice.

• 4:56Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 4:57Speaker 05

  Hi, Eminem. I recently gained a significant promotion in April, taking my annual salary up by £16,000.

• 5:04Martin Lewis?

  Congratulations. Lovely.

• 5:05Speaker 05

  Prior to me gaining that promotion, I had started the process of getting an EV car through work on a salary sacrifice scheme that subsequently arrived in June.

• 5:14Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so let me just explain to anybody listening, in case you don't know, a salary sacrifice scheme is where effectively you pay for something through work and they reduce your salary to do it, but then give you, so you get the car, but you have a lower salary. And effectively, as you've got a lower salary, you're not paying tax and national insurance on your income and you're just getting the benefit that you would get. Let's carry on. That's a very rough explainer.

• 5:36Speaker 05

  I'm the primary earner and my wife works part-time in a minimum wage job. She claims child benefit for our two children, but I'm now concerned about hitting the higher earner child benefit threshold. Two parts to my question. Does my salary sacrifice EV payment reduce my income for child benefit threshold, as I believe? And secondly, as my car payments started later in the year, if they do count, I may still tip over. Therefore, am I able to increase my pension contributions to ensure my taxable pay remains under £60,000? Many thanks, Andrew.

• 6:08Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, really, really interesting question. And we need to do it in two parts. First of all, what is the effect of the salary sacrifice of your electric vehicle? And then if you're still over and above, can you increase your pension payment? So let's just look at child benefit to start with. Child benefit reduces once the highest earner in a couple earns £60,000, or just if you're a single parent, you earn £60,000. And it's totally gone by the time the highest earner earns £80,000 a year. The way the money is generally taken off is through a thing called the high income child benefit tax charge. Effectively, you're taxed more to make up for the child benefit you've got until once you're earning over £80,000, the tax charge is equal to the total amount of child benefit. So the net is nothing.

• 6:52Martin Lewis?

  You're not getting anything from child benefit. If you do salary sacrifice on an electric vehicle, that does reduce what is called your adjusted net income. That's the figure we're looking at when we're talking 60,000 to 80,000. The simple way we normally talk about it is adjusted net income is the income you get minus your pension contributions and minus any gift aid. But a salary sacrifice for an electric vehicle would do the same job. Now, worth noting, you can only do salary sacrifice if your employer offers it. Salary sacrifice isn't something you can do unilaterally yourself, like making a pension contribution is. It's an employment scheme that you would need to be taking advantage of. So if you're employed, you might look at what salary sacrifice schemes that your employer offers that you might want to take advantage of to do this.

• 7:35Martin Lewis?

  But if you're not an employee, you're not going to be able to do it. So when you do salary sacrifice on an electric vehicle, the salary sacrifice reduces your income, but because it's an electric vehicle that you're getting, there is a benefit in kind calculation. In other words, it's seen as you're getting a little bit of extra income back because you're being given the benefit of an electric vehicle. Now, the benefit in kind that you get is less generally, obviously I don't know the specifics, will generally be less than the salary sacrifice. So what you're doing will reduce your adjusted net income by exactly how much is quite difficult for me to tell you, but it will reduce it. So the next questions, the answer is yes. Do you want to increase your pension contribution, whether via salary sacrifice, whether via

• 8:20Martin Lewis?

  just, you know, you're doing increased employment contributions, or whether you did it in relief at source, which is where you put money into a separate pension yourself? All of those would reduce your adjusted net income for salary sacrifice purposes. So it should bring you down below the threshold. What I would say is make the right decisions for yourself. Remember, it isn't a cliff edge on child benefit. It starts at £60,000 and reduces over £20,000 of earnings. So if you were to be £60,500, you would see a very small reduction. It wouldn't be that big an impact. So as you're quite close to the edge, do what's right for you whilst trying to keep hold of the child benefit, but don't go too extreme to keep hold of the child benefit

• 9:04Martin Lewis?

  would be my overall guidance. Did that make sense, Simon?

• 9:07Speaker 05

  Yes, it did.

• 9:08Martin Lewis?

  Did that check out Isabel? For those who don't know, Isabel is my live fact checker sitting here. We are waiting until next week, the votes on is a yay and is a nay, because her predecessor, Rosie, GDPR, the conceit in the podcast was Rosie never spoke, but a simple raise of her eyebrow was enough to leave me and Matt trembling. We don't know whether doing that with Isabel yet. You can get in touch at [email protected]. You can is a yay if you want Isabel to be talking in the podcast, or is a nay if you would like her to be that silent force, the power in the background. The choice is yours. When Matt is here next week, we will go through that and we will do the vote there. But Isabel just nodding everything right, because it was quite a complicated one. I wasn't even sure what I said. Good.

• 9:55Martin Lewis?

  Now, Simon, unlike the curator of questions, I know you will stick to format. So it's an even number. You must have a caller for me.

• 10:02Speaker 05

  Well, I've always seen it more as guidelines than rules, but on this occasion I am following the usual format. And we are joined by someone with an excellent name. It is Simon in Peterborough. Hello, Simon.

• 10:10Speaker 06

  Yeah. Hi there, PPS. Hi there, Martin.

• 10:13Martin Lewis?

  Hello. Hello. Lovely to have you, Simon. What can I do for you?

• 10:16Speaker 06

  So what it is, great to speak to you, Martin. Currently I'm on a variable tracker mortgage with CBS and it's one of these that sits 0.75% above base rate.

• 10:27Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 10:27Speaker 06

  So I heard you say something a couple of weeks back about there's like a six month rule where you could sort of lock in on a fix and then see how things go. Would that apply to being on a variable rate as well? Could I still do that? And then in five months' time, just have a look at the market and sort of see, you know, because I'm thinking at the moment, even if rates were to rise as possibly suspected, even if they went up to 1% higher than they are now, I would still be lower than the current fix, if you know what I mean.

• 10:59Martin Lewis?

  Well, I don't know what fixes are available to you. So let's just break this down a little. What you're saying is, is it worth me going to check whether I can get a fix and getting the option of a fixed deal that I could access in six months' time while I'm on a variable right now? So what I'm hearing is you've got a long-term tracker at 0.75% above base rates.

• 11:20Speaker 06

  Correct.

• 11:20Martin Lewis?

  And that puts you at 4.5% right now. Now, if I just, as I was talking to you, I went on to a Best Buy mortgage comparison. The cheapest two-year fix is a 4.8%, the cheapest five-year fix is a 4.9%. Clearly, as they're top of a Best Buy, whether you could actually get them depends a lot on your personal circumstances because they are the riding high, very top lowest rates available out there and there's often fees to get them as well. So your rate right now at 4.5% is cheaper than the cheapest fix. So I presume your question is, is there any point in me getting rid of this?

• 11:54Speaker 06

  What it was, it was to see whether I could get that fix now so that then the next couple of meetings where they decide whether it's going up by 0.25% or whatever, if in five months' time it turns out that they put it up every single month by 0.25 and it's now over a percentage more, then it would be worth me keeping the fix, wouldn't it? But if they didn't and it just, you know, maybe once or twice it went up and that was it, then, you know, I'd still be sitting pretty on my, my sort of tracker rate, if you know what I mean.

• 12:28Martin Lewis?

  Absolutely. And yes, I think when you heard me talking about it was with Monty, Andrew Montlake, who's the mortgage broker that we had on the show to talk about this. Yeah. I mean, the logic there was very simple. You can afford one base rate rise and on current rates, you would still be cheaper than the cheapest two-year fix. Two base rate rises and you would be not that much more expensive than the very cheapest now, but likely by then, fixes would be a little bit more expensive. Even if you got to four, you wouldn't be doing that bad compared to most people. Even if your rate went from 4.5% to 5.5%, it wouldn't be that prohibitive. The question really is, is it worth me getting the insurance policy of locking in a fix now if I can get a cheap fix in case rates continue to rise and possibly, you know, in six months' time, I don't know, this isn't

• 13:13Martin Lewis?

  a prediction, it is just a scenario. In six months' time, rates have gone up three times and the mood music then is the Middle East conflict's still going on, things are getting even worse and it could go up another three or four base rate rises. That's where we are.

• 13:26Speaker 06

  That's exactly what my thoughts are. Yeah.

• 13:28Martin Lewis?

  I think the answer depends really on what rate you can get a fix at. The problem with Best Buy tables, and I've listed Best Buy tables, is they are a very, very blunt instrument. They are showing you the whole level of availability. I've just thought of an analogy. I'm not sure I should choose it. I'm going to do it anyway because it's coming to my head. It's a bit like when you were young and you went into a nightclub and you could look at all the different people in there that you fancied. That does not mean they are all available and it does not mean even the ones that are available, they want you as a customer. They want, they want, you know, it is actually, it's about what is available for you. I'm really probably not a good analogy, but we'll go with it anyway.

• 14:07Speaker 06

  I like it.

• 14:08Martin Lewis?

  Okay. Isabel's smiling that makes me feel slightly better there. So when you've got to do that, the two things that mortgage lenders judge on, which thankfully is very different, certainly in my old experiences when I used to be out and you were single, they judge on, maybe it isn't, they judge on affordability and how much you can afford to repay and to a lesser extent, but still important, your credit score. And so if yours are good, then hopefully you'll be getting near the top level. I would do this through a mortgage broker. It's a lot easier to do this through a mortgage broker.

• 14:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, of course. Yeah, no, that's fine. I've got a mortgage, well, an independent financial advisor that I use. But also my, just to throw it in there, my LTV is 63% as well. So.

• 14:47Martin Lewis?

  Well, if you could sneak, you might find as well, I don't know if you've got the ability to sneak that down to 60. That's one of those thresholds where you can get slightly, if you hit 60, that's like, once you're 60 and below, mortgages don't get any cheaper when you reduce your LTV. But there are some that are cheaper at 60 than are cheaper at 65. Again, one to go to with your mortgage broker. It would be worth asking, what is my rate now? And if I manage to find the extra 3%, what would my rate be? Just in case it is cheaper, it may be, it may not. Hello, this is Martin, interrupting Martin. I'm now at home listening to the podcast as I do on double speed and I heard the discussion about LTV with me and Simon and I thought, you naughty boy, Martin, slap my own wrist because I haven't explained what LTV stands

• 15:31Martin Lewis?

  for. So let me do it briefly now. LTV stands for loan to value. It is the proportion of your house's current value that you are borrowing. So the lower the LTV, the better, the less of the house's value that you're borrowing. Now, the easy way to think of it is when you first get a property, let's say you've got a 10% deposit, now your mortgage is 90%. Well, that means it's a 90% loan to value. But of course, as house prices change, it can change too. It's more difficult when you're remortgaging because what we're then talking about is how much equity do you have in the home? So if you've got a 63% LTV, it effectively means 37% of the home is yours, 63% is still a loan with the mortgage. Now, why does it get better? As I'm about to explain, the lower the LTV that you have,

• 16:15Martin Lewis?

  well, it's pretty simple really, if you think about it. It's all about risk to the mortgage lender. If you've got a 95% LTV, so most of what you've got is a loan, if you couldn't repay, they can take your house. But house prices could mean, you know, they've got a 95% loan and they could only recoup 90% of it if they could only sell it for 90% of the house's value. Once you're down at 60%, they are almost certain to get all of their money back. So the risk to them by giving you a loan is less and, you know, rate reward type thing, the lower risk means they can give you a cheaper mortgage. Anyway, that was just a quick LTV explainer. It's back to you now, Martin, but you won't know I'm handing back to you. So you'll probably rudely just carry on. But absolutely, it's worth looking at. Again, it depends on whether there's any

• 16:58Martin Lewis?

  cost if you then chose not to get the fixed mortgage. But if I go to your very raw question, is it worth you spending your time doing this to see if there is a fix that you could get as an insurance policy against rate rises that you would not have to stay in and would not cost you a lot if you didn't want to use it in the end? Straight yes. Straight yes. It's worth the time. It's not necessarily worth doing, but it's definitely worth the time to explore it.

• 17:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely. And then I can sort of see in five months' time, you know, old things aren't as bad as we thought they could have been or they're better than, you know, so yeah, it just gets me locked in at a good rate now.

• 17:36Martin Lewis?

  0.75% over tracker isn't bad. There are cheaper trackers available right now. But again, it just depends on what would be, what you can get in your circumstances. It sounds like a very sensible precaution to be looking at. And the six-month rule, it's funny, I put something out on the six-month rule and lots of people said, Milo, no, you're wrong. It's four months at this bank and four months. And the point was, you start six months ahead. The fact that some lenders don't let you do it doesn't mean you don't start the process of finding out what's going on. Six months from the date of your mortgage ending, or in your case, a slightly different scenario, that's the time you need to get into exploratory mode about what's going to be happening next in case there is a lender who would give you one earlier that is appropriate for you. And so the six-month rule really

• 18:19Martin Lewis?

  does fit for me. That's a really interesting question.

• 18:22Speaker 06

  You don't have to be, you don't have to be on a fix currently though, was I think my only sort of concern.

• 18:27Martin Lewis?

  No, I mean, it's literally, well, I'm presuming that your deal doesn't have any early redemption penalties.

• 18:33Speaker 06

  No, no, nothing like that. No.

• 18:34Martin Lewis?

  So then, as long as it's not, I wouldn't think it would in that scenario. But as long as it doesn't have early redemption penalties, then the concept is you are free to move mortgage. And if you want to go and go and see whether there's one available that you could lock in in six months' time, effectively as an insurance policy in case UK rate rises are even more than they're saying right now, then it seems a perfectly sensible move to me.

• 18:55Speaker 06

  Cool. Nice. Sounds good. Thank you very much.

• 18:57Speaker 05

  And to my knowledge, in terms of like your appeal in nightclubs, I think the key thing on that is if you, I think it's proven that if you have an ESQ badge, you shoot up, don't you?

• 19:08Martin Lewis?

  You do. You do. I mean, it is, it is actually, it is the hottest thing in town.

• 19:12Speaker 06

  Well, I'm banking on that.

• 19:13Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I don't know. It works with mortgage lenders, but seriously, I think if you were to go into some nightclub where you probably want to, you probably want to have like an ultraviolet torch that you can shine on it. So the whiteness of the rim of the badge just shines out. And I just think, I don't know what your preference of choices, I'm not going to ask you whether it's men or it's women, you know, whichever one it is, I think if they see that badge, they will flock. That's all they could do.

• 19:38Speaker 05

  Pretty universal, isn't it?

• 19:39Speaker 06

  I'm at that age where you can't be too fussy, so.

• 19:44Martin Lewis?

  Cheers, Simon. We really appreciate your calling. Thank you so much, mate.

• 19:48Speaker 06

  Thanks ever so much.

• 19:48Martin Lewis?

  Cheers.

• 19:49Speaker 06

  Cheers. Bye.

• 19:50Martin Lewis?

  Bye.

• 19:53Martin 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.

• 20:07Speaker 05

  No, Dear Matt.

• 20:09Martin Lewis?

  Dear Martin.

• 20:09Speaker 05

  Dear Matt.

• 20:10Martin Lewis?

  Or Simon, maybe Simon.

• 20:15Martin Lewis?

  Okay, Simon, it's time for a read. What have you got for me?

• 20:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, we've got a really good question actually about auto-renewing subscriptions.

• 20:22Martin Lewis?

  Yes.

• 20:23Speaker 05

  Hi, Martin and Matt. Around a year ago, my wife took out a subscription to a DNA family tracing website. She took it at an introductory sale offer price of around £80. Last week, the company took another annual payment of the much higher price of £229.

• 20:42Martin Lewis?

  I see where this is going. This is why I always tell people on subscriptions, you need to diarise a strong date, you know, three or four weeks before your subscription is due to renew, so you can make an active decision yourself as to whether it should renew or not.

• 20:54Speaker 05

  This is exactly the sort of thing I fall for all the time.

• 20:56Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, many people do. That's why subscription products are so popular. You know, here's a free crate of wine. People forget to cancel it, it costs them so much more in the long run. Those people who can ride the system out themselves, they benefit from it. Those who aren't so good with their personal admin, they suffer from it.

• 21:13Speaker 05

  So Jamie, who sent this in, says, "When we contacted them, they said we had not switched off the auto-renew option, and therefore the best they can do is offer a staff discount of £46, which they will refund to our bank. They said they had sent an email shortly after the initial transaction outlining the use of auto-renewal, and that this is why we're not entitled to a refund. My question is, should they not have sent us a reminder about the auto-renewal? And do we have a cooling-off period after having taken the money, in which we would be entitled to a refund? Many thanks in advance for any advice you can give on this matter. Kind regards, Jamie."

• 21:48Martin Lewis?

  So let's do it in two parts. Should they not have sent us a reminder about the auto-renewal? Morally, yes. Ethically, yes. Good practice, yes. Legally, no. That's my answer. And this is all changing. So currently, there is no legal requirement to send consumers a reminder before an auto-renewal or before a free trial converts into a paid subscription. It isn't there. From, I think it's January, it's coming in, yeah. January it's coming in. Isabel, check that for me, would you? Yeah, Isabel's just going to double check. I think it's January. I know it's definitely coming in. "Traders will be required..." I'm getting a nod from Isabel. "Traders will be required to send written reminder notices to consumers before the first payment after a free or discounted trial end, at least every six months during a subscription,

• 22:31Martin Lewis?

  and on two occasions before a renewal payment that is not due for 12 months or more." So if this was in a year's time, the answer would strongly be yes, they need to remind you. And this is why, right now, people still need to be very careful. As for the cooling-off period, this gets more complicated because it's a digital subscription, to be honest with you. I mean, there is generally a 14-day cooling-off period, but for digital contents, you can lose the right to cancel once supply has started, provided they told you that you would lose that right. And so effectively, the problem with digital content is, of course, if you've got digital content, you could go and set up a subscription, then take everything that you wanted and download it, or store the information, depending how it is, and then cancel

• 23:15Martin Lewis?

  when you were meant to sign up for a year. And that's why the rules currently say there isn't really a cooling-off period if they told you not. Now, obviously, I haven't seen your contract. I don't know whether they will have told you or not that, but I'm assuming that the way they sound like they're operating, they probably have done that. I'm not sure that that's going to change in January. So I think you will still need to be very careful about the way that it operates. Look, there aren't any cooling-off periods after auto-renewal. So the explanation I've just given on cooling-off periods was for people when they're signing up, but when you're on auto-renewal, there isn't a cooling-off period generally in the regulations currently. So you don't have a right. I would still go to Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline, just to check if there's anything they can ask you when you've got the contract in front of you that may be able to get you through this.

• 24:01Martin Lewis?

  But it is not looking very helpful, and it's not a good situation. So...

• 24:06Martin Lewis?

  Just mulling it, what I would do if I was in your situation. Very, very annoying. So that saying that you would just get £46 off £229. Look, I'd be going back, and it's important to know when you're going back, Jamie. It's important to know you're struggling to have legs to stand on. I mean, I certainly think it's the type of thing I'd speak to Citizens Advice Consumer Direct once you've got the details in front of you, and just talk to them about it. But I think you're struggling to have a leg to stand on, but I'd still push back harder and say, "Look, this is really unacceptable. I was never expecting to pay this much. You did not remind me. Just to give me £46 off £229 is not enough." And when you write that, my big suggestion would be, tell them what you want. What would be an acceptable amount?

• 24:48Martin Lewis?

  I mean, you could even go back and say, "I'm willing to pay the same price as I did last year. I don't want this subscription anymore. I'd happily cancel it, but I'm willing to give another year at £80." This is assuming Citizens Advice have told you you haven't got any rights after looking at the specific contract. "I'm happy to give you £80, but I'm not happy to give you anymore." I would push back because this is not a good way to do business.

• 25:12Martin Lewis?

  Okay, Simon, it's an even number. It's four. So do you have a caller with a question?

• 25:19Speaker 05

  We do. Well, we have a caller. Now, I like it when you... I know you like it when we get a success on.

• 25:23Martin Lewis?

  Always.

• 25:24Speaker 05

  So I thought, what would be good, if we've got someone with one success? But what's better than one success? Two successes. And what's better than two successes? Well, basically, Anne in Taunton is smashing things, and we have her on the phone.

• 25:35Martin Lewis?

  Hold on, Tom, before we get Anne on. So hold your fire, Anne, for a second. If it's four successes, obviously, we've got the new success sting. I presume you still only play that once.

• 25:45Speaker 05

  Well, I was going to come back to you on that. I mean, I don't know if there is a bigger success sting, or is repeated success things?

• 25:51Martin Lewis?

  Okay, play the normal success sting, but then can you add a bit of reverb or something on the end?

• 25:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course we can.

• 25:57Martin Lewis?

  Play the success.

• 26:07Martin Lewis?

  Hello, Anne.

• 26:08Speaker 04

  Hello, Martin.

• 26:10Martin Lewis?

  So do tell me what we have helped you do. I'm always intrigued to hear it.

• 26:15Speaker 04

  Well, the first thing was that my budget that I had for 30 days only lasted 21. So I thought I had to find something to earn some extra cash.

• 26:25Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  So having banked with the same bank for 34 years, and listened to how easy it seemed to change, I decided to change to Nationwide and use their service, and they paid me £174 after two weeks.

• 26:44Martin Lewis?

  Oh, well, that's very nice.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  That was great.

• 26:46Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, and is it easy? And how's the service been at Nationwide since you moved?

• 26:50Speaker 04

  Oh, it's been fantastic. I would say they're very efficient, and they listen to people.

• 26:58Martin Lewis?

  Well, I think it's interesting. I mean, lots of the banks that offer Switch's offers on their Switch's account, they tend to offer good service because they're really trying hard. You know, right now, you've got Nationwide, you've got First Direct, they're paying... Barclays is paying £300, HSBC is paying £220. There's a whole host of them offering. And people are scared. I mean, 34 times is a long time to be loyal. I'm glad you're not with me, Anne. I might have to smack your wrist for that one. It's a long time to be loyal, and actually, I think the assumption people have that it isn't going to be different. Often, when they're paying you, it's because they want your custom. And if they want your custom, then their whole systems are set up to retain you as a customer, which can mean that they're trying to treat you quite well. I'm delighted to hear that worked. Delighted. What's next?

• 27:41Speaker 04

  Thank you. Well, what's next was that you were talking about fixing the energy.

• 27:47Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 27:48Speaker 04

  And I fixed the energy, and I wanted to go to Octopus, because I had a carer who was with Octopus. So I asked her for her code.

• 27:59Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 27:59Speaker 04

  And as a result, we both got £50 off our bills. So that's a good win.

• 28:05Martin Lewis?

  Yes, it's the refer a friend trick. The Octopus, you get £50, she gets £50. Sounds very good. Sounds good for you both. That works very well. Yeah. And hopefully, I don't know which tariff you went to, I'm hoping you went to a good tariff that works well for you. You've got a decent fix, and it should work. Next one, what have we got?

• 28:23Speaker 04

  The next one was to do with inheritance tax.

• 28:26Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 28:27Speaker 04

  Listening to you, I wasn't actually aware that you could give out of income.

• 28:33Martin Lewis?

  Yes.

• 28:34Speaker 04

  And out of capital, that they were different. I thought you could only give out of capital. So I decided to be kind to my children, and put in a standing order and give them some money on a monthly basis, so they can enjoy it now. Because it's better to see it with a warm hand than with a cold one.

• 28:55Martin Lewis?

  Yeah. Oh, that's very nice. I like that phrase. Better to give with warm hands than cold hands. Well, absolutely. Look, the obvious and honest truth about inheritance tax is the two best ways not to pay it are either to spend it or to give it away. And you're giving it away, and when you give away out of income, it has to be obviously affordable out of sustained income, so they would check that. The fact that you're doing it regularly out of income is good evidential towards that, and that works well. There are other allowances on top too, but yes, I think people forget. So if you've got decent income, and you've got spare income each month, and you want to give that away, that's never inheritance tax, even if heaven forbid you were to go tomorrow. Yeah, there wouldn't be inheritance tax on it because it was a gift of income. So yeah, many, many people miss that.

• 29:37Martin Lewis?

  And if you're thinking and listening about inheritance tax and exactly how it works, in the previous podcast that we put out last week, I gave you a quick 101 guide at the start to all the different inheritance tax rules, and that's worth a listen to. Have we got more, or are we done?

• 29:51Speaker 04

  Well, no. I mean, not with you, but I did.

• 29:58Speaker 04

  I did do a survey and I got fifty quid for it, so that was another one.

• 30:03Martin Lewis?

  Okay, all of it's good, but you know what? The attitude of suddenly saying, I need to make this work for me. And you came about it because you were struggling on your budget. Did you know why, when you say you're twenty one day, it was meant to last thirty, it was only last twenty one? Was that because you didn't realise you were spending as much as you were, or just there wasn't enough money coming in?

• 30:26Speaker 04

  No, I was living exactly as I do normally. And food prices have gone up and everything's gone up. So, yeah, thirty percent.

• 30:37Martin Lewis?

  My only check is that the money you're giving your children is definitely affordable out of income, because they will check that.

• 30:42Speaker 04

  It is.

• 30:43Martin Lewis?

  Okay, ultimately, people hate rebudgeting. You've got your budget costs, but we live in an inflationary world and we certainly have over the last three years. So what you could afford to live off, the same way three years ago, you need more money to do it now. And so those budgets do have to go up, but the best way to fill it is by letting somebody else fill it, by giving you money for switching, or you paying them less on your energy bills. All of that type of stuff is exactly a lovely philosophy. Am I allowed to ask you, and if it's rude, tell me not, how old you are?

• 31:11Speaker 04

  Oh, I am sixty four, I'm gonna be sixty five this year.

• 31:16Martin Lewis?

  Okay, it was just the way you were talking about the inheritance tax planning. Okay, so you've got a good, long time to go, I hope. So these type of habits and things to come in and to be into play are absolutely well worth having for the next sixty, seventy years that you're going to be with us.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  But it's just kids are having it hard, that generation, and I just wanted to share.

• 31:36Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, and that's, you know, it is a good thing to do and giving it them now. The ultimate truth is as well, is even if we forget the income rule, as long as you live seven years after the gift and the gift doesn't have a reservation. And what I mean by a gift having a reservation is if you say, I'm giving you my house, but I'm gonna live in it and I have to be allowed to live in it, that's a reservation. But as long as you, anything you give them, as long as you live seven years is inheritance tax free anyway. And it's always better, the easiest way to avoid inheritance tax is to give it away a long time before you go. And I love your phrase, better to give with warm hands and with colds. Thank you very much.

• 32:11Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 32:12Martin Lewis?

  Thank you.

• 32:13Speaker 04

  Thank you, I'm going for net zero.

• 32:15Martin Lewis?

  Okay, well, you're gonna leave with net zero, sounds not a bad way to go.

• 32:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:19Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, perfect. Thank you so much for your call, it's really lovely to have you on board.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  Thank you, Martin.

• 32:25Martin Lewis?

  Cheers.

• 32:29Martin Lewis?

  Okay, Simon, so we're into number five now. This is normally the one where we do a funny or an askance or a slightly different question. Do you have a funny or an askance or a slightly different question for me?

• 32:40Speaker 05

  I've got one prepared and ready.

• 32:42Martin Lewis?

  Oof, okay.

• 32:43Speaker 05

  Hi, Martin and Matt Burnham Esquire.

• 32:46Martin Lewis?

  Nice, and I'm gonna add this in, and PPS.

• 32:50Speaker 05

  What would be your advice to university aged you? It is no secret I want.

• 32:54Martin Lewis?

  Get that haircut.

• 32:57Martin Lewis?

  I had, I had a bit of a, well, a Jufro is what they call it, if I'm honest. We'll have to check whether that's something you can say. I think it's fine, you know, as a, as a young Jewish guy with frizzy hair, I had really big hair at some points that just went, and my hair doesn't grow down, my hair grows out. I see the pictures now.

• 33:14Speaker 05

  I just had hair, which was a lovely time.

• 33:16Martin Lewis?

  Exactly.

• 33:17Speaker 05

  Person says, it is no secret, I want your job one day. Martin's not Matt's, though that would work too.

• 33:23Martin Lewis?

  Okay, or yours, Simon.

• 33:25Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, exactly, yeah, I mean, mine probably the most available, to be honest with you. They'll happily bump me off for, for someone good. So do you have any tips on how to get there? Like, how did you get your first break on TV and radio? How do you keep yourself up to date and on top of your game with the financial stats at all times to be so on point on air? Thanks for all you do and also giving me my passion for personal finance, so much so that at one meeting of our university committee I'm on, I got called Martin Lewis the whole way through. Thanks, Gabriella.

• 33:55Martin Lewis?

  I hope it was a compliment.

• 33:57Speaker 05

  Gabriella's what's P S, this is my third attempt at being an Esquire. If I don't make it this time, I'm giving up.

• 34:03Martin Lewis?

  Well, Gabriella Esquire, you've made it, well done. It's a very interesting question. And this isn't a flippant answer, but I think the answer is find your own path. The world is very different to when I started. TV was the dominant visual media then. And I went in, I took a postgraduate in broadcast journalism and that's how I went through. TV as an industry is dying, certainly linear terrestrial TV is. Ratings are going down ten percent year on a year, there are job losses. And so actually now, me at the age I went into television, now you would have to go into and see it as being into visual content creation. So whether that means television as we know it, or streaming television,

• 34:47Martin Lewis?

  or social media and YouTube, I think you have to look at that in the broader set of skills, rather than the more narrow world of television. If you're young and starting out, what the landscape will be in a decade's time, I mean, television as we know it now might be far, far smaller or even not exist in the way that we talk about it right now. I think that is a plausible reliability, so you have to do those broad steps. But when I say find your own path, when I set up MSC, and when I started being the money saving expert, which was at a small TV channel called Simply Money, where they offered me this one minute programme every three hours just as a filler and then it got bigger and bigger and bigger, and then I left and I set up the website myself. I've done that story before, I won't. I was the right person in the right place at the right time with the right amount of luck.

• 35:32Martin Lewis?

  And so I set up an, effectively, a subject based on how I operated and professionalised the way that I did things. Before I started, the discipline of money saving didn't exist. There was, obviously, there was budgeting, most personal finance was about restricted to protection products and investments, it was seen as a bit, oh, wow, he's talking about mortgages or gas and electricity, never mind when I'd write about how to buy a DVD player, and that was all about consumer finance. So what you have now is there are jobs in this sector that simply didn't exist when I started. You know, I have the wonderful Isabel sitting next to me who's fact checking me live,

• 36:15Martin Lewis?

  and she works on my website team with me, as do quite a lot of other people, because there is now, money saving is an industry and not just with us, on other sites too. And there are many, you know, I've got lots of people who used to work with me who now run some of the other big sites that are out there in that type of level, and they've, they've grown up and it's broadened and it's wonderful to see that we're pushing, we're getting the information across. So in one way, if you're interested in the money saving side of stuff, I actually think there are far more professions available than there were when I started, because basically I was starting it in the way that it exists now. But of course, that means there's a lot more competition and there's a lot more other people out there. I was definitely the best when I started it, because I was the only one that was doing it, which is a very big advantage and it would be much more difficult to be starting now to be the best.

• 36:59Martin Lewis?

  But if you've got it, have ambition. I will not be doing this in twenty years' time, I can tell you, maybe you will. And it would be wonderful, I'd love to see people out there continuing to spread the message and to go forward. I would also say, don't be afraid of professional skills. You may do that through education, as I did with a postgrad in broadcast journalism. You may do it through experience. Television and broadcasting, as Simon will know, it has a language, it has a lexicon, it has a way of speaking. You know, yeah, I'll do a two-way now, you're doing an illustrated two-way, yeah, that would be great. You know, is it an over the shoulder two-shot? I hate over the shoulder two-shots. Simon, you probably hate them as well. You, you know what they are, don't you?

• 37:36Speaker 05

  I do, yeah, yeah.

• 37:37Martin Lewis?

  Because you've done that. So an over the shoulder two-shot is sometimes when you're editing television, you need to do what's called a cutaway, that's a gap, so that in case you're editing the words, you need a picture you can use that sort of implies that you're still there, but can shorten the sentence. Now, you know, sometimes it can be dodgy when it's done wrong, but if you're doing it yourself and it's your own sentence, just a, and it's all done within context, it can be fine. And over the shoulder two-shot is where the cameraman stands behind the presenter, so you see the back of their head and you see the person that you're interviewing in front of you. And so, and, but you can't see either of their mouths, so you don't know what they're saying. I hate it because it really isn't good if you have a reduced hairline. So it's not a shot that I particularly like to happen. But learn the industry.

• 38:17Martin Lewis?

  And what I would say is, I look at my timetable, I left university having done a sabbatical at age twenty two. I worked in a different industry, I did a postgrad in broadcast journalism at twenty six, I was in financial PR. I then spent three or four years at the BBC as primarily a producer, doing something similar to what Simon does now, to an extent, on BBC business programmes. And then I got in a position where I could set up by myself and I did it by accident, because I lost my job and I had to set up. But actually, I spent my time learning the industry while being paid by other people. And it was only once I got to a level where I felt I understood it, I knew what was going on and I could see what was going on, that I went and did it by myself. To go and start without the experience by yourself would be really difficult.

• 39:00Martin Lewis?

  And also say, being on university committees is great. I was on at my university because I was the student union president or general secretary, if they called it, at L S E. Just that experience of a different professional environment when you're a student is really good for going forward. I presume you're on student committees and you might be on some with the university staff. It's all good, it's all good, but the answer, I don't know whether it's helpful or not, is find your own path. Find what you are good at, what your specialty is. And the truth is, if you're good at it and it's your specialty, then you will enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, you'll be able to work harder at it. And if you can work harder at it, you will work more at it. And the more you work hard at it, the more successful you will be. So there is a virtuous circle to be had there.

• 39:42Speaker 05

  Of what it's worth, I know Gabriella mentioned not wanting mine and Matt's job, but the two things I, I often say when I speak to students are, first of all, you're often younger than you think you are. And don't panic if it doesn't happen for you immediately once you've left university. You know, keep things going on in the back.

• 39:58Martin Lewis?

  Well, I always actually say, once you leave university, you are being reborn in a world of work. And when you're in your first couple of years, you are one or two. It is a whole new world that you have to get experience of. You know, I changed career at 26. I've been in a different career and I changed. And there's nothing wrong, if you don't know what you want to do, spend a couple of years doing something, acquire skills rather than acquiring jobs, transferable skills. And then, once you start to learn that world of work, then you can decide what you want to do. There's nothing wrong with changing path. Go on, Si, I'm interested. Go on.

• 40:27Speaker 05

  Well, and the other thing I always tell people is just do stuff. Like, you can edit sort of video and audio on your phone in a way that you need an entire studio to do 20 years ago.

• 40:38Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 40:38Speaker 05

  You know, there are opportunities for you to just do stuff and post it on various social media sites. And the more you do it, the better you get at it, the more confident you are in front of a camera or broadcasting. And then, when you get an opportunity at some point, if you keep banging down various doors, then you are actually in a position to be quite good and hit the ground running, in a way that you probably couldn't when you were starting out, Martin.

• 40:59Martin Lewis?

  No, well, when I was starting out, when we did my postgrad in broadcast journalism, we had to learn how to use a camera. And a camera then was a, you know, a big piece of kit on your shoulder. You know, it was nothing like something on your phone. And we had to go into edit suites. And there were private individuals didn't have access to edit suites. This is something, you know, when we were doing on tech that would seem very slow and old now, to try and edit, it was, you know, I actually have a cut on my finger, Simon. This is how old I am. Because we were learning radio and television at the time. I don't know if Isabel can see it. I'm not sure I can show it. It's just by, it's just by the now. I don't think you can see it there.

• 41:31Speaker 05

  I was like working with Bear Grylls somewhere.

• 41:32Martin Lewis?

  Yeah. So, but this is what the cut on my finger is from, just to show you. We were just at the cusp of digital editing, both radio and television, but they wanted us to learn old school, at least on radio. Now, the way it worked then is radio was recorded on a tape, like a magnetic strip tape. Isabel's just gone, oh my, I'm that old. Yes, I am. And I did this when I, my course when I was 25, 26. And you had a block, you had a thick metal block, which has a line through it that you'd put the tape on. And it had three different lines. It had a straight line, a vertical line, a line at about 20 degrees, and a line at about 45 degrees. And they were your cuts. So if you cut the tape straight, and then had to stick another piece of tape on, and there was special

• 42:16Martin Lewis?

  sellotape for doing it, and you put them together, that would give you a hard cut. So it'd move from one thing to another. If you did it at the first angle, it'd give you a quick fade. And if you did it at the second angle, it would slowly fade and merge the two different sounds that were going on at the time. And the cut on my finger is because you'd use a really sharp scalpel on the block to cut the tape. And I once missed, and I got my finger, and it has a little cut on it. But that's when I started, which is why actually, I think, for Gabriella's question, in a way, you're far closer to what you would do now than I did back then. But in terms of the general advice, be ambitious, work hard, grasp every opportunity, ask questions when you're on work experience, don't be shy,

• 42:58Martin Lewis?

  engage, and be enthusiastic. People, when they're working in an environment, especially in the creative industry, they want to see people who love it. I want to see that you love it. And then I want to help you, and I want to encourage you. Sit there in the back of the office, just do what you're told, never volunteer or anything. You'll be forgotten within the minute that you leave, after your work experience or anything like that. And after your work as well. The same goes in work. So put yourself out there. I wish you the best. Just an addendum to that, I thought we'd finished, but I remembered she said, how do you keep yourself up to date and on top of your game with the financial steps all the time to be so on point on air? Okay. This is probably my biggest advantage over anybody else out there in the industry. I have an editorial team of 60 people on the

• 43:38Martin Lewis?

  website. And on the website, you know, while I do write quite a lot myself, and I'm engaged in myself, the team know that there are effectively two things they need to feed. They need to feed the content on the website, and they need to feed me. And it's one of the things that Isabel does in her work. Anytime something changes or moves, the team need to make sure I'm notified, and it goes into my mental arsenal. So I know what's going on. Now, the way I do it in the first place, is I always tend to do, when there's a new subject or something new, I do the first analysis, the research, the logic behind it. So that that's all in my head. And then, when the products are changing, that's just a sort of, you know, changing the spreadsheet, the mental spreadsheet, if you like. But the logic is all fitted in. Because my way of keeping on top of everything is, I always

• 44:23Martin Lewis?

  think, I try and build a model of how something works in my head, whatever the subject, whether it's student finance, or lending to family and friends. How does the model work? And once I've got the model, I can almost see, if you pull it that way, then this would happen. And if you pull it that way, that would happen. So that when I get the information of this has changed, those models and those firm foundations are there, that I can then easily adjust what would happen quite quickly by just feeding the new information in. And that's what's taken the, well, now I've been doing this 26, 27 years. I mean, that's the really hardcore stuff, to do it on a huge breadth of stuff. Most of the team, they work on specialist stuff, but I have to be across everything. And that, so you do that, and you have wonderful support like Isabel and my team. And then I'm afraid I work a lot of hours, is the other answer, just to do it.

• 45:11Martin Lewis?

  So that, I thought that was really interesting. Quite a long last question there, but hopefully listeners will find it interesting. But now, I mean, surely the highlight, everybody is waiting for-

• 45:19Speaker 05

  Gosh, the show's been building to this, hasn't it?

• 45:21Martin Lewis?

  It has. This is what, maybe when you get in the edit, you just reverse it and do this first. But then, we wouldn't have, we won't have the longevity of listenerships that puts you up the charts. So, so what is PPS's PPS?

• 45:32Speaker 05

  Yes. So there was a couple of lads who walked past me in the office the other day. I've always thought it's a good podcast, this. There aren't enough former javelin world record holders, or Olympic long jump champions on.

• 45:43Martin Lewis?

  Hold on, Steve Backley-

• 45:45Speaker 05

  Great first guess.

• 45:47Martin Lewis?

  And Greg Rutherford.

• 45:49Speaker 05

  Played a tape.

• 45:50Speaker 00

  Hi, I'm Steve Backley. And I'm Greg Rutherford. Martin, we'd love to ask you, which event of the athletics events do you think you would be best at?

• 45:59Martin Lewis?

  And possibly more importantly, considering we are both sitting here, who is your favourite athlete of all time?

• 46:04Speaker 00

  Mo is a javelin thrower.

• 46:06Martin Lewis?

  Surely it's a jumper. Surely. Well, Steve, still British record holder at the javelin, I believe. And Greg, still British record holder at the long jump. 2012 was amazing. Steve, I remember, and both brilliant commentators. Simon, nice call. You know I love my athletics.

• 46:21Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 46:21Martin Lewis?

  I was really excited about that. And just to tell everyone, he hadn't told me I did know who they were, even before he told me that, because I'm a big athletics nut. So, I mean, I was awful at everything. And my, my target is always to be half the world record. If I can do these things at half the world record, I think I've done right. Now, because I run long distance, I'd probably go for a 10K. But I mean, I'd still, even my best ever 10K is about 47 minutes, whereas the world record is, you know, is in the 20 minutes. So I'm nowhere near close to it. But I will say that 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

• 47:05Martin Lewis?

  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. As for my favourite athlete of all time, well, those two chaps were very good. Seb Coe used to float around the track in an incredible way. And it was the Coenovat era that got me into athletics. But, you know, Greg is a jumper, and therefore, and I do like watching the jumps and the throws. So what I'm actually going to go for, is a jumper, but not Greg.

• 47:49Martin Lewis?

  When you watch back, Jonathan Edwards, was it 1826 triple jump, still untouched as a British athlete. So, I mean, it was in the 1990s, I believe. Isabel, check. Just a formal correction. I would like to say that the great Jonathan Edwards did not jump 1826. He jumped 18 metres and 29 centimetres.

• 48:16Martin Lewis?

  It was in the 1990s. It was just absolute poetry in motion. Every step of his hop, his skip, and his jump were absolute perfection. And no one has got close to him since. And he did some wind assisted jumps that were better. And he did other jumps, I believe, in the same session where he broke the world record, that are still better than anybody else has jumped today. So I'm going to say, the greatest performance by a British athlete that came straight into my head when I talked about that, is still the untouchable Jonathan Edwards.

• 48:47Speaker 05

  Because I thought, I was certain you were going to say sort of Coe-Ovek, because these sort of questions normally are kind of an indication of kind of when people first got into a sport. Some sort of 15 years in, then caught your imagination.

• 48:58Martin Lewis?

  I love great racers. And I love great races. And they're very exciting to watch. But there is something about the permanency of a world record. Because a world record means even the incredible Mo Farah, our most medaled athlete, certainly at a senior stage anyway, in terms of, you know, Olympic and world championship gold, never broke a world record. So there is something about that permanency. And I think that Edwards both did it in competition. But to have a world record, God, that Isabel's just put in front of me, was 1995, that's lasted 31 years, a world record, and is untouched. I mean, that is awe inspiring. So I'm going to put him, I mean, Roger Bannister as well broke the four minute mile. But I'm going to go with Jonathan Edwards, just especially

• 49:41Martin Lewis?

  because I suspect he works with Steve and Greg, so that might really annoy them.

• 49:48Martin Lewis?

  Thank you so much for listening. If you've got a question you want to ask me, on anything and everything, usually mostly money topics, but as you see, we do a couple on the end. It's [email protected].

• 50:01Martin 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 put out a new Question Time episode each Monday, alongside the Big Topic podcast with Adrian on Thursdays. Aren't you lucky? Two doses of money saving tips and tricks a week. Make sure you send in your questions. Just email [email protected]. And do not forget, if you come on the show, we'll send you an exclusive Money Can't Buy Martin Lewis Podcast Question Time ESQ badge. Woo. Give me a woo, Simon. Woo.

• 50:52Speaker 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.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  Sometimes we all need an extra helping hand, especially with a tricky business problem you've been putting off. Claude is an AI for just that. It's the collaborator that understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. And Claude isn't just for quick questions. Hand it a whole task, like turning a folder or scattered notes into a report, and it does the work, and hands back something finished that you can open and edit. Claude can now draft a doc or deck right in front of you. And Claude Design now lives right inside Claude. Describe the website or prototype your picturing, attach your design system, and it comes back in your own design language, ready to edit right on the canvas. It works with your files and the tools you already use, like Gmail

• 52:10Speaker 02

  and Slack. And whether you're debugging code at midnight, building a financial model, or strategising 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.

• 52:37Speaker 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.

• 52:47Martin Lewis?

  And an attack on Russian data centres started a rumour that all the evil disinformation bots had been deleted from the internet. But the truth might actually be a lot scarier.

• 52:59Speaker 07

  For our take, join me, Jess Maddox.

• 53:01Martin Lewis?

  And me, Thomas Germain, for The Interface.

• 53:03Speaker 07

  Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.