Pod Insights The Martin Lewis Podcast Question Time: Is paying via PayPal a bigger risk? How to do a budget? Has the government ever told Martin to stay schtum? About this episode In our Question Time podcast, Martin takes your questions on anything and everything, including: how to compare electric vehicle tariffs, why bank accounts lie, how an 18-year-old builds credit, and is your will invalid after you get married?
If you’ve got a question for Martin on absolutely anything and everything, you can ask him in his Question Time podcast! Email your question to [email protected] mailto:[email protected] .
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:05 Speaker 01 It often starts with a question. What were lines doing in York in the third century? Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? Then we search for answers.
0:16 Speaker 02 It's one of the first times really that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers. If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.
0:24 Speaker 01 As I was doing the research for the programme, my jaw just dropped further and further down. In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Watch the discussions unfold and explore over a thousand conversations in our archive. I'm Nisha Glennie and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world. In Our Time. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:54 Speaker 01 Coffee? Love a cup of tea.
0:56 Speaker 03 I'll have tea too.
0:57 Speaker 01 Tea for me, please.
1:02 Martin Lewis? Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is the Question Time podcast, in which I answer your questions about absolutely anything and everything, within reason. This week, you asked me, what's the best way to budget? And I warn you that your bank account is a little liar. Is paying on a credit card via PayPal a bigger risk? How do I compare electric vehicle energy tariffs? How does an 18-year-old build their credit score? Are wills invalid after marriage? And you asked me, has the government ever told you, i.e. me, Martin, you need to stay quiet? Play the theme tune.
2:01 Martin Lewis? Okay, it's time to start our Question Time podcast. And here with me is the curator of the questions himself, podcast producer Matt.
2:11 Speaker 05 Hello.
2:12 Martin Lewis? That was it. I gave you a big bill, didn't you? You just do, hello.
2:14 Speaker 05 Hello.
2:14 Martin Lewis? All right, we'll do some questions then.
2:15 Speaker 05 I know. Well, I was gonna talk about, I don't know if you really care, but I was cutting up a cabbage yesterday and I've got purple nails because the red cabbage dyed my nails.
2:26 Martin Lewis? I don't care. What's your question?
2:27 Speaker 05 Uh, Mandy, we'll start with Mandy. She's emailed a question in to [email protected] . She has started it with, hi Martin.
2:36 Martin Lewis? Good.
2:37 Speaker 05 Unfortunately.
2:37 Martin Lewis? Not hi Matt, good.
2:39 Speaker 05 Fab news, you're having a podcast. I have a suggestion for you. Budgeting, I think it would be good to go way back to basics on how a budget looks over time, to show small steps that make a big impact. I think this would be a great idea going into the new year, for students leaving home, but also people who find themselves in a tough financial situation, e.g. a divorce. My ex-husband controlled the finances and when I found myself leaving a 30-year marriage, managing my meagre finances was a real wake-up call. It was challenging and I think it's easy to think people know what they're doing when they don't.
3:12 Martin Lewis? Great question, Mandy. Thank you very much for that. Matt, remind me to do students at the end because it's slightly different for students.
3:18 Speaker 05 Okay.
3:18 Martin Lewis? So, I'm gonna talk, the things that people get wrong in budgeting, because people know what a budget is. First steps people get wrong when making a budget is they look at a month. We don't do our spending by the month. Sometimes we do it by a week, sometimes we do it by the year, sometimes we do it over multiple years. I'll give you an example. If you go on a summer holiday and you're looking at a snapshot of your spending in October, well, the cost of the summer holiday wasn't included, but it needs to be paid for. The same about Christmas spending and many other things. So what you need to be doing when you're a budget, doing a budget, is looking at a two or three months' worth of statements on your credit cards to see what you spend, and your bank account to see what you spend, but also thinking through what are those other substantial transactions?
4:01 Martin Lewis? The next thing is don't have a category like motoring, here's what I spend on motoring. Instead, you want to look at what is the cost of MOTs? Do I have to replace tyres? How much is my petrol? How much is my car insurance? How much is my breakdown cover? The more you granulise it and itemise it, the better your budget will be, and that stops you forgetting specific things.
4:25 Martin Lewis? Now, once you've added up your expenditure, you need to contrast that to your income. Now, for most people, your income is what you're paid from work, but you may have other income too. And this becomes very simple. It becomes the Mr. Macorber principle for those familiar with Dickens. If you are currently spending more than you earn, then you need to first do what I would call a money makeover. So that is, you need to look at every single thing that you spend money on and say, can I get the same and pay less? That's my stocking trade, of course, you know, cutting the cost of your mobile, your broadband, getting cheaper train fares. Is your mortgage rate too high? Is your interest rate too high on your credit cards? All of those things. That's the first thing you do. Step two, redo your budget. Once you've got those new prices in.
5:10 Martin Lewis? If at that point, you're still overspending, then you need to cut back. And you're going to have to start having a lifestyle change. So you're going to have to start impacting what happens to you. And now, one of the ways I would do that, it's often very difficult to do. I would take up all the discretionary spends that you've found, all the things that aren't necessary. I put them on, say, Post-it notes. I mean, you can do this on a computer too, but I'm trying to give you a visceral idea of how it works. So write them all on Post-it notes in the amount of money that you spend on them. And then order those Post-it notes in order of what's most important for you to keep and what's least important for you to keep. And then, if the stuff at the bottom that's least important for you to keep, that's the stuff that you try and get rid of.
5:55 Martin Lewis? Because actually, what you then know is that for you, the most important thing in your world, because it's part of your self-esteem is, you know, I get my hair done each month by somebody lights it and that makes me feel good and I couldn't go out the house. And it would really give me anxiety if I went out the house and I didn't look that way. So, I mean, I'm deliberately chosen haircuts that some people would think are frivolous, but for others are absolutely an integral part of who they are. But because of that, I'm going to have to get rid of my subscription to Netflix. And therefore, I know that getting rid of my Netflix subscription is to enable me to have my haircuts, which is why I would do it in that order. So that's how you do the budget in the first place. Once you've done that budget, then you have the really big problem, which is sticking to it. Because now it's all on paper, how much you can spend on different things. How do you stick to it?
6:38 Martin Lewis? Well, the next important thing that I need to say to you is, Your bank account lies. Your bank account is a liar. When you look in your bank account, it does not tell you how much money you've got to spend. It is a snapshot of what you have on that day. It doesn't tell you what you've already spent compared to what you're going to need to spend in the future. So we need to find a way in that we can organise and structure the way we spend our money. So that we have some form of control. Now, I have a system, I've long called it piggy banking. Other people call similar system jam jarring, I don't care what you call it. Many people swear by it, quite a lot of people swear at it, but it does work. And this is about segmenting off different areas of your spending.
7:21 Martin Lewis? So let's say you'll have a pot for your bills. You'll have a pot that is for Christmas, a pot for summer holidays. And a pot for the kids new clothes because they grow a lot and they're going to run out of clothes and they're going to need new things. They don't necessarily have to be new, they could be used, but you're going to have to spend on them. So we'll just take those as four pots. So what you do, or you could have a pot for your car as well, we talked motoring earlier. What you do is each month, when you earn, you work out how much over the year, you work out over the year, how much each of those categories need. You divide it by 12 and each month, once your income comes in, you put that right amount in each of these separate piggy banks or jam jars. And there are lots of banking apps now that allow you to have these separate accounts so they can do it for you.
8:04 Martin Lewis? Or you could do it on a spreadsheet, or you could do it manually, it doesn't matter. This is a conceptual point. And then, because bills have been taken out. You know, and you've got enough to pay your bills and you've got the money going aside into each of those different pots. When you look in your bank account, that is actually what you can afford to spend. Now, what you have to remember here is you may have started this three months ago and decided you want a holiday. And you've got 150 quid saved in your holiday account and the holiday account you want is 600 pounds. You cannot afford to go on holiday. That is how budgeting works. It is a form of self-imposed financial discipline. It's tough, especially at the start for the things you're savings for.
8:47 Martin Lewis? But after a while, you'll get to the point where you want to pay £600 on a holiday. You look in your holiday account, it's got £600. You can do it guilt free. And that is what good budgeting is all about. Hopefully, I mean, it's quite a long answer. It's a sort of a philosophical question. I haven't gone into dotting all the practical I's and T's. But it's about understanding how you stick to a budget. Mandy, I hope that's what you wanted and well done for managing through your financial quandaries.
9:12 Speaker 05 Excellent. Just just picking up Martin on one thing that you said. Haircuts, you said some people really care, some people don't. Are you the type of person that takes pride in their haircuts? And and that's a real thing that you need in your budget?
9:23 Martin Lewis? Well, listen, when you're when you're old, old and thinning like I am, then you have to go and have a haircut. I'm also on telly, it's part of my job. So I have a haircut every two weeks, but I don't, I just go for someone cost me about 15 quid each time, which is not bad in London. And I just have, you know, trim it down the size, take a little bit of top and get out of there. But yeah, I think it is important because for me it's part of my work. So I do think it's important, yeah.
9:44 Speaker 05 Martin, you also said it's different with students.
9:47 Martin Lewis? Yeah, the the difficulty with students, and Mandy did mention students when they leave home, is the definition of income. Because of course they're not working for most people, you know, don't spend more than you earn. But for a student, what don't you spend more than? So the definition of income I would have for a student is you add up any money that you get to live off from your loan or any grants that you get, money given to you by parents and any money from working. That is your income. It isn't the amount of money sitting in your 0% overdraft. It isn't any other formal sources of debts. So when we have students who go off to university, parents will often say, "Oh, Johnny, oh Johnny, do a budget, Johnny.
10:30 Martin Lewis? It's very important to do a budget, Johnny, or it could all go wrong." But what they don't do is say, "What is your income? What is your expenditure?" So we have to give students a little bit more guidance as what counts as income when they're doing their budget. "All right, Johnny, is that better? You just be safe, okay?"
10:51 Martin Lewis? Poor Johnny.
10:55 Martin Lewis? Oh God, all right, let's go straight from that weird little interlude into a caller. Into a caller. We've got Rob in Morton in Marsh on the line. Hi, Rob.
11:06 Speaker 06 Hi, Matt. Hi, Martin. Good to speak. Hi. So, regular listeners to the pod, so thank you very much for that. My question is about the use of payment intermediaries. So I always use my credit card for daily spending.
11:21 Martin Lewis? Paid off in full.
11:23 Speaker 06 Paid off in full, each one, without a shadow of a doubt. And the question I have is, when you're using a payment intermediary, such as Apple Pay or PayPal or some other sort of payment intermediary, how does that affect my Section 75 benefits, which I have actually had to take advantage of once and it worked? But does having that payment intermediary in the way affect your Section 75 rights?
11:53 Martin Lewis? Short answer, it can. So just to, you can help me explain Section 75 here. Section 75 rules means if you spend something on a credit card and it costs over £100 and less than £30,000, the credit card company is jointly liable with the retailer. So if something goes wrong, you can choose to claim off the credit card company rather than the retailer, especially helpful if the retailer went bust. When did you use it and how did it work?
12:15 Speaker 06 I used it back during Covid when I had some flights booked with an airline and the flights were cancelled and I was being offered a voucher and I wanted my money back. So the airline didn't give me my money back. I went back to Amex and I got a full refund.
12:30 Martin Lewis? Perfect. And that's one of the strengths. It's also worth noting, one of the advantages of Section 75 is if you're going to take a retailer and you want to take, you know, take action against a retailer, you have to go to court. I mean, you would go through Money Claim Online, which is sort of what's traditionally known as a small claim service. Whereas if you want to take action against a credit card company for rejecting you on Section 75, then you can go to the Financial Ombudsman, which is free. And also currently, although they're looking to change it, looks at fairness rules as well. Worth remembering too, not for you, I know you know all this, I promise I'll answer your question in a moment. Section 75 works if you spend on a card. You don't have to put it all on a card. So if the item costs over a hundred pounds, even if you only put a penny on the credit card,
13:15 Martin Lewis? the credit card company is liable for the entire amount. So if you're buying a kitchen, for example, put your deposit on the credit card for a couple of hundred quid. Even if you don't want to put the rest on the credit card, you want to put the rest on, you know, a bank payment, whatever it else it is, then you're covered by section 75. But you are quite right to ask about the payment processor issue. So let's do this in two. You said Apple Pay, you're fine. Apple Pay is a payment processor. It's as simple as that. PayPal is where the complexity is. So now the first thing to say, where this gets really difficult is you don't actually have a way of knowing whether you're covered on PayPal. I, you know, I would not know whether I were covered by PayPal under the most circumstances that I'm going to come into.
14:00 Martin Lewis? And this is one of the things that I've written to the regulator about saying, if we're going to have this vagary of whether you get section 75 or not, it should be transparent. It isn't transparent. I'm going to try and give you generalized guidance of when it works and when it doesn't work. But you hear my caveat first. Yep. You are usually covered by section 75 if you use PayPal credit to buy something. You are usually covered by section 75 if PayPal is used as a payment processor by an online store and you're not logged into your PayPal account. That's because it is simply acting like as a payment processor. The reason that PayPal sometimes stops section 75 is
14:44 Martin Lewis? section 75 only works if there is a direct causal link between the credit that you got and the purchase that you made. Therefore, any intermediary breaks that, which is why if you bought a flight via a travel agent, that breaks the link because it's an intermediary. Now, in some cases, using PayPal, PayPal is an intermediary. The first one that is far less clear cut is if PayPal is used as a payment processor for your credit card, but you were logged into your account. That's because it can make it be harder for card providers to tell whether PayPal acted as a middleman or simply a payment processor. So there is a risk if you're logged in bizarrely and paying by PayPal on a separate account.
15:29 Martin Lewis? You are definitely not covered by Section 75 if you buy something online using your PayPal balance. Then you are not covered at all by Section 75. So that's about as much as I can do. Does it make sense? Did you get me?
15:45 Speaker 06 Yeah, sort of makes sense. And I think the simple answer is if there's any doubt, don't bother using PayPal, just use your credit card straight with the retailer.
15:53 Martin Lewis? Exactly. And if you're using your credit card straight with the retailer and you're not logged into your PayPal account, then PayPal is just acting as a payment processor like Apple Pay would, or like a credit card, you know, a world Pay would, so you're fine.
16:04 Speaker 06 Great, thank you very much.
16:06 Martin Lewis? Cheers. Lovely to talk to you. Keep listening to the pod. Thanks so much for calling.
16:11 Speaker 06 Thank you very much, Martin. Cheers now.
16:13 Martin Lewis? Now, I should be really clear here. We're talking about Section 75 protection with PayPal. Of course PayPal has its own internal payment protection measures. Those are contractual though, not statutory, not absolutely locked into the law in the way that Section 75 is. And I would always prefer to have statutory protection. But that doesn't mean if something were to go wrong with payments on PayPal, you don't have any protection at all.
16:40 Speaker 05 Thanks, Rob. I also want to say Rob's email started with "Hi, Martin and Matt." So thanks very much, Rob.
16:47 Speaker 06 Matt, take care.
16:52 Martin Lewis? So, Matt, what do you have next for me?
16:54 Speaker 05 So we're just on a caller. Shall we do a question?
16:56 Martin Lewis? Yeah.
16:57 Speaker 05 Question from Carl. "Hi, Martin," in brackets, Matt, thank you very much, Carl.
17:00 Martin Lewis? Carry on.
17:02 Speaker 05 "My son has just turned 18 and we've been talking all things money. One question he asked, which I wasn't sure about, is how someone goes about starting to build their credit profile. Is just having a bank account enough? He says he wants to get a mobile phone contract at some point."
17:19 Martin Lewis? Well, absolutely having a bank account will help as long as it's the bank account that has an overdraft, which sounds perverse, me saying you should have a bank account with an overdraft because he's a young person. But the point is, credit scoring, when a lender scores you to decide whether it will give you a product, is based on behavioural prediction. They are trying to work out how you'll behave in future based on how you've behaved in the past. If you have no history, then you will not get credit products. It's a catch-22 because ultimately, they're going to say, "We don't know how you're going to behave, so we can't score you." Not that you're bad, just we don't know you. Now, often, because there are specific young people in students' bank accounts, they're easier to get for someone who has no credit history, and once you've got one, you've got an overdraft, you're starting to build a credit history.
18:00 Martin Lewis? The textbook way to do this, if we ignore everything else, and I will come back to what I'm ignoring, is to also get a credit card. And what you'll do is you'll go and get what's called a credit builder or rebuild card, and you'd go into an eligibility calculator and you'd apply for one of those. These are specific credit cards designed to build your credit score. They have hideous rates of interest, really high rates of interest, 30%, 40% interest. So you must make sure that you have a direct debit set up to pay the card off in full every month, and never take cash out on a credit card because that can hurt your credit card too. But then, if you were to do normal spending, 50, 100 quid a month on the credit card
18:41 Martin Lewis? and pay it off in full each month, I mean, in fact, arguably, you'd be better improving your credit score if you didn't pay it off in full because they like to see that you've got debts that you're paying off and you're paying interest, but you don't want that because that's costly, which is why I say do it in full, then that would be the textbook way to do it. What is the issue with that? Simple. I am nervous about suggesting that an 18-year-old should have a credit card. So it's good that it is the parent, you, Carl, who is asking me the question. And I'm being, and listen, I'm a 53-year-old man, I think of it from the parent's point of view, not from the young person's point of view. I'm not apologising for that, and it's the dad asking me anyway. If your son is financially savvy, trustworthy, doesn't spend on impulse, is going to understand
19:24 Martin Lewis? that the fact he's got a credit card doesn't mean it's money, it has to be repaid. And he is only doing this to follow a recipe to build him a credit score so he can get a contract mobile phone and start to move towards, you know, getting a credit scored for a mortgage later. It's absolutely fine. If he may get himself into actual debt, not paying it off in full, busting his credit limit, seeing it as just free money that he could get, and he isn't yet mature enough to be trustworthy with that credit card, don't touch it with a barge pole. Building your credit profile isn't important enough. So that would be my rough answer on that. I hope that's helpful.
19:57 Martin Lewis? Okay, Matt, knowing the way that you work, we've gone question, caller, question. So is it a caller?
20:04 Speaker 05 No, it's not. I'm only joking. We've got Ed on the line. He is from Devon. Hi, Ed.
20:08 Speaker 00 Hello.
20:10 Martin Lewis? Hello, Ed. Welcome on board. What can I do for you?
20:12 Speaker 00 Hi, Martin. Well, I'm a big fan of the show, big fan of the podcast, and you inspired me to fix my energy bill a couple of weeks ago. But I kind of looked into it. So I'm on Octopus Energy, specifically on their Go tariff.
20:28 Martin Lewis? So you've got an EV, yeah.
20:30 Speaker 00 I've got an EV, that's right, yeah.
20:32 Martin Lewis? Electric vehicle.
20:32 Speaker 00 So exactly. So it's it's kind of quite expensive during the day and then quite cheap at night. And I went on one of those comparison sites, I think I went on U switch, and it kind of wouldn't let me compare. Do you know what I mean? Because everybody else is all just sort of like a flat rate. And it's quite, you know, it's quite hard to get your head around.
20:52 Martin Lewis? Okay. Everything you've said is absolutely right. The comparison models are not yet up to time of use tariffs. And to be fair, Octopus Energy Go is one of the more simpler time of use tarage. So there are two types of electric vehicle charging tariffs. One is like Octopus Go, where effectively you get two rates for electricity usage. You get a normal rate, and then you get an overnight, super cheap rate for any electricity use overnight, which of course you should be charging your electric vehicle overnight when it's super cheap, and any other electricity use. You have another provider, Scottish Power. It has a slightly different system and you need the right equipment whereby when it's electric vehicle tariff, you get a cheap rate for charging your electric vehicle whenever
21:36 Martin Lewis? you're charging it, but it only applies to your electric vehicle charging and you can have that as an add-on to any of its normal tariffs. So with Scottish Power, you could go and get a fix and then get the EV add-on because it's only for electric vehicle, but you've got a dual tariff if you like. You've got a daytime rate and a nighttime rate, we'll call it for simple language. You with me so far?
21:56 Speaker 00 Yeah, that's, that's right. Yeah, exactly.
21:58 Martin Lewis? So the problem is, how do you compare? No comparison site is yet up to this. I may be working on building one, but we're not there yet. So what you need to do, the first thing is, I mean, you're obviously on a smart meter if you've got Optimus Go or you couldn't have it. So if you have access to your data, what you will need to do, there's work involved in this, but Ed, it sounds like you're someone capable of it, so I'm going to go for it, right? You're going to go, I would go over a typical month and work out what proportion of your energy you are using at the nighttime time and what proportion of your energy you are using at the daytime time. Does that make sense?
22:38 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think I know the answer.
22:40 Martin Lewis? Oh, do you know the answer? Tell me the answer.
22:41 Speaker 00 Well, I think it's, you know, I think it's about 50/50 to be honest with you.
22:46 Martin Lewis? Oh, I mean, if it's 50/50, I can tell you right now you're best on the EV tariff. Right. So let's just think about, I don't know what your, I don't know what the GO tariff is off the top of my head, what your pence per kilowatt hour is. Do you know?
23:01 Speaker 00 So it's 29.5p for the, every day, you know, for the daytime, daytime rate, and then I think it's eight and a half, just for four hours at night.
23:10 Martin Lewis? So look, I mean, you might be getting down to, I haven't got the exact number, off the top of my head, on a cheap fix, you might be getting to 23, 24p per kilowatt hour. And of course, that's a daytime rate. So your discount on that is going to be, you're getting about 15% cheaper if, across the day, but you are currently getting, you know, a 70, 80% cheaper over the night. And if 50% of your energy usage is at night, there's no way the 15% cheaper overall rate is going to outpower the, the 70% cheaper nighttime rate if you're on a 50/50 split. If you're on a 20/80 split, it would probably be the maths the other way. If you see what I mean.
23:50 Speaker 00 Yeah, okay.
23:50 Martin Lewis? So, I mean, the key for you is you might want to look at other EV tariffs. There might be others that are cheaper out there. That does depend, although Octopus Go is pretty decent, to be honest with you. Almost certainly, you are best as you are. And of course, the more of your electricity usage you can shift to that night time period. I presume you've already done that. You've got stuff going on at night and I don't know if you've got storage heaters or anything like that that you deliberately set on timers to work at night. Are you doing that?
24:17 Speaker 00 A good idea.
24:18 Martin Lewis? Yeah, all of that. Shift, shift, shift your electricity usage to that night time rate. I mean, this is why some people get batteries. I mean, the Octopus Agile tariff, which is an even more complicated tariff, where the price of electricity changes every half hour. At some points, Octopus Agile goes negative, which means you're actually paid to use electricity. And so the people who have those get by batteries and put them on their wall. I mean, they then supercharge it up when they're being paid to charge it up and then discharge it during the day during the high rates. So you can get, if you know what you're doing, you can get pretty technical on this. But intuitively, of course, go and do the maths. But intuitively, if you're on 50 50, then your EV tariff is a winner. And the more you can shift to night time uses. The only warning I would give you, have your washing machine on at night,
25:02 Martin Lewis? but never have a tumble dryer on at night. Tumble dryers can catch on fire. You don't want that on when you're sleeping.
25:07 Speaker 00 Good point. All right, brilliant. Thank you so much. That's really helpful.
25:10 Martin Lewis? Lovely, mate. Thank you for calling. Appreciate it.
25:13 Speaker 00 Cheers.
25:13 Speaker 05 Cheers, Ed.
25:15 Martin 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.
25:29 Speaker 05 No, Dear Matt.
25:30 Martin Lewis? Dear Martin.
25:31 Speaker 05 Dear Matt.
25:34 Martin Lewis? Okay, Matt, where are we going now?
25:35 Speaker 05 So normally we do a fun one.
25:37 Martin Lewis? Okay.
25:37 Speaker 05 This isn't quite fun, but it's not a sort of help me with my finance kind of question. So this is from Stephen. He has asked, have the government told you to emphasise or keep quiet about certain topics or subjects? If so, what?
25:55 Martin Lewis? No, absolutely not, no way, never, they would get very short shrift and it would be a very good way of me going out there and talking about that subject. Now, that's the sort of blanket answer, let's go a little bit more nuanced into the way it operates. So one subject I am talking about more because of the government is investing. Not specifically because they have asked me to invest, you will understand, we've talked about it a lot in this Question Time pod actually, that there is a threat to the cash ISA limit. And the threat to the cash ISA limit is the government, and I agree with it, rightly believes that as a nation we are too risk averse, we don't invest, and if you put money in the long run over investing, it will outperform savings, but too many people put money in cash. And they were thinking that they would drop the cash ISA limit and keep the shares ISA
26:40 Martin Lewis? limit in order to encourage investing. I believe that is not the right way to do it, what we need to do is educate, communicate, make easier access, change the language and encourage, and I've got some suggestions of how we do that, people to invest, do it with a carrot system rather than the stick system. But on the back of some of those conversations, and also on the back of giving evidence to Parliament one time and sort of admitting that I may well be to blame for some of this attitude because I only talk about savings because that's my expertise, not about investing, I had a realisation, both that I should be mentioning investing more whenever I talk savings, giving it as an option, and also that actually it's quite important to do so, or we might see government change of policy because people aren't investing.
27:22 Martin Lewis? So you could say that perhaps indirectly on the back of that one, I may have changed what I say, but only because it was a clarion call, it was a clarity piece for me rather than actually them telling me. There are a couple of other things I'd probably say on this. There are times I don't say things because I've agreed not to in advance, it's not in a scurrilous way. I wear two hats in my work. I'm a journalist and broadcaster, that's what I'm doing right now, but I'm a campaigning journalist and I am a campaigner. Now, sometimes, and in fact, most often times, I go into a meeting with a senior politician. I'm going there as a campaigner, either representing the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute
28:05 Martin Lewis? charity that I chair, or representing my website and the campaigns on. And I will go in then with one of the people from my campaigns team who aren't journalists. And I mentioned at the start that this is a private meeting, because when you're trying to give ideas and suggestions with politicians, they need to be able to be free to speak without thinking that you're going to report every last utterance that came out. If you do that, you can't get anywhere, you don't get any meetings, you don't get anywhere. So I go into those meetings with an agreement that I will not say anything publicly about that meeting, apart from the fact that I've had the meeting, because I think it needs to be transparent, and the things I was asking for in the meeting, but I will never say what they said back to me, because that just breaks the ability to have free discussion.
28:49 Martin Lewis? So I do keep that quiet, but that's me doing it, because I found that's the most effective way to campaign. Obviously, if I go in as a journalist, then I'm going in with that, and anything that's said is reportable. Really interesting question, Stephen, and I hope it sort of helps people understand how I try and operate.
29:06 Martin Lewis? And I think this is probably the last question, Matt, so make it a good one.
29:09 Speaker 05 Okay, Rosie Piper on Instagram has asked, "My husband and I got married earlier in the year. We have wills that predate the wedding and have six children, three each, now adults with their own families. Do our wills still apply, or does marriage change everything?"
29:26 Martin Lewis? This depends on which UK nation you are in. If you are in England and Wales, and I think Northern Ireland, your will is invalid when you get married, you need to do another will. Marriage does change the status of your will. Now, I should say, this isn't my expertise, but I've got enough programmes with lawyers on wills, and they tell me this. In Scotland... Technically, it doesn't invalidate it, but the brilliant Scottish lawyer who I've done a show on with this, Austin Lafferty is the name of the lawyer, and he's brilliant, and he's very funny. So I think he won't mind if he says, now, it doesn't invalidate a, it doesn't talk like that at all. That's all I can do. Doesn't invalidate a will,
30:10 Martin Lewis? Martin. But I would strongly suggest that people, when they get married, get a new will, because their circumstances have changed. So while it's not breaching the law, I would absolutely suggest they do get a new will. How was that?
30:25 Speaker 05 I mean, you did go from Scottish to probably a bit like California, back to Scotland, I'd say.
30:30 Martin Lewis? I was trying to channel Austin. So I hope that gives you an answer, but that is me reporting other people's answers rather than giving it to myself, because I'm not a lawyer. And if in doubt, do check with a lawyer.
30:41 Speaker 05 Yes. And we did do that episode. It's called Grown Up Stuff, and we put it out on the 18th of September, if you want to listen to the whole pod.
30:47 Martin Lewis? Even better, go back and listen to that podcast, where you'll get it in far more detail, and with a much more authentic Scottish accent at the same time.
30:57 Martin Lewis? And 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 every Monday, alongside the regular podcast, which is on Thursdays. Aren't you lucky? Two doses of money-saving tips and tricks a week. Do make sure you send in your questions, too. Just email [email protected] .
31:34 Speaker 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.
32:10 Speaker 01 In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the third century? I'm Misha Glennie and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world.
32:26 Speaker 02 It's one of the first times really that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers. If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.
32:34 Speaker 01 In Our Time, listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Tea or coffee? Love a cup of tea.
Previous Martin’s Savings Interest Masterclass: increase what you earn by up to 50%! Next A wallet workout to gain pounds! Earn £100s in minutes perusing your purse or (digital) wallet Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated