Question Time: Pay off my Plan 2 loan or my mortgage? Cheaper Power of Attorney? How do balance transfers work?

In our Question Time podcast, Martin Lewis gives you answers on anything and everything, including: is there an alternative to the expensive lasting power of attorney? Should I overpay my Plan 2 student loan or my mortgage? Is AI advice on tax relief to be trusted? I’ve got £7,000 debt on a credit card from my wedding, how does a 0% balance transfer work so I don’t have to pay interest? What’s Martin’s favourite money-themed song? Plus, some of your help for our recent caller, Will, on how to build a credit score when you move to the UK. If you want to ask Martin a question, you can! His Question Time podcast lets you ask Martin absolutely anything and everything (within reason!). So, if you’ve always wanted to know if he’s milk first or last in a cup of tea, if he has another favourite podcast, or you have a very complicated question about your finances, email it to [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:47Martin Lewis?

  If you do not have power of attorney, especially with your separate bank accounts and your separate finances, if one of you were to lose your faculty so that for the other to take over, you would have to go to the Court of Protection.

• 1:57Speaker 03

  I basically want to know whether I should overpay on my student loan or my mortgage.

• 2:03Martin Lewis?

  Matt and Isabel, we're getting clever vibes, aren't we? Don't look back in anger.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  More of my voice, who wouldn't want that?

• 2:09Martin Lewis?

  I would not trust an AI bot on something like this. Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. This is our Question Time episode where you, our Esquires, are extremely savvy questioners. Get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. And this week you asked me, power of attorney is expensive. Is there any alternative? Should I overpay my plan two student loan or my mortgage? Which of the two is best? And that was from a very clever caller, as you'll discover. Is AI advice on tax relief to be trusted? I've got £7,000 debt on a credit card from my wedding. How do balance transfers actually work?

• 2:54Martin Lewis?

  Then you give us your help for our recent caller Will on how to build a credit score when you've just moved into the country from abroad. And finally, you asked me, what's my favourite money themed song? Well, here's one of them right now. Play the theme tune.

• 3:22Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to this Question Time episode of the podcast. Yes, the one where you can ask me anything and everything. Let's all say it together, open brackets within reason, close brackets. And of course, for this, I am joined by none other than the curator of questions himself, Professor Sir Dr Matthew Burnham Esquire.

• 3:46Martin Lewis?

  Applause, applause, applause.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, applause, applause.

• 3:49Martin Lewis?

  How are you, Matt?

• 3:50Speaker 04

  Yes, very good, thank you.

• 3:51Martin Lewis?

  Are you making nasty accusations about anybody else this week?

• 3:54Speaker 04

  Not this week, no.

• 3:55Martin Lewis?

  Well, that's not strictly true, isn't it? I mean, I need to just, breaking fourth wall, as we always do, just before we started, Matt, in a, you know, he said, it's because the reason that's not working is because Isabel hasn't done her links. Isabel went, yes, you hear, Isabel was like, I have done my links. And it was interesting visually, Isabel grew. She was suddenly seven foot six tall, right? She had these bulging biceps. And Matt, he was like, he was like one of those Russian dolls, the ones in the very middle. He was just tiny shrinking up. And it was like, I'm sorry, Isabel.

• 4:25Speaker 04

  I was wrong. Do you know, I apologised straight away and I realised my mistake and I've learnt from it.

• 4:30Martin Lewis?

  It can be quite vicious in the background of Question Time, you know, before we all start.

• 4:35Speaker 04

  I just edit it all out so no one hears it.

• 4:37Martin Lewis?

  So it all sounds lovely and jolly and not like, you know, people are trying to stuff Chris up other people's nostrils all the time.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  Speaking of nostrils, no, I don't know how that would segue into it. We've had an email come in that I want to talk to you about.

• 4:50Martin Lewis?

  I'm now trying, keep going. I'm trying to try and work out nostrils in it now.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  Okay, cool. So Andy's emailed this in. He says, Dear Isabel, Matt and Martin, I always imagined.

• 4:58Martin Lewis?

  In that order.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  In that, in that order. He knows the power.

• 5:02Martin Lewis?

  I'll be sticking Chris up his nostril soon.

• 5:05Speaker 04

  Isabel's got the most power. I'm in the middle. And then there's, then there's some other guy called Martin. So he said, I always imagined that the disclaimer at the end of the podcast, you know, about everything being right at the time of recording, you may have to double check everything, blah, blah, blah, was recorded by Rosie. And it was a little bit of an Easter egg of her talking. But he's now saying, I think I'm now wrong.

• 5:24Martin Lewis?

  You are wrong.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  He is wrong. He says, as Isabel can now talk and has the role of fact checking, I feel like she should record her own version of the blurb.

• 5:31Martin Lewis?

  There's a couple of things that go in that. I'm still really trying to rack my brain about a nostril. And no, no, yeah, you know, and I mean, he tried to, oh, you're going to hate me. They're going to get, they're like, the children are going to look like I'm an embarrassing grandpa now. But I, maybe he was trying to predict that was going on, like nostril Darmus? No?

• 5:53Speaker 04

  Tom will read.

• 5:54Martin Lewis?

  Okay. Okay. It was the best I had. Someone out there listening will like it. All right. Nostril Darmus, that was something.

• 6:02Speaker 04

  I don't even get it.

• 6:03Martin Lewis?

  Nostradamus. Do you not know who Nostradamus? Oh, Matt, well, that's just ignorance. Okay, no, yeah. Isabel's appalled for a different reason now, aren't you? You can look it up afterwards. We're not helping.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  Okay, okay.

• 6:15Martin Lewis?

  Okay, but that is, that's like a BBC disclaimer thing.

• 6:19Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 6:20Martin Lewis?

  Do we know who did it? Who does it?

• 6:21Speaker 04

  Yes, so it was Lily May from back in the day.

• 6:24Martin Lewis?

  Lily May, who used to be an early podcast producer, yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, so it was her that recorded it.

• 6:28Martin Lewis?

  Nice voice.

• 6:29Speaker 04

  Very good voice. A lot of people did email in asking who it was and if it was Rosie. So we can now say.

• 6:35Martin Lewis?

  It was Lily May.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  It was Lily May.

• 6:37Martin Lewis?

  Who I think on the, her name, her podcast name was Lolly May, because like money lolly. That's what we called her. She was Lolly May.

• 6:43Speaker 04

  Shall we do a question?

• 6:48Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so Matt, what's your first question for me?

• 6:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, we should probably do one, shouldn't we? I've got one from Mags. She has emailed it in to [email protected]. She says, Evening, Martin and Matt.

• 6:59Martin Lewis?

  Much better order, much better order.

• 7:01Speaker 04

  I listened to an old podcast of yours about power of attorney, wills, et cetera, recently, which made me think about my husband and I. We're both 73 years old. We've been together for the past 14 years and decided from the start to keep our bank accounts separate. We still want to leave that in place. Power of attorney is too expensive right now. And due to our ages, we'd rather put something in place now rather than waiting till we have enough money saved. My question is, what are the options left for us to ensure that either one of us is able to take charge of the other's finances before it's too late?

• 7:33Martin Lewis?

  None. Power of attorney. Sorry to, sorry to be really blunt on this. That is exactly what a power of attorney does. If you do not have power of attorney, especially with your separate bank accounts and your separate finances, if one of you were to lose your faculty so that for the other to take over, you would have to go to the Court of Protection. The Court of Protection is massively more, to apply for it, it's massively more expensive than power attorney. It can be very difficult to get through. People tell me nightmare stories about it and it takes a long amount of time. Power of attorney is set up to prevent you having to go to the Court of Protection so that you can say, now I am giving this person the ability to take over my finances if I can't. So you'll forgive me with my really

• 8:14Martin Lewis?

  blunt answer, but there isn't really a route. You have to be giving somebody the ability when you're ready. And when you do, you lose your faculties. Now, in terms of the expense of power of attorney, it can be expensive for a solicitor. Let's just go through the basic costs. To register the financial power of attorney in England and Wales is £92. There's also the, the health and wellbeing power of attorney, which is about who will make the decisions over your health and wellbeing. I'll focus on the financial one, although both are useful just because finance is what I do. It's £99 in Scotland. It's £189 in Northern Ireland. If you earn less than 12 grand a year though, and you can provide evidence in England and Wales, you can pay reduced fee of £46. Now typically, you would pay solicitor £400

• 8:59Martin Lewis?

  to £750 in legal fees to do a power of attorney. It is possible to do a power of attorney yourself. I'm going to phrase this, and I hope people won't see this is not meant to be loaded, but I'm just going to be really blunt. I've written a guide on how you can do this yourself. This is the type of thing that people who are experienced form fillers, potentially people who have had some form of professional role where they're good at, you know, dotting I's, crossing T's, following all the rules really strictly, will be able to do, but it needs to be done with an amount of diligence. There are so many forms that are rejected, and you can only in England and Wales. It's the only place you can do it yourself. In Scotland, I think you have to go through someone. I'm just going to

• 9:40Martin Lewis?

  get Isabel to check that now. That's my memory. So you can do it yourself, and if you're good at that, you could do it yourself. There are alternative routes than going through a solicitor halfway house. Something like which wills costs £99 per lasting power of attorney. And with that, you sort of answer some questions, and I believe it's solicitor checked at the end. I'm just going to get Isabel to double check that as well, because I'm doing this from memory. I think it's about £100 quid that you pay, and there are places you can get a discount on it. So therefore, the total cost for each of you would be £200 if you were using that service, or £100 each if you did it yourself. But if you forgive me, at your age, where the risks of losing faculties do increase

• 10:22Martin Lewis?

  with age, and with your separate bank accounts, this is a good use of money. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know you don't want to spend it, but do your power of attorneys.

• 10:30Speaker 04

  This is quite expensive, isn't it?

• 10:32Martin Lewis?

  It is, and I wish it was cheaper because it shouldn't be that expensive. There are processing costs, but to make sure, you know, the cost of the state. I mean, you just have to understand, I've talked about this before, you know, the difference between a will and a power of attorney is a will is a document that dictates what happens once you're dead. A power of attorney is dictate what happens when you're alive, but you lose your capability, use your capacity to look after yourself. Now, if you think about it, once you're dead, you don't have many other costs other than your funeral. I'm not being trying to be morbid. When you're alive, you might have the cost of your care. Your mortgage might need paying if you're by yourself, and all of those other things. And without a power of attorney, the court of protection takes a long time. The people you love trying to look after you can be locked out of your finances even to pay for

• 11:17Martin Lewis?

  your necessities, which is why, well, I think wills are incredibly important, and vast majority of people should have them. For me, power of attorneys are even more important because the consequences of not having one can be devastating. And I've known a number of people, especially through Covid and other times, who haven't had them set up, and have it's just massively compounded the already, well, let's be honest, grief and hassle that you have when your loved one has lost capacity, to add on top of that, the huge administrative stress and burden that not having a power of attorney goes through. It's just not worth doing if you can possibly scrape to do it. You know, I can understand why some in their 30s don't do it, but you're in your 70s, and the risks of dementia and

• 12:00Martin Lewis?

  other things are higher. Isabel, have you got those checks for me?

• 12:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, the power of attorney document in Scotland must be certified by a solicitor or a magistrate.

• 12:08Martin Lewis?

  So I was correct on that. Good. My memory is serving me. Yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 05

  And which wills, they say a team of specialists, but that includes lawyers and paralegals.

• 12:15Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, so it's basically, you don't have a solicitor sitting down with you and drafting it, but it's a team drafting it of specialists, and then a solicitor, I believe, signs it off in the end. Thank you, Isabel. I hope that answers your question. I'm sorry I couldn't give you what you wanted.

• 12:31Martin 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.

• 12:45Speaker 04

  No, Dear Matt.

• 12:46Martin Lewis?

  Dear Martin.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  Dear Matt.

• 12:51Martin Lewis?

  Now, using my predictive skills as nostril Darmus, I presume we're going, because it's an even number, we're going to a caller. I'm going to keep riding that joke all the way through. They call it a callback in comedy. By the end, it'll be funny.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  That's what you think.

• 13:08Martin Lewis?

  So Matt, clearly, it's the time in the show where you introduce me to a caller, or introduce the caller to me, whichever way you see it.

• 13:14Speaker 04

  Shall I introduce the caller to you? Yeah, I will do that this time, actually. So, Callum, hi. You're in London.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Hi.

• 13:20Speaker 04

  This is Martin Lewis.

• 13:22Martin Lewis?

  Hello, Callum. Welcome on board.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Hi, Martin. How are you doing?

• 13:26Martin Lewis?

  Very well, thank you very much. What can I do for you?

• 13:28Speaker 03

  So I have a, have a conjum. I basically want to know whether I should overpay on my student loan or my mortgage. I, up until now, I've been doing that.

• 13:42Martin Lewis?

  Which student loan?

• 13:42Speaker 03

  It's Plan Two.

• 13:43Martin Lewis?

  So Plan Two, for those who don't know, is for those who started university from 2012 until the 2022 academic year in England, and 2012 onwards in Wales. It is by far the most popular, not in terms of people like it, it's the most unpopular, but the loan that most people have, it's about three quarters of outstanding student loan debt, is on Plan Two loans, and it is the one where the interest rate is above the rate of inflation. And it's also the one that in the recent budget, we were hoping the Chancellor would reverse his predecessor's freeze on repayment threshold, which effectively costs people more each year, and many low to middle earners more over the lifetime of their loan, but didn't. So there's going to be a freeze on the repayment threshold coming in April 2027,

• 14:28Martin Lewis?

  unfortunately. Carry on, sorry.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, no. So I guess what I've been doing up until now is just blithely paying off the most expensive one, which is my student loan. There is 6%. She's a high earner.

• 14:44Martin Lewis?

  Are you a high earner?

• 14:44Speaker 03

  Love, love. Yes. Yeah, I am.

• 14:46Martin Lewis?

  Okay. All right. In that case, it's, yeah. So just, so I'm going to be doing lots of caveats throughout your question, Callum. Forgive me.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, go for it.

• 14:53Martin Lewis?

  The caveat here is really, really important to understand. The logic of paying, whether you pay off your student loan or not, depends massively on your level of earnings, because it is your level of earnings that dictates the amount you repay each year, not your borrowing. It's simply 9% above the threshold. Now, you repay a Plan Two loan for 30 years after the April that you left university. Higher earners, or those with lower initial borrowing, let's say you only took a tuition fee loan, let's say your tuition fees weren't that high, you only took a maintenance loan, or they weren't that high, are likely to clear the loan in the 30 years before it wipes, in which case the interest is real, because

• 15:33Martin Lewis?

  the interest added is actually has to be repaid. Most people on Plan Two student loans, so the estimate is 70% on those on Plan Two student loans, will not repay in full in the 30 years before it wipes. In that case, there is the plausible risk that overpaying your student loan will not actually reduce what you pay in future, and therefore will be throwing money away. And more so, conceptually, that actually means that while, probably for Callum, and we'll examine that exactly in a moment, the interest rate added is the same as the interest rate paid. For most people on student loans, the interest rate

• 16:17Martin Lewis?

  added is not the interest rate paid, because you won't clear the loan, so you won't repay all of the interest. In some cases, you won't repay any of the interest that's been added. So the fear of the interest is actually a psychological fear, not a practical fear that can encourage you to overpay when you shouldn't and make the wrong decisions. Caveat over. Callum, you're a higher earner, so the interest is probably real for you. I presume you're somewhere around 100 grand type thing, in that sort of ballpark?

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, 99.

• 16:46Martin Lewis?

  99, perfect. Okay. Good. Carry on, carry on.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  So I'm paying the top rate of interest on loan.

• 16:52Martin Lewis?

  So currently 6% capped, yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. If I did nothing, it would wipe in 2047, like after 30 years, but obviously I'm going to, I'll pay it off before then.

• 17:01Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 17:01Speaker 03

  And I think that'll be in about 12 years.

• 17:03Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  And so I was like, right, okay, fine. I'll just start, I'll just, I'll just start overpaying on my student loan. And but what I always, what I was never quite sure about was, I also have a mortgage, and although the interest rate is 3.41, so it's more than half of my student loan, the debt itself is about twice the value of my student loan. And I kind of always thought, well, it doesn't make, I was like, it doesn't feel quite right that I'm not overpaying any of the mortgage, and I'm throwing every, like every pound I have at the student loan. So when I ran the numbers, actually, what I, what dropped out after making, you know, what I think are reasonable assumptions, although you do

• 17:45Speaker 03

  have to make quite a lot, it actually kind of transpires that it makes more sense, I think, to only overpay on my mortgage and ignore the student loan, because the duration of the mortgage is much longer. And again, if you factor in interest rates probably creeping up over my, over the duration of my mortgage, then it, it makes every pound I overpay on the mortgage, despite the much lower interest rate presently, saves me

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Two or three times, that's what that same pound would save me if I overpay on my student loan, which kind of flies in the face of the pay the most expensive debt first.

• 18:26Martin Lewis?

  But I think it's, I think, think of all, first of all, it's difficult with a, with a student loan. I, I think the one factor you're not, you're not incorporating here is, is the risk difference between the two loans. So, and I would, so which is why I would always start on a premise that everything else being equal, I would be overpaying my mortgage, not my student loan. And the reason for that is very simple, and you know this, but let's spell it out for everybody listening. Your mortgage, you have to pay each month. If you don't, you can be in arrears, you can potentially lose your house. Yeah. And that is irrelevant of what you're earning and your job situation. Your student loan is, what you pay is in proportion to your income.

• 19:08Martin Lewis?

  So your career is going very well, and I hope everything I'm about to say never comes to fruition. Right. But if, if it were to stop in future, if something were to happen and, and, you know, circumstances change in life that meant you weren't earning in future, you would not have to repay your student loan if you earned under the, whatever it is, 29,400 quid a year at rough threshold. And so that, that massive difference between structurally, a student loan is better than a mortgage for you. Because structurally, a student loan is repayable in proportion to what you earn, whereas a mortgage is payable regardless of what you earn. And so I, I always, I would always start from that standpoint. You know, the second thing I think we need to look at is how long is your mortgage rate going to be at 3.41%?

• 19:53Martin Lewis?

  Do, when does it end?

• 19:56Speaker 03

  Uh, this time next year.

• 19:57Martin Lewis?

  Okay. So after that, and you know, again, making lots of assumptions on interest rates, you're probably going to be looking at somewhere in the five percents. Yeah. And therefore the difference between the two rates becomes much smaller. So even if we, before we stop going and, and you know, how you've done the calculations and the assumptions about one pound for three pounds, it just depends on how you do that and what you assume in future.

• 20:22Martin Lewis?

  Then for me, you know, your student loan interest rate is linked to inflation. It, it will be, the most it will be is three percent above inflation. So if inflation drops, you'll do well. If it goes up, it's more, but you're actually paying a real interest rate of plus three percent. You know what I mean by that? And because we, we factor inflation out because that's, your earnings are going up and prices are going up by that. So it's got a real interest rate for a high earner like you of plus three percent. Your mortgage rate will vary with, with base rates. So again, there's more variability in there. And we don't know what will go on in structures, though the two will tend to move in sync because obviously interest rates are set based on the rate of inflation to an extent. So all of that going on, I would, before we even get to calculations, I would start on a basis

• 21:06Martin Lewis?

  that unless you had a super cheap mortgage, I mean, the thing about your mortgage at the moment, arguably at 3.41%, you could earn more in savings. Right. So you, you, the argument is you shouldn't be doing, you shouldn't be doing that. You should be putting the money in savings until a year's time when your mortgage rate comes up. Do you know what I mean?

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:25Martin Lewis?

  So I, I would still consider that putting it towards overpaying the mortgage. The fact that you're not currently overpaying the mortgage, but you could be putting that money into savings now because you would earn more interest than the mortgage rate is costing you and then use at the time that you go towards getting a new mortgage where the rate's going to higher, then you would overpay your mortgage. So if, if we call that overpaying your mortgage, so effectively you're overpaying at a higher future rate. I think the difference is very slim and the risk of not overpaying your student loan is not as bad as the risk of not overpaying your mortgage. The question that comes to you is how much you factor that risk level in. Do you see what I mean?

• 22:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Okay. And I guess the, it kind of all, all roads point to the mortgage. Like overpay, overpay the mortgage. I guess the, the other part of the question is like, I'm, I'm, at the moment I am overpaying both. I'm putting 800 pounds between both of them every month. And there's, so you kind of, so I kind of end up in this question, with this question of like, well, what, what actually makes sense? Like, how should I be thinking about paying down both of these debts? And like, should I just, should I throw everything at one? Should I split it? Should I split it between the two? And obviously the question is kind of like, there's, there's the pure optimization question. And then there's the psychological, what do I actually want to do?

• 22:43Speaker 03

  And then what is robust, and then what is robust to all of the various assumptions that you have to make when making any of these calculations?

• 22:55Martin Lewis?

  Well, I think you're, first of all, you're thinking about it in exactly the right way. And what I'd say about the absolute optimization level, it does not exist because there are too many variables. And, and actually knowing it, knowing it doesn't exist is really important. So, so I wouldn't value the optimization level quite as strongly as you are. I, I think you should factor it in and say a rough optimization level. So then the psychological level, there is nothing wrong. If, if this was, if you have two credit cards and one was 22% and one was 17%, I would say put all your spare cash at paying off the one at 22% and just pay the minimums on the 18% until that's gone. And then once the 22% is gone, clear the 18%. We can absolutely do an optimization, see how it works, and it's a like for like comparison.

• 23:39Martin Lewis?

  What you have here is unknown and uncertain future interest rates on both and an entirely different loan structure in terms of the repayments and the protections that go in place. So all of those factors mean there's too many variables, which, which probably brings you round to, if you ask me for a sort of an intuitive, is it wrong to be overpaying both? Part of me think that's not a bad way to hedge your bets.

• 24:07Martin Lewis?

  If I'm really honest, because there's no right answer. What do you do for a living? You clearly work probably in some financial or mathematical profession. I can feel it coming from what you do. Do something clever. What do you do?

• 24:19Speaker 03

  I work for a data consultancy company, but in client success.

• 24:23Martin Lewis?

  Uh, fine. Right. You're a clever person. And if, if you forgive me for saying this, and how old are you?

• 24:29Speaker 03

  I'm, I'm 32.

• 24:31Martin Lewis?

  If I'm not being arrogant, I'm a clever person aged 54 and you're a clever person aged 32. The difference perhaps between my, me being 54 and you being 32 is I'm more comfortable with accepting that I can't know the right answer.

• 24:48Martin Lewis?

  Does that, do you see what I mean by that? And that's something you just get with age. I've been through enough things in my time that go, it, it will never be perfect. And therefore I'm, I'm far, I, I think you're trying to go for the ultimate optimization strategy, but you will not get it right. Right. Whatever you do, you won't get it right. And therefore comfort and psychological benefit, because they're both good things to do with the exception of stop overpaying your mortgage for now and go and put it in a high interest savings account and then overpay it when that mortgage comes up. And that's an aside, then, then I would think, I think a split worked for me because you can't get it right. And, and I can, just hearing the way you asked that question, this is almost a permission question, isn't it? This is, you, you know all the answers. You've done all this. You don't need me.

• 25:30Martin Lewis?

  What you need is you just want someone to say, I'm a bit insensible. Have I got it wrong? That, that's what you're calling for, isn't it?

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, I think I just needed someone to say that like, yes, this is, you, you have not completely misunderstood the problem that you're trying to solve. And I am broadly at peace with not having the right answer. I guess I just needed to know that the framework within which I have made the decision, or which I'm making this decision is, is right, or like is not, is not fundamentally flawed. And actually the, the secondary point is like, oh my God, I spent, I can't believe I signed up for this student loan when I was 17. This is so wildly complicated, like, and I'm only now really starting to get to grips with just quite how complicated. And as you say, I'm very clever.

• 26:14Martin Lewis?

  Yeah. And you do, well, you're, you're massively clever as well. That's the point. You're massively clever. There's lots of other clever out there. Yeah. But, and, and this goes back to why, I mean, you will have seen me talking about plan two loans. You will have seen, I mean, my approbation, my call it, it is a moral wrong and a natural breach of justice that what we now have, and, and the Conservative covered, tried to do it, and I tried to take them to just review in 2015. And we've now got something similar going on. We have, while technically not a retrospective change of terms, it's a, it's a breach of promise of what was promised when you signed up to your loan. And to do that to people who signed up to a contract, I mean, I always phrase that the student loan works effectively like a, a, a closed time loop graduate tax. It might do that, but legally it's a contractual basis. It's not a tax.

• 26:57Martin Lewis?

  And that was done because it benefits the government, that they can charge you when you go, when you go abroad and various other things that means that it can be enforced in court in a different way to, to a form of tax. And, and it is a contract and you signed up to it to 17, so a unilateral, one-sided retrospective, negative change of terms feels like a breach of justice to me. And you're right, if you're struggling to work it out, and we can all hear, I think it's fine for you to say you're clever. Matt, I, you, Matt and Ismael, we're getting clever vibes, aren't we? We're getting clever vibes, right? And so you've got that, the, the, and you're struggling and only just starting to see it. And I always talk about student loans as, as like I have a model in my head, which is the only way to figure it. And you have to know if you pull this lever, it doesn't necessarily work in the straight line that people assume.

• 27:40Martin Lewis?

  You know, this is the whole point when, when we heard policies of cutting tuition fees to help, you know, low income families and low income graduates. And it's like, but it only helped high income graduates, you know, all those type of things that go into it. And it's, it's why the two big problems with student loans is people don't understand them. And then politicians use the fact that people don't understand them to make them worse without people realizing, you know, that the bigger, extending the plan five loans to 40 years, you're on plan two, this is for current students. And cutting the repayment threshold is a massive increase in the total you pay. But everyone went, oh, they've cut the interest rate. And it was like, yeah, but that's the small one. The big things have changed are much more negative. All of that is the big problem in the politicizing of the system. But the answer to you is there isn't a right answer. You're in roughly the right ballpark. Do what you most feel comfortable with.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  That's great. That is a huge, that's a huge relief and it was a pleasure chatting to you and I'm really appreciative of the time.

• 28:32Martin Lewis?

  And he deserves his badge, Matt.

• 28:34Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, we've already spoken about the badge, don't worry. When I called him yesterday.

• 28:37Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, okay.

• 28:38Speaker 04

  Callum was excited about his badge.

• 28:39Martin Lewis?

  You get your badge, Callum. Thank you so much, Matt. And I actually think the discussion will be really interesting and I probably should just do at the end, I talked about. So for, if you were, if you, many people get in touch with me about these platoon loans, you'll notice, and they say, and you'll have heard it amongst your friends or your contemporaries, they're going, it's outrageous. I earn £48,000 a year and my interest is going up each year. Right? And I absolutely agree with the political problem that that is and the psychological problem that that is. But in practical terms, if you're in that position, you actually have to change what this is in your head to this is a 9% contribution above a threshold, a 9%

• 29:21Martin Lewis?

  extra tax above a threshold for 30 years. You were not meant to pay it off in full. This was meant to be, you contribute towards the financial success of your education. If you're not that financially successful, you won't pay at all. And worrying about the interest rate, when you're just paying 9% above a threshold and you're going to do that for 30 years, actually the interest rate isn't that relevant. You know what I mean, don't you? But it's very, in the political dynamic at the moment, it's actually quite difficult to argue that, which is why if you'd had 50,000 of earnings in the same situation, it would have been a no brainer. Pay off your mortgage, don't overpay the student loan because it probably won't touch the sides unless you can pay 30, 40 grand off at a time. There we go.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's a really nice problem to have.

• 30:04Martin Lewis?

  It is.

• 30:04Speaker 03

  That, yeah, I'm very, I'm very grateful for the problem and even more for Martin Lewis's solution to it.

• 30:09Martin Lewis?

  Oh, thank you. And the final thing I would say in your case though, is you're what university is supposed to be for. You should be paying quite a bit of student loan because you've hopefully financially gained because of your degree. My concern is for those people who haven't and who the university hasn't worked for them and are still paying and at lower levels and, you know, so I don't want you to pay lots. I think it's great. You sound wonderful. I wish you all power to your elbow and more strength for the future. I hope your data gets thoroughly mined for a long time forward.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  Thank you very much.

• 30:43Martin Lewis?

  Cheers, buddy.

• 30:44Speaker 03

  Thank you, Martin. Thanks, Isabel.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 30:48Martin Lewis?

  Question number three. It's a read because it's an odd number. What is your question?

• 30:53Speaker 04

  It's from Rob. He's emailed it in. He says, Dear Martin, Matt and Isabel.

• 30:58Martin Lewis?

  Which now, let me just say, because we've had an Isabel, Matt and Martin, and we've had a Martin and Matt. Dear Martin, Matt and Isabel, you forgive me, I think is the right form. It's in order of longevity and seniority.

• 31:13Speaker 04

  Maybe I should just change because I know I used to fight for Dear Matt first. Maybe I should just say, I'm easy. Put whatever you want.

• 31:20Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm going, you know, I know my name's on the page. I think Martin, Matt and Isabel. He's longevity and seniority. I'm not going into seniority with Matt and Isabel, but Matt has longevity over Isabel.

• 31:31Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 31:32Martin Lewis?

  So he can be for, in fact, I don't care. You can put whoever you like second and third.

• 31:35Speaker 04

  Just put Dear Matt and then everyone wins. So Rob's emailed this one in. He says, question for you. I am retired from work but receive income from a SIP.

• 31:45Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, a self-invested personal pension scheme. It's basically a form of pension where you have total flexibility in choosing your investment funds. You operate it like an investment account. You can pick funds, you can pick shares, you can put whatever you like, but it's with inside your pension wrapper.

• 31:59Speaker 04

  He then says in drawn down.

• 32:01Martin Lewis?

  In drawdown. So when you hit, it's a young man not knowing. When you hit, when you hit pension age, in order, you can convert your pension into a drawdown, which is basically another name for a pension investment type thing. But often it's when you've taken, say, your tax-free lump sum and you need to do that in order to take it out in a certain tax way. I won't go into more detail. I could, but I won't go into more detail. Go on.

• 32:25Speaker 04

  As well as, he also gets income from a rental property.

• 32:29Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  In combination, these and some savings interest are enough to push me into the higher rate, the 40% tax band. Although my pension is in drawdown, I could still use my money purchase annual allowance.

• 32:41Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  To make some contributions to my pension up to £3,600 per year, including the basic rate tax relief.

• 32:49Martin Lewis?

  So just on that basis, just to say, the money purchase annual allowance is what happens when you have taken some taxable money from your pension, the amount that you can contribute to your pension in future is reduced and it's called the money purchase pension allowance. So before you've taken any taxable money from your pension, I'm short cutting, it's more complex than taxable money, but let's keep it as a shortcut of taxable money for simplicity's sake. Effectively, you can put in your annual salary up to a maximum £60,000 a year in your pension. But if you've taken money from your pension, which of course currently you can only do age 55 onwards, then it reduces the amount you can contribute in future and that is called the money purchase annual allowance. Carry on with the question.

• 33:29Speaker 04

  I looked into this and a well-known.

• 33:31Martin Lewis?

  Was that you or him?

• 33:31Speaker 04

  This is Rob.

• 33:32Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 33:33Speaker 04

  I am Rob.

• 33:33Martin Lewis?

  I suddenly thought you were like, I looked into this.

• 33:35Speaker 04

  No, I didn't look into it.

• 33:36Martin Lewis?

  I've been reading all about that.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  I did it for you. I did your job for you. No, so Rob looked into this and a well-known AI bot suggested to him that even though he's paying tax at 40% on his earnings.

• 33:48Martin Lewis?

  Just as a note, wouldn't nostril dharma be a great name for an AI bot?

• 33:52Speaker 04

  No, terrible. Where was I? He put into an AI bot and that suggested to him, even though he's paying tax at 40% on earnings above the higher tax rate, he couldn't claim 40% tax relief on pensions contributions because it's not earned income. He says, that seems a bit unfair to me as I'm paying 40% tax on the top elements, additional tax on dividends earned, and I lose half of my annual savings allowance. Is this understanding correct or has the well-known AI chatbot got it wrong? P.S. Love the podcast.

• 34:24Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so Rob, first thing I would say before we even get on the answer is I would not trust an AI bot on something like this. What I would trust it to do is I would ask it what questions I should be asking and I would ask it your question and then ask it to interpret it and to point you to a legitimate source. This is how I would use AI in those circumstances. I'd say, okay, I see what you're saying. Show me on the gov.uk website or another similar money and pension service type website where it says that information so I then can go and read it directly myself and ensure that you have not mistranslated

• 35:03Martin Lewis?

  it. Having said that, in this case, the well-known AI chatbot is right. Now, just to be honest on this, this is one of those questions that you've put to me before and I said, I need to do some double checking before I answer that. And I've been to Money Helper on this who, and it's really worth saying, if you are of an age where you can take your pension, you are entitled to free guidance from Money Helper. They won't tell you what products to get, but they can go into quite a lot of detail about your tax situation and how it affects you and how it works. And you can get that one-on-one help when you're dealing with your pension and I would strongly recommend it. Money Helper is, it is a non-governmental independent agency, you know, one of those type of things that's set up by a compulsory

• 35:48Martin Lewis?

  lobby on the financial services industry. So it's free to you. What Money Helper said is they also say the AI response is correct. The money purchase allowance puts two limits on the amount of money a person can put into their pension and still get tax relief on it. Your contributions must be less than or equal to the amount you earn and contributions from you and your employer must be less than £10,000 in total. So if you earn less than £3,600, the rule is always you can get tax relief on up to £3,600 of pension savings up until the age of 75. For the same reason that children could have pensions even though they don't have any income, that this standard rule, you could have a gross amount, £3,600

• 36:29Martin Lewis?

  in, which means for a child, you could put £200,880 into a pension and then it will be, when you put it into the pension, the pension firm will add from the state money that puts it up to £3,600 a year. The listener, they say, would be contributing money from pension and rental income, neither of which count as earnings for tax purposes. They would count as earning less than £3,600 therefore and would not receive higher rate tax relief. So if you went out and got a job, I would presume you would be able to get that tax relief, but because it is not coming from earned income, it's coming from other sources, it doesn't count. In a nutshell, AI was right, but I still wouldn't trust it. Not for something important, not for making a decision. I would trust it to educate me. I would trust it

• 37:14Martin Lewis?

  to give me the right questions. I trust it to point me in the right direction of where I can get official information. But for dealing with your finances or making financial decisions, I mean, the number of times I've asked it questions and it has repeated, it's given me an answer and in that answer is something that I know, the technical situation, and it's just got it wrong. It's got the limit wrong. It's given me an old tax limit. It's given me something different. You have to be careful.

• 37:40Martin Lewis?

  Even number, time for a caller?

• 37:42Speaker 04

  Well, normally yes. However, I have let you down. I've let the listeners down, I've let Isabel down, I've let you down. I couldn't find another person to come on as a caller. I tried really hard, no one wanted to do it.

• 37:57Martin Lewis?

  That's absolutely fine, Dr Matthew Burnham, Miss World.

• 38:00Speaker 04

  Oh, no.

• 38:01Martin Lewis?

  Two titles.

• 38:02Speaker 04

  Two titles!

• 38:03Martin Lewis?

  Two titles, Doc. Okay, so we'll do a read instead, that's fine, it's not your fault, Matt.

• 38:08Speaker 04

  It's not. More of my voice, who wouldn't want that? Exactly. So Chris has emailed this one in, he says, hi Eminem.

• 38:16Martin Lewis?

  Yep.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  I like Eminem.

• 38:17Martin Lewis?

  I do like Eminem.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  I like Eminem.

• 38:19Martin Lewis?

  I do. And, and, and

• 38:21Speaker 04

  It reminds me of the chocolate.

• 38:21Martin Lewis?

  If we were to talk, I was gonna say, if we were to talk about a generic chocolate bun that has nothing to do with that acronym, which would be your favourite of those, which would be your first pick type?

• 38:31Speaker 04

  If I could pick any, because some of them aren't sold over here.

• 38:33Martin Lewis?

  No, yeah, you can go for your brownie and your caramel and all those.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  Peanut butter.

• 38:37Martin Lewis?

  Oh, I like, yeah, I like Isabel.

• 38:40Speaker 05

  Peanut ones are good.

• 38:41Martin Lewis?

  Peanut or peanut butter?

• 38:42Speaker 05

  Peanut. I'm not trying the peanut butter.

• 38:45Martin Lewis?

  The peanut, yeah, they're American, they're American. I would, I, I have to say, my standard is the peanut. I, I like the sort of mix and that you can pretend to be healthy, having a nut, even though it's clearly it's not healthy and it's full of calories. But I do like the peanut butter, but I like it as an occasional treat.

• 39:01Speaker 04

  Yes, I'd agree.

• 39:02Martin Lewis?

  I wouldn't want it as my regular.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  A bit too sickly, so I would, if I was in this country, I would go for the peanut.

• 39:07Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  Anyway.

• 39:08Martin Lewis?

  We're all peanut here, anyway, what was the question?

• 39:10Speaker 04

  Let us know what you think, email, uh, right.

• 39:13Martin Lewis?

  Email Eminem, no.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. He says, me and my wife got married last month and used our credit card to pay for it. The card's maxed out at £7,000. Due to our financial situation, we're only able to make the minimum payments. I've heard on your podcast, you talk about transferring to a 0% interest rate on a credit card. But how do you do it? Any advice would be much appreciated, he says. P.S. Do I get a badge if this is read out? Love the podcast.

• 39:38Martin Lewis?

  Matt, you can do the rules on the badge.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  Unfortunately, being read out does not give you a badge, but you can call yourself an Esquire. To get a badge, you need to either come on and have your voice on the podcast or send us a voice note.

• 39:49Martin Lewis?

  So, yeah, and, and you, legally, you are entitled to now call yourself an Esquire within the canon of the podcast.

• 39:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:55Martin Lewis?

  So Chris and Cody, Esquire, I thought, what's the plural of Esquire? Isabel, what's the plural of Esquire? Chris and Cody Esquires, thank you for your question, let me try and answer it for you. So there's two parts to this, there's how a balance transfer works and how you get a balance transfer. Let's do the basics of how it works first. Generally, balance transfers are done where you get a new credit card. They will call it a balance transfer or a debt shifting type offer. So it's a specific offer on a credit card, normally a 0% offer. Currently, you can get up to 38 months 0%, if your credit score is good enough to do that. And what actually happens is you apply for the new card and in the application form, they will ask if you want to transfer a balance.

• 40:34Martin Lewis?

  When you want to transfer that balance, what it means in practice is the new card makes a payment to your old card for you. So let's say it gives you a credit limit of £3,000. You can normally transfer up to 90% of the credit limit, so that's £2,700. It would pay that £2,700 to your existing card, so you owe it £2,700 less. And you would now owe the new card, normally there's a small fee for longer balance transfers of 2% or 3%. So now owe the new card something like £2,750, but it would be interest free for up to 38 months. That's how you do it, that, that they do the transfer for you by paying off the old card.

• 41:15Martin Lewis?

  Which if you can sort of see in your head, the payment goes to the old card, so the debt is transferred to the new card instead. That's how it works, it's relatively simple to do as a practical process. The real question is what can you get? And of course, when you apply for a credit card, they're doing two checks. They're doing a credit score check, are you a good credit citizen? How much debt have you got? How much outstanding debt? That will dictate acceptance or not. They're also doing an affordability check, which will often factor into the credit limit that you're getting. The more disposable income you have and the, the less other debt that you're paying off, the bigger a credit limit you'll be able to get. Now, the best way to find that is to go onto a website, preferably a comparison site that has an eligibility calculator.

• 42:00Martin Lewis?

  That will tell you which of the top cards you are most likely to be accepted for. Because if you do an application just, you know, spontaneously at a credit card firm and you're rejected, it leaves a mark on your file that can actually make getting another card applying elsewhere more difficult. So you wanna hone in on the right card that is most likely to accept you first. And that is what you use an eligibility calculator for. I think I'll, I'll keep it really simple there, that the final choice that you'll make is you need to work out how long it will take you to repay the card. If you're not sure, just go for the longest card you can possibly get. If you are sure, let's say you needed a shorter time than the, the longest available, then you would go for a shorter deal, making sure that the 0% length is long enough that you can clear the debt,

• 42:45Martin Lewis?

  but with a lower fee. So you might, instead of going for a card that is 38 months 0% with a one-off 3% fee of the amount you transfer, if you think you can repay it in 18 months, you might go for a 20-month 0% card with a 1% one-off fee of the amount that you can transfer, because it would be cheaper for you. And when you do get these cards, make sure you make the minimum repayment at least each month, or you can lose the 0% period. You do the transfer and you want to aim to clear it before the 0% ends. If you can't do that, then you want to do another balance transfer before the 0% ends and hopefully keep the debt at 0% as you're gradually repaying it. And try and repay as much off as you can to clear it during the period, so that you get out of the debt that way.

• 43:28Martin Lewis?

  I hope that helps. Chris and Cody, plural of Esquire?

• 43:32Speaker 05

  Esquires.

• 43:32Martin Lewis?

  Chris and Cody, Esquires.

• 43:37Martin Lewis?

  So Matt, it's the fifth one, normally you throw us in a success here.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 43:42Martin Lewis?

  Is that what we've got today?

• 43:43Speaker 04

  Not this time, actually. So was it last podcast we had Will on, from Ireland, who's moved to London?

• 43:49Martin Lewis?

  Two podcasts ago, I think.

• 43:50Speaker 04

  Two podcasts ago.

• 43:50Martin Lewis?

  Yes, because we did a special Question Time podcast without you last week.

• 43:53Speaker 04

  Oh, yes, so actually, no.

• 43:57Martin Lewis?

  Did everyone just hear how happy Matt was about that? Did you just, did everyone read between the lines? Matt doesn't like Simon doing his Question Time podcast, Simon did a very good job, deal with it, right?

• 44:11Speaker 04

  Deal with it, right, yes. So Will, who is Irish and moved to the UK and wanted to know, he said they didn't have credit, or they didn't really know what credit was and how does he build his credit file?

• 44:22Martin Lewis?

  Because most of the credit rebuild cards require you to have two years of sort of English accounts and to have been here two years before they will give you a card. So I, I gave him lots of suggestions about how he can get his rent account and how to use his Monzo bank account. But I said at that point, and I presume this is where we're going, I said, if you've had this experience, because I don't normally cover people coming from abroad, is there anything I'm missing that could help? And I'm guessing you've had responses on that, have you?

• 44:47Speaker 04

  I have, so quite a few people did get in touch, I picked my favourites.

• 44:51Martin Lewis?

  Thank you very much for doing that, everyone.

• 44:53Speaker 04

  So Mark emailed this one in, he said he moved back to the UK at 18 after growing up in Spain and the credit issue was a bit of a nightmare. He said going from nothing made it very difficult to get started. He said he found the following very helpful to establish a credit rating. He said, open a proper UK bank account.

• 45:09Martin Lewis?

  Yep.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  In brackets, not Monzo.

• 45:11Martin Lewis?

  If you can, yeah.

• 45:12Speaker 04

  If you can. He said he opened a HSBC account and he's had that for 18 years, it's his longest account. And apparently, credit agencies often tell him it's important for his rating.

• 45:21Martin Lewis?

  Well, longevity is, but it doesn't matter that much and you can switch without it being too much of a problem. What I would say is that the, the real key for this is an overdraft facility. And if you'll remember, what I suggested is see if Monzo will give him an overdraft facility. Because the overdraft facility is a form of credit and therefore if you're being responsible with overdraft, that starts to build your credit history. Yeah, thank you. And, and it is a nightmare, I think, for people moving abroad. Do we have any others?

• 45:44Speaker 04

  Well, there's a bit more in his email.

• 45:45Martin Lewis?

  Oh, sorry, I'm sorry.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  So he then says he has a hack for Will's circumstances. Irish citizens are considered settled from an immigration perspective the moment they land in the UK. So assuming that Will had visited the UK before, that would technically get him closer to the two-year mark.

• 46:00Martin Lewis?

  Hmm, that's interesting. You can check that one out, Will. Hopefully Will still, Will listens every week, he was very keen. Because he knew the in full, even though he'd only been in the country a year, I remember.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  Finally, an obscure one that helped me on my credit. At the time, Sheffield Wednesday were selling season tickets on credit and it was 100% guaranteed acceptance. So keep an eye out for things like that, because that really helped and it was only a few hundred pounds.

• 46:21Martin Lewis?

  Wow, that's fascinating. I've never checked that out. It would be interesting to know if they do report to the credit reference agencies. They may well do, lots of forms of credit do, that would be interesting to see. Thank you so much for getting in touch. I love these ones where we have some listeners are helping other listeners out, they're fantastic.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  One from Nat, she's got an interesting one. She said, 30 years ago, she emigrated to the Cheshire part of Greater Manchester.

• 46:42Martin Lewis?

  Quite right.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  Ha, ha, ha, I know you don't think this is part of Cheshire.

• 46:46Martin Lewis?

  Well, I don't, I don't, I think, I think it, no, it's what I call, we discussed this before, I call it Manchester Cheshire, not Cheshire Cheshire. As someone who grew up in Cheshire Cheshire but was born in Manchester and have family who live in Manchester, Cheshire, and say they live in Cheshire, I'm like, if you're in the conurbation of Manchester, if there's no fields between you and the centre of Manchester, you're effectively in Manchester. You might say you're in Cheshire, but you're not really Cheshire. I grew up in a forest. You know, Cheshire's a rural country, you need to be in, and Chester also counts, by the way, as Cheshire.

• 47:16Speaker 04

  Right, anyway, she says she did it at a time when she was asked for a personal reference from her French bank in order to get her first English bank account, so a while ago.

• 47:25Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, it's very difficult, unfortunately, that, that gets much tougher these days because we don't have the personal banking.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  No. She said, wanting to integrate in England, I joined the National Trust. After loops I had to jump through to get a personal bank account, I was surprised and bemused to read a HSBC advertisement stating that any National Trust members will be accepted for their credit card. I dutifully applied and to my amazement, succeeded. I obviously pay it off in full every month.

• 47:51Martin Lewis?

  I love that, that's really, really interesting. I don't know if it still works now.

• 47:55Speaker 04

  She does go on to say, I don't know if it's still possible, but it might be worth investigating.

• 47:59Martin Lewis?

  You never know, or if there's another version out there. I mean, guaranteed acceptance is fascinating, they might give you a very, very small limit. Isn't that interesting? They must have done some credit profiling on National Trust members and decided they wanted them to be into their, into their bank, fascinating.

• 48:15Speaker 04

  Let's do a funny.

• 48:16Martin Lewis?

  Ooh, pure funny.

• 48:18Speaker 04

  Pure funny.

• 48:18Martin Lewis?

  Bold.

• 48:19Speaker 04

  I don't think this is a scant, I think this is funny.

• 48:21Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  So this one's from Jack, he emailed in to Martin whose podcast at bbc.co.uk. He says, Dear Martin and the Sergeant Burnham's Money Saving Sad Farts Club Band.

• 48:30Martin Lewis?

  I like that.

• 48:31Speaker 04

  I think he can see where this is going. I'd love to know, does Martin have a favourite money-themed song? Puns on song titles also accepted. If you want inspiration, Isa Isa Baby.

• 48:42Martin Lewis?

  Stop, collaborate and listen.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  Which you've done before. You Save Me Up.

• 48:46Martin Lewis?

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 04

  Fix Rate You. Coldplay, Fix You?

• 48:49Martin Lewis?

  No, that's beyond my musical knowledge.

• 48:52Speaker 04

  He said, also sticking to a musical theme, I'd like to suggest the title Maestro for the incoming fact checker Isabel, as like a conductor of an orchestra, she silently, not silently anymore, brings order and balance to a symphony of chaotic voices.

• 49:08Martin Lewis?

  I quite like Maestro. You might prefer that to I Band. You prefer Maestro to I Band?

• 49:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it's slightly more.

• 49:14Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, because we can't remember what I Band stands for.

• 49:15Speaker 04

  No, we can never remember.

• 49:17Martin Lewis?

  And we maybe we'll call it Maestro Isabel. I quite like that.

• 49:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, or Maestro for short.

• 49:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:22Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so I'm gonna, let's think. So there are, there are many money songs, obviously. So you've got, of course, our theme tune, which is by Lunch Money Lewis, I Got Bills. I mean, it could not be more appropriate.

• 49:35Speaker 04

  No.

• 49:36Martin Lewis?

  The, the title and the name. So I was thinking, you've got, you've got, Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now? Which is of course, the clash wrote about the decision whether to fix your energy bills in the current crisis.

• 49:46Speaker 04

  Of course, yes.

• 49:47Martin Lewis?

  Of course. You've got the famous Oasis song, Don't Look Back In Anger, which is for anyone who's fixed their mortgage rates, but mortgage rates have dropped afterwards and they're going, oh, in hindsight, it could have been cheaper. But yes, you fix for the sake of surety. So, don't look back in anger. And of course, you have the famous number 27 in, I think it was January 2008, the song, I Fought The Lloyds by Oyster, featuring Martin Lewis. Thank you very much. So that was my, and then obviously I've had my Christmas number one as well, the food aid song, which got to number one in 2022, I think. Lad Baby featuring Martin Lewis in that one.

• 50:30Martin Lewis?

  So, you know, I have actually had two top 40 hits, one with the Christmas number one, which is, I think is more than Mariah Carey. But, but we're not going to talk about that. Now, but the one I would go to is, I'm actually gonna go with If I Was A Rich Man, partly because I like singing it and partly because I saw the brilliant actor Andy Nyman perform this in a version of Fiddler On The Roof. And you know, you have the standard If I Was A Rich Man that goes, if I was a rich man, all day long. And then what Andy Nyman did, which was fascinating, is he took that sort of slightly cabaret

• 51:13Martin Lewis?

  version and he had a man who was working hard with his hams about the pogroms in Russia in the, in the late 19th centuries, the terrible, terrible pogroms that were there. And he starts going, and he's hammering a nail with his bare hand because he's, he's having to do it and he's going, if I were a rich man, all day long. And it's actually a very meaningful and moving song about poverty, which I thought was really fascinating, the way he did it. It totally opened my eyes and changed the way. And if you look at the lyrics, you can sort of see that in there and you could see how it would have been done. So I'm not sure it's a favourite money-themed song, but I think, I think that was, that was a money-themed song that I was really moved by when I saw it.

• 51:58Martin Lewis?

  What about you two? Isabel's just giving me a panic look.

• 52:02Speaker 05

  I can't follow that up.

• 52:03Speaker 04

  Well.

• 52:04Speaker 05

  Really sincere and earnest.

• 52:05Speaker 04

  I know. Well, I was thinking, If I Was A Rich Girl by Gwen Stefani.

• 52:09Speaker 05

  I was gonna say Bills by Destiny's Child.

• 52:13Martin Lewis?

  Fine.

• 52:14Speaker 04

  Very different songs.

• 52:15Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 52:16Speaker 05

  I Fought The Lloyds hit 25 in the charts, not 27.

• 52:19Martin Lewis?

  Okay, I'm not sure we've got time for the full story, but I'll tell you the full story in brief. Here was the issue with I Fought The Lloyds. I jet, I, I am responsible for changing the, the structure of the charts. What year was it? 2008? 2008, I was right. So here's what happened. It was the middle of the bank charges campaign. We'd got people nearly a billion pounds back. This band called Oyster got in touch with me, this song called I Fought The Lloyds and the Lloyds lost. They even paid the interest and the court cost. And it's got some nice lyrics, based on the original I Fought The Law. So they got in touch, I loved it and we decided we'd launch it as a protest song. And at the time, it was when you were paying to download, so it was pre-streaming, it was when you were paying to download MP3s as they were, and that's what was coming into

• 53:04Martin Lewis?

  the charts. So we filmed the video, we got it all right, we went it ready to launch and we very deliberately had it ready to launch in the first week of January, which is the lowest point in the chart period. Yeah, when least are sold, because we wanted to get it really high up the charts. But we launched it four weeks in advance and I part subsidised the cost, so it'd only cost 50p and all, all the money went to charity that we did. So I did it in my weekly email and we got a lot of people paid for it, they, who had got the bank charges back and then understood it was a protest song and it was all about making sure we spread the word about bank charges to get it out there. And we had, we had sold a lot of these songs. I mean, we sold like 40, 50,000 from memory, so a lot of them.

• 53:48Martin Lewis?

  And then we got to the week before the first week of January and the charts put out an announcement saying, it's something like, I'm paraphrasing, so if I've got it wrong, I apologise, something like, due to protest and campaigning songs deliberately trying to manipulate the charts, we are changing what counts in the charts from the number of songs that have been paid for to the number of downloads. Because it had all been on how many had paid for. And they changed that. And then we hastily tried to get the word out to get people to download it. On the number of sales, it would have been number one.

• 54:28Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 54:28Martin Lewis?

  But on the number of downloads, we were only number 27.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  So you got the chart company to single-handedly change that?

• 54:36Martin Lewis?

  Not on purpose, I didn't want them to do it. I don't prefer to say, but I, they never said it was us, but I think it was pretty clear it was us, because it was the week that we were going to be there and we did, we got a number 27. But many years later, I was involved in a Christmas number one, which to my daughter who sings beautifully, and I'm a terrible singer. She sings beautifully. I will say, yeah, but daddy's had a Christmas number one. I think that's a good place to leave it.

• 55:02Martin Lewis?

  And that is 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 podcast 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? Do ensure you send in your questions, just email [email protected] and address them to Dear Martin.

• 55:26Speaker 04

  Dear Matt.

• 55:27Speaker 05

  Dear Isabel.

• 55:28Martin Lewis?

  And don't forget that if you come on the show, we will send you the exclusive Money Can't Buy Martin Lewis Podcast Question Time ESQ badge. Who wouldn't want that?

• 55:53Speaker 05

  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.

• 56:26Martin Lewis?

  Matt, before we finish.

• 56:28Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 56:29Martin Lewis?

  The badges have me in.

• 56:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 56:31Martin Lewis?

  And they've got you in the ellipse.

• 56:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 56:33Martin Lewis?

  Should they have Isabel in too? We may need to think about that for future reprints.

• 56:37Speaker 04

  Okay, when we, when we.

• 56:38Martin Lewis?

  Don't tell anyone. Don't let her hear. She might be sitting next to me, maybe she's not paying attention, although it's literally her job to listen to what I say.

• 56:45Speaker 04

  Is she there?

• 56:45Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 56:49Speaker 00

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