Get travel insurance ASAP or it can be disastrous: when to get it, how to choose, pre-existing conditions & more

27:24You can just switch a SIM very easily for£5 a month. many people get all the data that they need check your check your direct debits and standing orders on your all your online banking to check that you're not paying for things that you don't need want or use anymore go through every single thing that you are spending money on and say can i do it cheaper can i do it better i mean people always when i have to do newspapers they what's your one money tip and i'm like i don't do it like that it's about bespoke specific detailed but the one tip if i have to my answer is never assume that you can't save money something on something without checking it.

27:56That's my one, you know, I've had to bring it down into one thing. Right, shall I do one? Arga. I'm a shopaholic and impulse buyer, so imagine me now drawing big sales everywhere. I've decided this year I will buy nothing. I'm going to use all my perfume cosmetics and once it's finished only will I buy new. Perfect. Really important. Lots of people do no spend days, by the way, which is a big New Year's resolution. You could take two days in the week and say you won't spend. It becomes habit forming and people spend less if you want to cut back. But so much using your stock, whether it's your stock in your kitchen cupboard, it's your stock of make-up or cosmetics.

28:30So many people buy new when they've got lots of bottles around. I like that one. Bitcoin. Vlad says the goal this year is to shift as much as my banking structures to the Bitcoin standard. Funds we can save away for four years minimum will go into the set and forget BTC wallets. I understand about, I don't know, 80 % of the words in that. I mean, what he's just saying is I'm going to move more of my assets into Bitcoin. Now, look, I'm always very careful on this. I don't cover investments. I don't cover speculation. I don't cover currency trading. And that means I do not cover Bitcoin. Bitcoin, for those people who've had it, has done very well over the past few years.

29:06And many people have made lots of money out of it. It is a highly volatile place to put your money. You may make a fortune from it. You may lose a fortune from it. You have to decide what's right for you. And what the regulator would always say is do not put more money in than you can afford to lose. so it's a perfectly legitimate resolution. There were many Bitcoin resolutions that came out there because you go onto social media, it's full of Bitcoin evangelists and they're trying to get the point of gloss. I'm glad we've read one but I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave that one for other programmes.

29:36Okay. Natasha says, Clear credit cards by the end of the month and I'm in super safe mode. My partner and I are able to buy a house, both 36. We set goals for all areas of our lives including shared goals like this. Sounds sensible. I've got two Liz's who are opposed to each other. First Liz with the double Z, save as much as possible, sell unwanted items on vintage meal plan and try not to eat anything processed. The other Liz, spend as much as possible and enjoy every day. I've got to be honest, I'm more on the first one because that is my job. Spending as much as possible and enjoy every day is good, but one also does have to hope for the best and plan for the worst.

30:14We need some money aside for our futures and for poor eventualities. So spending everything and as much as possible, I have struggled with that slightly.

30:24More of the questions. We started on this before Christmas, and we can actually do it all year. It's just a chance for people to say, look, I really don't understand. How does this work? Susan, I really don't understand pension credit. If you're a couple getting old age pension, you do not qualify. So who does? Well, the question is slightly wrong. If you are a couple or single and you get the full new state pension, you are right, because that's£221, you will not qualify for pension credit, which is£218, unless you have high housing costs, unless you have a disability. You still may qualify even on that income, but generally you won't.

31:09The pension credit is quite a poor name. I mean, I would call it a state pension top-up. That's what it is. It's a top up of your state pension income and other income if you do not have enough total income. The general rule is around£218 a week for a single pensioner. Now, one of the things I picked apart on the winter fuel payment, because of course it's the pension credit that gives you eligibility for winter fuel payment, now it's means tested, is first of all, remember, I said two operative words there, the full new state pension. Let's do full first. To get the full state pension, you need enough qualifying national insurance years.

31:47They come from work or looking after children or being registered in other ways. As a very rough rule of thumb, you need 35 years. It's not 35. Many people have more and not get the full amount. But that's sort of a totem. Let's say 35 years. Lots of people don't have 35 years. So they may get the new state pension, but they don't get the full new state pension. And if they don't have any other income, that means their income will be less than the pension credit threshold and they will be entitled. The second operative word is new. The new state pension came in in April 2016 for all people who retired after that point.

32:23For those who'd retired before, they are still on the old, also known as the basic state pension, which is a lot lower. So if you only get the basic state pension, even if you get the full state pension, then you would be entitled to pension credit if you didn't have any other income. So your question is right, but I need to be technical. If I were on the full new state pension, did not have disabilities, did not have high housing costs, and did not qualify under a few of the other exemptions, you would not get pension credit. So the argument is, what it's there to do is to put everybody up to, close to, the full state pension if you don't have any other money.

33:01I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm just saying that's how it works. Aled, it's quite dark this, I don't know why I'm laughing. At what point in the future does energy bills just become unaffordable? Continued rises year on year and more unable to pay. Is this the plan, though? Make it unaffordable and that way people will leave this earth quicker. It is dark and I need to be straight. It's also, again, the question is wrong. I understand why people feel that energy costs have gone up year on year. And certainly, if we compare where we are now to before the energy crisis started back in the winter of 2021, they are around 70 % higher.

33:46But I've got in front of me the typical use price cap levels. I don't like using typical use, but it just helps me explain the point here. So this is what Offgem defines as a typical user. There isn't such a thing. How much they would have spent. Now, just to get this really complicated for people, Ofgem's typical use definitions have changed over the years because the energy crisis means people are using less energy. So what it defines as a typical user has gone less. So there was a point when the price cap under the energy price guarantee was£2 ,500. That's what the typical use was quoted. But because the typical use is now lower, my figures recalibrate that based on today's typical use.

34:23Right. So winter 2020, 2021, the price cap was 993. The next winter, it was 1 ,216. The next winter, the price cap was 4 ,000, but the energy price guarantee meant in practice it was 2 ,380. That was the high point. Winter a year ago, it was 1 ,928. This year, it's 1 ,717. seven. So we are paying less than we did last winter, and last winter was less than the winter before. So while it may feel energy is constantly getting more expensive, and energy is certainly absolutely more expensive than it should be, it is incorrect to say that it is continuing to get more expensive. We now start to have the point where we've got some moderately competitive tariffs.

35:13You know, the energy price cap went up 1 % in January. It's currently predicted to go up by 2 % to 5 % in April, but you can currently get a fix at 6 % less than the current energy price cap. So you could bring the price down yourself if you go into a whole of market price comparison. As for what's going to happen to the future of energy, as I always say, I look at consumer prices, I don't look at generation. Clearly, there are many different arguments. Hopefully, you know, we're investing a lot in renewables. Some would argue that will bring the price down. Others would say, no, you need to stick with fossil fuels to bring the price down.

35:43I'm going to avoid all of that. What I would say, it is not by definition the case that energy will continue to get more expensive year on year. That hasn't been the past pattern. I think it is unlikely for it to ever go as cheap as it was before the energy crisis. But we are still now, I go back to the current cap on typical usage is 1717. On the same, if we hadn't had the energy price guarantee, which was, you know, the price protection, it would have been over 4 ,000, but in reality, it went to 2 ,380. So it has come down, although it's still horrible.

36:25So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Martin's Money Mastermind, which Adrian is going to play. He has done 12 of them so far, which he did in 2024. His record for that year, He finished off with four correct and eight wrong. Now, as this is generally three option multiple choice, that is exactly on random chance. Random chance. I'll settle for that. If we had had a monkey choosing by which hairs it plucked out of its backside and dropped onto some random ABC selector, it has done about this. Adrian has done about as well. Okay. Congratulations. Let's hope this year you can beat random chance. Okay.

37:03Adrian, and for those who don't know, if you're new to the podcast or new to the Five Live section, there's always a nice warm set-up where I compliment Adrian in many, many ways on the way that he works. Adrian, as you know, dogs, like humans, are pack animals. And clearly, off-air, many people won't know this, you are the alpha of the Radio Five Live presenter pack. Yes, folks, our Adrian is near feral with testosterone and competitiveness. I have seen Nicky Campbell quiver at the mere mention of your name. I've seen you quiet and nagger manchetti with just a half-raised eyebrow. And listeners, when Adrian finishes his slot, new presenter Matt Chorley now comes into the studio holding out a treble espresso for Mr Charles before he starts giving him his rubdown.

37:52Yes, Adrian, the alpha male. That's true of everyone, apart from Rachel Burden. She's not having it. She won't accept my authority. Really, we need to work on that. We can do some coaching. However, it's not just Rachel, it's not true of. When Adrian goes home, his cat doesn't even acknowledge him. So that brings me on to today's question. It was a very loose setup, but there we go. Today's question. If you have a cat and a dog, neither are well behaved, both go out separately and cause havoc, damaging the property of neighbours down your street, one down one end, one down the other end of the street, Are you legally liable for the damage that they cause?

38:32Now, unfortunately I had to do four options this week so it does slightly break my normal three rule. A, yes, but only for the damage from the dog. B, yes, but only for the damage from the cat. C, yes, for the damage of both. D, no, you're not liable for your animal's behaviour. you i think i thought that's my only fact that's very good thank you um i've got a dog my dog goes don't say you haven't got don't say you haven't got a cat because people have realized i just completely make the setup up no i haven't okay i'll get one if you told me earlier okay i haven't I've got one this morning. If my dog toddles off down the road and then chews up a deck chair in somebody's back garden, I mean, I would.

39:25But they bought in an auction for£4 ,500. No, I don't. I mean, I would pay because I'm a good man. Are you legally? I don't think I'm legally obliged for either the damage of a cat or a dog. So your answer is C. Although, no, that was D. Neither cat nor dog. Sorry, it's D. Neither cat nor dog. But on the other hand, if my dog sort of hurt somebody... Hurt goes in as well? Hurt somebody. Then I can't believe I'm not responsible as the owner of the dog. So if it was hurting a person rather than property... So I'm changing my answer. I'm going for just dog, which is A. A, only the dog's damage. Well, you are correct that if your dog damaged an individual or their property, you would be liable.

40:18Right. And you have legal liability for the behaviour of your dog. But if you had a cat, you would not be liable. So play the hallelujah. Hallelujah. Yes. You're properly happy about that, aren't you? So my... I need to explain this a bit more. So under the law, cats are free spirits. Dogs are not free spirits. So you cannot be responsible for the behaviour of your cat. That's why cats are allowed to go running out. But dogs are not deemed. You're deemed legally responsible. The difference in the behaviour between the two things, you keep your dog on the lead, you take it out, you decide whether it goes out of the house or not.

40:57You can't control a cat that much. Now, this is quite important because it means that you should have third-party liability for your dog. Now, if you have pet insurance, it would generally, check, but it would generally have third-party liability. If not, you can buy a standalone third-party liability policy from the Dogs Trust. And most dog owners should have that policy in case it damages another individual or somebody else's property, but you don't need it for a cat. Excellent. I even got it right. So I'm doing better than the monkey picking hairs out of the fundament. so I'm actually made up.

41:34In fact, I might just talk about myself and my brilliance or my better-than-mediocrity for the remaining two and a half minutes we have. No, you won't, Adrian. You may be able to do that when we're on Five Live, but not on this podcast. I think it's time to move on to something else. Now, we still have a whole stock of your questions that you've sent in about what's the stuff about finance that you just don't understand and would like to. So I've got podcast producer Simon with me. Simon, what's come in? Yeah, we've got loads of extra questions actually still to do. Craig sent this one in. Car insurance should be investigated.

42:12Why, if you have a non-fault accident, are they now jacking your premiums up? Surely this is wrong. The government says you have to have insurance, so it must bear some responsibility for what I can only describe as legalised robbery. OK, I'm going to explain rather than justify why that happens. I think one thing I would pick up is you're saying now this has longer been the case. This is not a new thing. Insurance pricing is based on actuarial risk. So that's very clever people sitting in rooms working out the risk of things happening in different situations. So it's one of the reasons why, bizarrely, some people may be able to pay less for comprehensive insurance than they do just for third party insurance, even though comprehensive insurance covers you for many, many more things.

42:55The reason for that's quite simple. In some cases, they look at the actuarial risk of the fact that you've selected comprehensive insurance means that you're likely to be a lower risk than had you selected third party insurance. And therefore, the fact that you're a lower risk on pricing outweighs the fact that you're getting more cover. I mean, it really can work like that. It's rare, but it happens. A similar example is the fact that I often tell people that you want to be getting quotes for your new insurance around 21 to 26 days before your current policy lapses. Why should that make a difference?

43:30Well, actuarily, the type of people who get policy quotes at that time tend to be a lower risk than the people who leave it till the last minute. So once you start to see what I'm talking about in risk tables, you will understand that even if it is a no fault accident, actuarily the fact that you've been in a no-fault accident increases the prospective future risk that you may be in a no-fault accident again because you put yourself in situations where a no-fault or you're in an area where no-fault accident happens then it can increase the risk tables based on insuring you it is incredibly frustrating that that happens but that is why it is happening and it has long happened by that.

44:15Now we have had some rules and regulations about what is allowed in actuarial risk and what isn't allowed. So we had gender equalisation. You know, car insurance used to be a lot cheaper for young women than for young men because there were more boy racers who were boys than there were boy racers who were girls. So it used to be cheaper, but now you have to charge everybody the same for insurance based on gender. You can't discriminate over gender. So whether it's allowed or not, you're right. You might want to argue that shouldn't happen but that is currently allowed to happen and why the pricing differs good stuff paul wants to know if you pay part by credit card and part by other payment methods does section 75 protect full purchase price or just the part you pay by credit card section 75 states that if you pay for an item and the item costs between a hundred pounds and thirty thousand pounds and you pay on a credit card.

45:04The credit card company is jointly liable with the retailer for the purchase. So if the retailer were to go bust, you have exactly the same rights with the credit card companies you did with the retailer. Even if the retailer doesn't go bust, you can go to the credit card company. It is huge financial jujitsu and extra protection. Now, the rule specifically states that if you pay for any amount on a credit card, the credit card company is liable for the whole amount. So I always tell this anecdotal story because it happened and a lady got in touch. She'd bought a kitchen cost. I can't remember the exact amount.

45:37Let's call it 12 grand. She'd put a 200 quid deposit on her credit card. She'd paid the rest by bank transfer. The kitchen company went bust. So she went to the credit card company wanting all the 16 grand back. She went to the credit card company and the credit card company said no. No surprise there. So following my information on my site. She then went on to the financial ombudsman, took it to the financial ombudsman and the financial ombudsman said, yes, you are entitled to all the money for the entire amount and got some compensation on the back of the way it had been treated. So under the law, under section 75, even if you were to put one penny on the credit card for something costing £10 ,000, then it would have section 75 coverage.

46:20Now, there are other things that break section 75. so if you're buying for an agency and bizarrely some payment mechanisms count as an agency if you're not buying if somebody's using a second card on a credit card and they're not buying something that you benefit from all of those things can stop Section 75 working but big picture you do not have to pay for all the item on the credit card and the credit card company is still liable for the entire item so one way of protecting yourself even if you don't want to pay on credit card is put a little bit on the credit card Alfie's asked us a question that actually links back to the main programme please educate us about car hire when we're on holiday specifically about insurance how do we get the best deal please so one of those real hard sells that many people will experience is you go you get your car hire you've booked it you've been on a comparison site you've done it early to bring the price down when you arrive at the desk they say oh hold on hold on first of all they'll talk about the fuel you're going to have to fill it yourself you'll pay a lot and then they say have have you got insurance?

47:14You say, no, I thought it was covered. And they say, well, if you have a scratch, if you have a damage, it's very expensive. It commonly happens. You won't be covered by the breakdown policy. And it could cost you hundreds of pounds. But if you get this insurance policy, you won't need to. And they give you a really hard sell on getting car hire insurance. And I've watched many people at car hire desks over the years pushed in and get scared into it. So what is the solution? The solution is before you go, get yourself a standalone car hire insurance policy. There's a website Money Maxim that is a comparison site for these.

47:50You could also, if you get car hire regularly, get an annual policy, a bit like we talked about with travel insurance. What happens then is when you go and if you were to get the car hire, if you were to have a problem, you would have to pay the excess, but you could claim it back from one of these standalone policies. Now, when you do have one of those policies, you will say that. And many of the car hire firms will say, oh, no, no, that's not good enough. And you still won't have ours and it still won't work. And they'll say, and if you still say, no, I don't want your excess insurance policy, which is what they're offering you, because the basic collision damage waiver policy that you do get.

48:26Then I'll say, right, well, you need to leave a deposit of 1200 euros and on a credit card. And you say, here's my debit card. They say, no, a credit card. You say, I've only got a debit card. It has to be a credit card. So you need a credit card. And then you say, OK, here's my wife's credit card. Well, no, you booked it. And you're going, but no, you booked it. It has to be in your name. So sometimes they say it has to be in your name. Sometimes they say it has to be in the driver's name. So if you're going to do this, you need to make sure you've got a credit card. And generally, I would always have the person who booked it and the person who's driving being the same person.

48:57And they should be the one with the credit card. And that way, you're able to use your standalone policy that might cost you two quid a day as opposed to 20 quid a day. And you still have the same peace of mind, but it costs you a fraction of the price. Often these firms, you know, the insurance can be as much as the car hire if you're not careful, if you've got a cheap policy. Perfect. We've got a Lifetime ISA question from Mark. Okie dokes. My sons have a first-time buyer at Moneybox Lysa. When buying their first home, can they leave, say,£1 ,000 in there and carry on saving for their pension while still receiving the max uplift?

49:31Well, it won't be saving for a pension, it'll be saving for their old age. The lifetime ISA has two purposes. It gives you a bonus if you're a first time buyer buying a property that costs under£450 ,000. You get a 25 % bonus on top of everything you've saved in there. You also get that bonus at age 60. So it's a saving for your older age. now so that's what you're talking about the pension element and yes you can use it for both so if you got a lifetime isa if you then used some or all of the money and you could use all of the money for in your lifetime isa for a first-time property you can continue to save in the lifetime isa and you can then never buy another property with it to get the bonus but you could get the bonus at age 60 i would caution you though that the reason many mainstream providers do not offer lifetime ISAs.

50:20And interestingly, the Treasury Committee is doing research on this at the moment, and I'm just doing a submission and talking to them about it. The reason that many, and they're doing on the whole of lifetime ISAs, you say not just this element, many major providers don't offer lifetime ISAs is they're very worried that they will get done for mis-selling on pensions. Because as a general rule of thumb, a normal pension, if you are an employee, because of the auto-enrolment and the fact that if you put in via your company pension, your employer has to put money in too. Employees, you will almost certainly be better off in a normal pension than you would putting your money in a lifetime ISA, as long as you're in auto-enrolment, as long as it's contributing or matching contributions.

51:01If you're self-employed, if you are a top or higher rate taxpayer, 45 or 40 % taxpayer, then the benefits, the tax benefits of putting money in a pension as the scheme currently looks, would easily outweigh the tax benefits of saving in a lifetime ISA. It is only for those who are self-employed and basic 20 % rate taxpayers where you're starting to look at the benefits of a lifetime ISA being roughly akin to the benefits of putting money in a pension. So while you may be able to continue doing so, I would urge you to first look at whether you would be better in your scenario just increasing the amount that you put in your workplace pension or if you're self-employed, saving more in a state pension rather than putting the extra money in a lifetime ISA.

51:46For some people, the lifetime ISA will work. Certainly if you've maxed out your state pension, you can't do anything else, but not for everybody. They were really good questions. Maybe we'll keep doing a few more of those over the year, Simon. What do you reckon? Yeah, it sounds really good.

52:01Now, before we started the show, Adrian and I were chatting about his panorama about e-bikes and rules and regulations on the road. And actually, there's a financial angle to this too, as I pointed out. Now, just before we start, I saw your very interesting panorama, well, I saw the last 10 minutes of it, being honest, on e-bikes and all those things the other day. And there's a financial element of the behaviour of e-bikes. Yes, you know, do you get this? Are you like ordinary mortals? You do a story and then it goes out. I did with this panorama about e-bikes. And then it's only after it's gone out you realise, oh, hang on, we should have said that, could have said that.

52:39That's an interesting angle. You learn more about it through doing it. And you've just made an excellent point about e-bikes. Well, I'll make my point and then I'll answer your question. Yeah. So my point about e-bikes is many of the e-bikes and the e-scooters which have very similar issues. We're talking about the city rental ones. The city rental ones, which are often the ones I tend to find when someone's running over a red light or pushing into you or not riding very well. They tend to be on a rented bike because you know the brands. They incentivise people to break the law because the pricing is time-based.

53:11The longer your journey takes, the more you pay. Therefore, if you're doing this on a budget, if you run the red light, if you go quickly, if you nip on the pavement to avoid the corner, you're going to save yourself money. So I think there's an issue for me in the pricing algorithms and the way that the pricing works because it incentivises bad behaviour. Now, that is, of course, not saying everybody who rents these will behave in that way, but it is a push factor towards behaving in a way that makes people on these rented bikes behave less well and stick to the rules of the road and the rules that keep other people safe less well.

53:45So I think I would suggest that we look at those algorithms. And on the other question, are you an ordinary mortal? Yes and no. Not because of any superhuman genius, but because I think I'm probably allowed to talk about it in this context. Obviously, I have the website. So first of all, the website gives me huge amounts of data and I have big social media reach. So my process when I'm doing something new is I will often be writing it, think of something, put a question out there on social media or on the website in the preliminary search phase. so I will be I will be canvassing public opinion on something before I'm actually going out and coming out with my full this is how it works I always remember my council tax stories even pre the internet when I first came up with my council tax check and challenge system I came up with the system I put it in my forum in a very small way and said if anyone wants to experiment and have a go at this and about 100 people tried they came back to me then I wrote a small article on the site that didn't push that well again almost saying it's a beta it's a test let me know I mean that I haven't dotted every I crossed every T.

54:48By the time I then published it and then four weeks later did the biggest show I've ever done, which was a Tonight with Trevor McDonald, six and a half million people on why hundreds of thousands of homes are in the wrong council tax bands and can get money back. By then, I'd already done all the feedback. So I work in reverse, which is my advantage because of the different reach I have, not because of genius.

55:10Okay, you lucky, lucky podcast listeners. It's that time of the show where I give you tips that are just for you. I know! How exciting! I'm going to do two today. First of all, there are two new longest 0 % balance transfer cards. Both give you 31-month interest-free on debt that you shift to them. That's the longest that we've seen available since the middle of 2023. So what's a balance transfer? It's where you get a new credit card to pay off debts on your existing credit card, so you owe the new credit card instead but at no interest. That means more of your repayments reduce the actual debt rather than just covering the interest so you get debt-free quicker.

55:52And January is debt month. It's when people are sorting out their finances so lenders are pumping out the strongest suite of deals right now so it is a very good time to be doing a balance transfer. Don't wait for your credit card statements for this one. Each day if you're paying interest on your credit card you are accumulating more interest. The sooner that you do this the better and as I always say, if you can't afford to clear the debt on your credit cards and you're paying interest, then you can't afford not to check if you can shift it to 0%. I'd strongly recommend you use an eligibility calculator on a comparison site which will show you which of the top cards you're most likely to get without affecting your credit file because you want to minimise applications so knowing which one you're more likely to be accepted for is worthwhile.

56:34I'd also suggest you go for the lowest fee card because most balance transfer cards charge you a one-off fee of the amount of debt you've shifted. So if it's a 1 % fee and you shift a grand, it's an extra£10 that you pay on top. You want the lowest fee in the time you're sure that you'll be able to clear off the debt. So if you can clear it in 20 months, you're looking for the lowest fee card that will give you 20 months or more. If you're not sure how long it'll take you, just go long because the fee, it's not worth trying to cut the fee. If you're going to need longer, you're better to just keep the 0 % period.

57:06So what are the cards out there? I'll run through them quickly. I won't dot all the I's and T's just to give you an idea of what you need to look up. These are all newbie balance transfers, 0 % balance transfers. You have MBNA, which, depending on where you get it, is up to 31 months 0 % with a 3.2 % fee. Though it is an up to card, which means some who get accepted will get a shorter 0%. You've got Barclay card, which is up to 31 months 0 % with a 3.45 % fee. depending where you get it you also get cash back of 20 or 25 quid if you're shifting over two and a half thousand pounds so i would suggest if you're shifting over two and a half grand and you're likely to get that credit limit barclay card beats mbna for the longest if you're not mbna beats barclay card for the longest tesco bank is a couple of months shorter at 29 months 0 % but the fees lower at 2.95 % and it's a definite 29 months in other words unlike barclay card and which are up to cards.

58:06With this card, if you're accepted, you'll definitely get the 29 months 0%. So if an eligibility calculator is telling you that you've got a high chance and you're not pre-approved for the other cards, this is the safer bet because if you do get accepted, you will get the 29 months. As I shift down, for much shorter, Tesco has another card, also definite 18 months 0 % here, so a lot shorter than the 29 months, but the fee is just 1%. So if you can pay much quicker, that would work. And if you can pay really quickly, Barclay Card has an up to 14 months 0 % card, which is the longest no-fee balance transfer on the market.

58:44If you are going to get a balance transfer card, I have a few golden rules for you. I'm going to talk about these in more detail in future because we will do a programme on debt where I go in a lot more detail. But just quickly, first of all, never miss your minimum monthly repayment. If you do, you can lose the 0 % and start having to pay the 25 % standard representative APR. Clear the debt before the 0 % ends too, or again, after that, it'll jump to the standard 25 % representative APR. Do not spend. Do not withdraw cash on these cards because it's not normally at the cheap 0 % rate. And make sure you do the transfer at the application.

59:20If not, you've generally between 60 and 90 days to get it done or you lose that option. And I should say, if you have a poor credit score, then the eligibility calculator, there are some poor credit score as balance transfers, depending on your situation, whether you can get 16 months 0 % with a higher fee or nine months 0 % that are available at the moment. So go back to what I said at the beginning. If you can't afford to clear your debt and you're paying interest on it, then you can't afford not to check if you may be able to get a 0 % balance transfer credit card. And tip number two, 5.4 million people have not filed their 2023 tax return yet.

59:56Do it as soon as possible or you're risking a hundred quid fine and interest of 7.25 % on top if you don't pay the amount that you owe. So who needs to do this? Well, the simple answer is if you've been told to file a self-assessment tax return, you have to file a self-assessment tax return. It's as simple as that. There's no, I shouldn't have been told. Well, maybe you shouldn't have been told. Maybe you can suggest next year you don't get one. But if you've been told, you have to do it. Plus, you may need to do it voluntarily if you are self-employed, earned over£150 ,000, earned over£50 ,000 and get child benefit, or you have over£10 ,000 in savings interest.

1:00:32The deadline is the 31st of January, so there's still a little bit of time, but I would strongly urge you to get on with it now. If you need to call HMRC, the nearer you get to the deadline, the more clogged up their phone lines will be. The sooner you do it, the sooner you are helping yourself. and a final tip even if you haven't done the tax return and you haven't got everything right right by the deadline and you have to pay the hundred pound fine pay them roughly the tax that you think you owe just make the payment of the tax you think you owe because that way once it is all sorted later that will reduce let's say let's make it very simple you pay them eight grand and your total tax you should pay is ten grand well then ultimately you would only pay the 7.25 late payment interest on the two grand you haven't paid, even if you haven't done your tax return.

1:01:22So just get it done. Get it done. I know it's a pain in the... But get it done.

1:01:30That's it for this week. If you've enjoyed it, please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast and that they should have a listen too and you should all subscribe so you don't miss it and your pockets will be pleased with you. If you've not enjoyed it, then just tell them you've been listening to Sophie Ellis-Bexter's kitchen disco on BBC Sounds. I was going to have a disco in my kitchen, but we haven't put all the utensils away. I decided it just wasn't worth the whisk. See you soon. Sorry. I got meals. I gotta pay. So I'm gonna work for the world every day. I got a mouth.

1:02:10I gotta feed. So I'm going to make sure everybody eats

1:02:42I got bills, I gotta pay

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