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

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1:49Martin Lewis:Hello, this is the Martin Lewis Podcast Question Times Edition. If you've got any questions you'd like to ask, please record them now. Boom! I don't recall the child benefit form explaining clearly what you could be missing out on. What are my consumer rights if there's something wrong with the game? You're going to need some specialised help. Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our Question Time edition, where you get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets.

2:20Martin Lewis:This week, it's a geek-tastic pod. Yes, some of the questions have gone seriously to Nerdville, and I have to tell you, I've enjoyed it. The questions were, should I wait till April to change my broadband to avoid price hikes? Can I back claim child benefit now I know I'm eligible? Why did my 7 % regular savers account only pay me half that in interest? If I buy credits to get a game, and then it's faulty, can I get a refund in cash? I have a disability, so I need others to drive me in my car. How do I get insurance? and Martin, what do you think of the Dead Ringer's impression of you? Play the theme tune.

3:09Martin Lewis:Hello everybody and welcome to this week's Question Time edition and back with us again. it's the curator of questions himself Doctor Professor Sir Matthew Burnham Esquire Let's just keep adding titles until you run out What was that? Doctor Professor Sir Matthew Burnham Esquire All of which I should note technically are false titles but it's an honorific and why not You weren't with us last week Matt I was not Did you listen to Question Time while you were off? No I didn't though Matt I know I mean Simon did a great job and we made a couple of jokes about you and you didn't get them to hear them So are you going to tell me what the jokes are?

3:51Martin Lewis:No, you need to go back and listen You can go back and listen on two times speed You're very capable of doing that but you should have listened I should have listened I hope you were doing something that was extremely good fun if you felt you shouldn't listen to the Question Time podcast I was actually So when we record this on the Thursday I was at a wedding My partner's friend was getting married Okay I think that's a good excuse I mean it's a perfectly reasonable excuse but I mean there's been another six days since then you could have listened to the it's a podcast it's not a radio programme you don't have to catch it live that is true and I could listen on my walk into work you could have listened on your walk into work well maybe next week we'll discuss last week's podcast okay you're going to quiz me alright I hope you're well buddy what have you got for me this week shall we start with a question on broadband this one is from Jamie he's Ian Wedding to martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk he starts Dear Martin and in brackets, care of Matt, couldn't think of a smart slash amusing way of addressing you both.

4:47Sorry. That's fine. That's fine. You've got the dear Martin. That's what matters. Maybe a funny one does help, but I'll just take that. He says, my broadband deal is coming to an end at the start of next month, early March, and I'm looking to switch.

5:00Martin Lewis:I've got the question in front of me here now, and you missed a line. I like that line. Why have you missed that line? Where have I... Sorry, I did. He says, I hope you both well, love the podcast, Yes, and thank you for the money-saving help over the years. Thank you very much. My broadband deal is coming to an end at the start of next month, early March, and I'm looking to switch. I am, of course, utilising a well-known comparison site, unnamed, to find the best deals, in my case, around£20 a month. However, almost all the cheapest providers are ramping up their prices in April, usually by£4 or so.

5:34For the prices I've seen, this is around 15%, way above inflation. When my current deal expires, I'll go on to a rubbish rate around£20 a month over what I could pay if I switch to a new provider. But am I better to wait until April? I know if I sign up for a new provider now, the price will go up then. But will the price of new deals go up by that much when it gets to April?

5:59Martin Lewis:What an interesting question. So, yes, you're quite right. most companies now have to obey the Ofcom pound and pens rule that says that if they're going to increase prices during the contractual period then they have to tell you in advance of exactly in pounds of pens how much that hike will be. And the net effect of that has been we see even bigger mid-contract price rises than we did before. They're now transparent but they're bigger than before when it was just linked to inflation plus a few percent. And certainly for those people who have relatively cheap deals the effect of the price hike, a 4 % price hike, I mean, 15 % is way above inflation.

6:36Martin Lewis:Inflation is around 3%. So even if it were to be 3 % plus 3%, that'd be 6%. That isn't 15%. So yeah, I mean, we've discussed ad nauseum on the main pod, my problems with the Ofcom regime on this, and I don't think they've got the right solution, but it is what it is. So this question is really interesting. Effectively, you're saying there are cheap broadband deals now. I know they're going to go up, But if I wait until April, will they still be the same prices now? And they'll only be telling me they're going to go up by£4 in the following April. And therefore, I will have longer on a shorter price pan.

7:08Martin Lewis:And my answer to that, which is a really clever question, Jamie, is I don't know. And that's because the way the broadband market works is based on short term promotional deals. Right. You always want to be going via a comparison site or a site that does comparisons in the least. because what most broadband companies do is on their own sites, they have to offer existing customers the same deal that they're giving new customers. And they do that by tariffs. But then what they do on the comparison sites is they use marketing or incentives. So it could be they're giving you a£50 Amazon voucher or£100 prepaid card.

7:46Martin Lewis:And that's how they get price competitive on the comparison sites where there's more elasticity of demand, where people who are price sensitive are going. Now, the way they set those prices is both in relation to their own underlying price, but also to the prevailing market conditions at the time. So if you're lucky enough to spot it when there's a price war and they're all going for it, then I think it is perfectly possible after April you will be able to get a deal that net over the two-year contract, including the price rises, is cheaper than the deals that are available right now. But I can't guarantee it and I can't guarantee when.

8:23Martin Lewis:Now, one of the interesting things about this, because of the way compliance works, I have to be careful what I say. Let's say there are websites out there that send out emails each week, right? And they have lots of people who read them. When they cover broadband, then often what the providers will do once they know they're covering broadband is they will all try and give promo prices so that they can be cheapest on that particular week. and that will often move markets when there are sites that do that type of thing who are covering those subjects. So it really will depend on that type, I hope it makes sense of that, on that type of coverage, whether that's happening in April or not, whether that's a top story or not in the various different places that do this.

9:08Martin Lewis:The safest thing to do, £20 a month with it going up by£4 or so, £24 is not bad for broadband. Most people are paying 50, 60 quid and I bet you're getting a faster speed. So the bird in the hand thing would be just to do it now. But if you want to be dicey, live life on the edge, you could wait and hope in April it gets cheaper. It is certainly not implausible that that will happen, but I just can't give you a firm answer because we're not there yet. Is that a good answer? Matt, what do you think of that answer, Matt? I'm a bit confused. I can't lie. Tell me why. So he's asking if he stays for another month and then gets a new broadband deal.

9:47Is that what he's asking?

9:47Martin Lewis:Yeah, so what he's saying is, let's say he's paying£20 a month now. His contract's going to end now, and so next month he'll pay£40. Right. Right. He's saying, should I wait, pay one month of£40, and then in April, will there be deals now that are cheaper? Because what's happening now is he's signing up for a deal for£20, but he's being told it's going up£4 in April. So in reality, for most of the first year of his contract, he's paying£24 a month. but he's saying but if I waited till April because I only put next price hacks up in April will I just be able to get a deal at£20 a month and it won't be the£4 higher and I'm saying well it depends and I think actually you've crystallised this for me in a way because I think what we actually have to factor in is it has to be over£20 cheaper over the next two years for it to be worth you holding off because you're going to pay£20 a month for the cost of waiting one month to get the new deal I would say on the balance of probabilities, I don't know, but on the balance of probabilities, if there's a good cheap deal available that's right for you at the moment, I'd go and get the good cheap deal that's available that's right for you at the moment and just accept that you're going to have those price heights coming in.

11:01Martin Lewis:I quite like that nerdy one to start. I do like a geeky one, Matt. Next one, I'm guessing, is a caller. Well, normally, yes. But this question I like so much. and I asked Jennifer, who emailed in, if she could come on and she's got meetings, she's too busy and I was like, but I really want to get you on so why don't you record the question, we'll play it and then you can answer her question. So it's a voice note. It's a voice note. It's a voice note. It's almost like a caller because all of this is recorded, but it's not.

11:38Martin Lewis:Hello, this is the Martin Lewis Podcast Question Times edition. If you've got any questions you'd like to ask, please record them now. Hi Martin and Mr Burnham Esquire, Jennifer here from Manchester. I've been following Martin from the very start, so I consider myself pretty financially savvy. But something in your recent podcast got me thinking I've missed something and now I'm wondering if to kick myself. I had my child in 2021 and I opted out of child benefits because I had understood I wasn't eligible. I think I earned around£60 ,000 at the time. I wonder if I would have been eligible for something at a reduced rate having listened to your podcast but have I now lost the opportunity to claim child benefits for the past five years?

12:26From 2021 to 2024 I was operating on about one to two hours interrupted sleep per night and that was on the good nights. I don't recall the child benefit form explaining clearly to a sleep deprived parent what you could be missing out on or that there are stepped benefits depending on your income. From what I've seen it seems that you only have three months to claim backdated payments which isn't a very long time. I'm also wondering if perhaps the thresholds for claiming child benefits have changed since 2021 but I'd be grateful for your clarification. I don't know if it makes a difference. My husband's salary was lower than mine in 2021.

13:12It would have been higher than£50 ,000 though. Thanks so much for everything that you do. I really appreciate it.

13:20Martin Lewis:Oh, thank you, Jennifer. And thank you so much for your voicemail question. Right, let's go through this. Yes, things have changed since then. When you were first claiming, The rule is always it's based on if you're a couple, it's based on the highest earners income. So the second earner is irrelevant. It's the highest earners income that matters. So that's you. When in 2021, when you started claiming this, the rule was you started to lose, effectively lose. It comes back through a charge through the tax system. But let's not worry about that. Let's just work about whether you would net gain from it.

13:53Martin Lewis:You started lose child benefit at £50 ,000 and you lose it totally at£60 ,000 of highest earners income. That changed and it's something, the whole highest earner thing is something I have a real problem about. It's completely unfair on single parent families and single earner families. But hey, we won't do that now. Because of campaigning on that, in April 2024, they did change the thresholds. So the thresholds which are now in place and have been in place since April 2024, a change from Jeremy Hunt, was that you start to lose child benefit at highest earners income of£60 ,000 and it's totally gone at highest earners income of£80 ,000.

14:36Martin Lewis:So if you now earn under£80 ,000, you should claim child benefit. If you're between£60 ,000 and£80 ,000, you will then have to pay some of it back through the tax system, but net, factoring both in, you would still be up. You are quite right to say that you can only backdate three months, I'm afraid. So if you've been eligible longer, I don't have any suggestions for you because I don't think there's a procedural impropriety in what they've done that you would be able to argue here. But I mean, you could check it with the lawyer, but I doubt it. So you're claiming back three months. So doing this as quickly as possible is important.

15:14Martin Lewis:It is also worth me saying while we're talking child benefit that it is the act of claiming child benefit that triggers national insurance credits for those who aren't working. So child benefit is always best claimed by the parent who is least likely to be working by some point over the next 16 odd years so that it's going on to their file. In both you and your husband's cases you're both working so you'll be getting national insurance credits from work anyway so it isn't an issue. And the backdating if the wrong person has claimed or you didn't claim and you're not getting your national insurance credits, which of course count towards your total pension entitlement, that can be backdated longer than three months.

15:49Martin Lewis:But yeah, I totally get the sleep deprived stuff. We've all been there, all of us who have children have been there. We know exactly what it's like. It is a very tough stage of life. You weren't focused on it. It's just frustration. But I think if you possibly can, I would be trying to claim your child benefit now if you've got earnings under£80 ,000 and your husband is also earning under £80 ,000 still. Above that, you're not entitled. And these single earner, highest earner cut-offs are a real problem. You have another one where your eligibility for funded childcare and what's called the tax-free childcare system cuts off if you've got a single earner earning over£100 ,000 regardless of what the other person in the family earns.

16:31Martin Lewis:And that is, you know, effectively increases marginal tax rate when it's already increasing. But I'm going off on tangents. I shall stop there. I hope that answers your question, Jennifer. Just realise you can't say yes, it does because it was a voice note. Hopefully it does. Can I also say I was secretly very happy with my voicemail recording thing. And who got the timing? The timing was perfect. Who did it? So that was Lindsay pushing the buttons. Oh, Lindsay, Lindsay, you nailed it. You nailed it. That was cool. OK, so we've done written question, voice note question. Got to be another written question.

17:07Martin Lewis:Of course. I'll read this one if you'd like. Yeah. OK, one from Raquel. She's emailed it in. Hi, Martin. Thank you for your great show. You're helping a lot of people. Oh, thank you. No mention of me. I save regularly into an account that has an interest rate of 7%. I thought for a full year deposit of£3 ,600, I should get£252 of interest. Why do I receive only a fraction,£136, if I recall it right? Thank you very much. Oh, Raquel, this is a very, very common question and I can answer it for you. And it's actually very interesting because in last week's podcast, Matthew, we discussed regular savings accounts in two of the questions.

17:49Martin Lewis:But you won't know that yet because you haven't listened to last week's Question Time podcast yet. No. Anyway, so regular savings accounts are accounts offered often linked to a bank account where you get high rates of interest. I think the highest one at the moment is Zopa at 7.1%, but you've got First Direct at 7%. And there are also some building societies that offer them, even if you don't have the bank account, with about 6%. The key to them, though, is they're for regular saving. They're for putting£1,£200,£300 a month in each month. They're not for lump sums. They normally last for a year.

18:21Martin Lewis:Some of them allow you to take money out. and let me be very plain, on the money you have in them, they are the highest interest rate possible. When you're at 7%, it is a real 7%. But here's the confusion. Matt, I'm going to do this with you. There might be a little bit of maths involved. Are you up for it? I am. Math is not my strong point. But we'll go. This is a conceptual explanation. Go on. Okay. So, you have an account that you're putting£300 a month in. So, at the start of the first month, you have nothing. After month one, you've got£300. After month two, you've got£600 and maybe a bit of interest.

18:58Martin Lewis:After month three,£900 and so on and so on and so on. Until the end of the year, you've got£3 ,600 in. Yeah. Which is what Raquel's asking about. Yeah. What is your average balance over the year, roughly? I don't know. What would you think? I don't know. I'm going to try and help you. Help me. You start on nothing. Yeah. You end up with£3 ,600. Is it half? It's half. Ah! It's half. Yeah, you got there. Well done. Thank you. Which is£1 ,800. So that is conceptually how you have to think about it. Now, what you're saying to me, what Raquel said to me in the question is, I've got a full year deposit of£3 ,600.

19:39Martin Lewis:I should have£252 interest, which is 7 % of£3 ,600. But you haven't had£3 ,600 in for a year. You only get interest on the money paid in your account. In the first month, you only had 300 quid in. In the second month, you only had 600 quid in. It's only after exactly 12 months that you've got the 3 ,600, the maximum in. So a better way to conceptually think about this is your average balance over the year was£1 ,800. What's 7 % of£1 ,800? He says slightly panicking because he asked the question himself. 70 % of£1 ,000 is£70 and 7 % of£80 is£56. So that's£126 plus you'd probably get a little bit more for compound interest on top.

20:24Martin Lewis:So I would estimate doing off the top of my head, it's£130. And I think you said in your question, it was£136. So that adds up to me. So it's always basically, I mean, another way to do it is you get a little over half what you would calculate it to be if you did it based on your£3 ,600, you're maxing it out. And people always come to me and they say, it's a sham. They said 7 % interest. It wasn't 7 % interest. You know, they gave me way less than 7 % of the final balance. It's only on the money that you've got in there. Now, if we think about this conceptually, a good way to think about this is imagine that you had that amount of money and you wanted to put it in a regular savings account.

20:57Martin Lewis:So you've got£3 ,600. You want to put it in a regular savings account. Let's remember the£3 ,600 you have at the start is sitting somewhere. It's not nowhere. So you might have that in an easy Access Savings account paying 4%. So after month one, you've got£300 earning 7 % in the regular saver, and you've got£3 ,300 earning 4 % in the Easy Access Savings. After month two, you've got £600 in the regular saver, you've got£3 ,000 in the Easy Access account earning 4%. And if you think about it that way, then you would understand, well, of course they're not going to give me interest in the whole£3 ,600 because I was earning it elsewhere.

21:37Martin Lewis:I was earning it on the easy access account because it was in the easy access account at the time and they should have been giving me interest and that i hope it is a way of thinking about it and some people do actually do that drip the method so that they're moving money from easy access into a regular saver where they get more interest in a way that that works for you i got all excited about that that's a second geek question this is a great show for me i mean the listeners might be sitting there thinking oh my god this is nerdy but i'm enjoying myself well at least one person is excellent two Two, Matt.

22:04Martin Lewis:You should have said two. Two. You and Rosie. OK. You mentioned Rosie. Wonderful Rosie who sits with me, who works with me on one of these things. And who was this week, really, she's done a great document, hasn't she, Matt? She has. She's put in links so we can click to the questions. Honestly, it's very exciting. It's very exciting. Rosie is now the guru of Google Docs. Maybe that's her title, Google.Guru. Google.GuruRosie. It's GRGR. No, it's not. GDR. gdgr let's just get on to the next question

22:39Martin Lewis:right matt you must have a caller we've got to have at least one caller in a show yeah we'll have a caller we'll actually speak to a human being um so we've got alex he's in a bricksworth hi alex hello hi matt hi martin hello mate well what is your question uh so my question is i was buying a game online the other week and I noticed I had to pay for credits first and then use those credits to purchase the game which just got me thinking what are my consumer rights if there's something wrong with the game and I want to return it or you know get my money back. That is a very interesting question.

23:17Martin Lewis:So I mean the first thing is the rights would attach themselves to the purchase of a digital item. I presume it's a game for downloading that you're buying rather than something physical. Yeah, that's right. So you would have all your standard sad fart consumer rights, you know, item must be of satisfactory quality, as described, fit for purpose and last a reasonable length of time, sad fart rights on the digital item itself. I presume your question is about are you owed cash or are you owed credits back if it were to go wrong? Yeah, exactly.

23:50Martin Lewis:So it's a grey area, I think, the first place to honestly say. And ultimately, as in all these things, the frustration with consumer rights, and if I do hark back to when I gave evidence at Parliament to the Consumer Rights Act, I raised this was my main point then, is ultimately there's no ombudsman, there's no easy way to find out your only way to push this would be to have to go to court, which is not what you want to do. Certainly you're not going to do it for a game, are you? Let's be honest. No, of course not. No. So if you were to do this, we can be legal and we can be practical. now I would think and sort of thinking through this if they said you want to buy this game you have to buy credits to buy this game and you bespoke only purchased the amount of credits to specifically buy that direct game I think you would have a very strong argument that you should have the refund in cash because you weren't buying credits for their own sake you were only buying the credits as a means of a mechanism of purchasing the game Is that the situation you're describing?