Urgent: beat the energy bills rip off! Are joint accounts worth it, and what’s the best?

26:25because it's a percentage-based saving. So, I mean, I wouldn't be slapping your wrist very hard. I mean, I'd always slap it a little bit because, you know, I have to do that. I wouldn't be slapping it very hard if you stuck where you were. But, you know, the question is, let's phrase it another way, would you be willing, if Octopus said it's going to cost you 50 quid to stay with us, would you pay 50 quid or would you move elsewhere?

26:52You'll have to come back to us on that one. I'll leave you to ruminate because that's what you're doing by not moving yeah okay Louise thanks for getting in touch thank you Martin all the best by then to Sir Louise in Plymouth and quite a few more of your questions to come on energy that we'll do a little bit later where are we oh yes today's tell us tell us about the tell us Martin so today's tell us was if you're part of a long term couple how do you manage the finances Does one do it all for you both? Do you have a joint account for everything or just a joint account for bills? Do you do regular updated budgeting meetings?

27:32How does it work and do you feel it works well? And I want to talk about joint bank accounts as well, which I'll be going through some of the best of those. But why don't we read a few out? What have you got? OK, Dave Myring says, we've been married for 20 years. We've only ever had one joint account. All our money goes into one pot, which pays for everything. We also have a budget and spreadsheet the Chancellor will be proud of. We've also started using the app Snoop, which really helps. It doesn't sound completely legal, something called Snoop. It is legal. It's a bit of a competitor to me, but it's absolutely legal and it works and they do have some good tools on there.

28:11Now, for this and for the podcast, I did do a special poll to see how people do this. So the poll question was, if you're part of a long term couple, do you have a joint account or keep money separate, which is closest to your situation? So on Twitter, which has had 15 ,000 votes, 8 % weren't in a long term couple. 29 % had all their money in a joint account. 35 % separate accounts apart from bills and 28 % totally separate accounts. So the minority of people have a joint account for everything these days. On Instagram, which has had 40 ,000 votes, 4 % not in a long-term couple, 20 % all money in a joint account, 54 % separate but with a Bills account, and 23 % totally separate.

28:58So it seems that the modern way to do this, according to those polls, they're not statistically relevant, but it is 50-odd thousand people. The main way now is you have your own separate accounts and you have a joint Bills account. Now, that tends to be what I suggest. And the reason for this is when you go back 50 years ago, 60 years ago, let's be honest. The little woman was at home and the man went out to work and you had one pot of finances and you got married at the age of 20. I mean, I'm stereotyping a touch, but that was that was how it worked. Now, thankfully, we've moved to people are independent.

29:31They get they get together later. They have their own incomes. They work separately. and therefore one of the biggest causes of marital breakup is actually arguments about money. And, you know, if you have different money personalities, one of you's a saver, one of you's a spender, you've got a joint account, one's saving up for something and the other one spends it, that is absolutely a cause of friction, which is why the independent main accounts but a joint bills account, not in every circumstance, there's some issues where that can be a problem, works well, I think, and it is what most people are doing.

29:59Shall I read a couple of these? Alison, we have separate accounts and have an agreement I pay for certain bills and he pays for others which come out of our separate accounts by direct debits. I'm not in favour of joint accounts. No one should ever question what I spend. Interesting. I mean, Iggy sounds a bit old school on Twitter. I happily put a roof over my wife's head and pay roughly half the utility bills. I don't ask her how much she earns or who she votes for and she doesn't ask me. Works for us, married 13 years at the end of the month. Yeah, I'm never going to interfere with whatever works for you.

30:35as long as it works for both of you. Susan, I sought out everything and have done for over 30 years. My husband wouldn't even know who our bills, energy or mortgage are with or how much they are. Hasn't a clue. Susan, I'm going to give you a slap wrist. I'm sorry, it's my second slap wrist in the programme. I absolutely understand that you are the lead financial management in your relationship, but this is where the three Ds come in. It's not very pleasant. death, divorce, dementia. If you do everything and one of those three D's hits and your husband had to take over the finances or vice versa, if it were in another relationship, he is not educated to take over.

31:19And I've had so many occasions where people have been hit by one of those three who were not the lead financial controller in their house, have come and not known where to start, not known how to find the bills. So Susan, you might want to do it all, but I would strongly suggest you do this. First of all, create a financial fact sheet so that in one easy place where you're not giving away security codes in the same place, you have a list of all the providers that you have, everything that you're going to use. So in the event that something happened to you that you could no longer take over this, heaven forbid, or you're to lose your faculties, your husband could pick it up and take over and find out where the money was.

31:53Second, start educating him about what you're doing. Once every two or three months, have a budgeting meeting. Just tell him what's going on. I'm not saying he should take over. I'm not saying he should do it, but I'm saying what really scared me was he wouldn't know who the Bills are with and he hasn't a clue. That is not a healthy situation, regardless of which partner is doing it. I love what you're doing for him, but in some ways that is hurting as much as helping if one of those three Ds hit. Forgive me for being a bit. I hope it's not patronising. So what I don't get is if you've got a Bills joint account, who puts how much in it?

32:26because one half of the relationship might be earning 10 times more than the other. So do you means test the contribution? Well, I absolutely think that's right. And I think that's a discussion. These things should always be overt. So look, first of all, if you were to work in that situation, in the old school days where you all had one joint account, if one partner earned four times as much as the other, then they'd have 50-50 each. In this modern day where you want your individual accounts, your control of your own money, but you have a joint bills account, well, there's two things that you could do if you had that disparity of income and it's up to you two to agree it between you.

33:00The first is the person who earns more could pay the majority of the bills or all of the bills, but then you have a joint account so that you both have access to it. And you could go further than that. There could be an agreement that there was a transfer payment from the one who earns more to the one who earns less because the one who earns less or maybe isn't working, maybe doing other things in the home, may have just as many responsibilities. And if you can be a cohesive joint unit without having a joint bank account is what I'm trying to say. You can work it and say, everything is ours, but everything is equally, but we'll have our independent accounts, therefore I'll do a transfer payment across to you each month.

33:35All of those are legitimate ways to work it. Okay, a friend of ours has a joint account with a fiancé to save for their wedding expenses together. He cleared the account all in one go and married somebody else, Elfie, on Twitter. Well, that's just dispiriting. Well, look, I mean, I wanted to get into that. I'm going to move in to read Carrie Ann's because financial abuse is a form of domestic violence by law. Coercive controlling behaviour of our finances is something really important. Whether that falls under this category or just falls into immoral behaviour. When I talk about joint accounts and I talk about second cardholders and, you know, there are people whose partner pushes them in because they've got a better credit score to getting a loan out for them.

34:23Right, you have to be in an element of trust and not an element of coercion, and you really need to think about it first. So let's just read Carrie-Anne. When I was married, he controlled everything. He checked the accounts every morning and asked why I'd spent three pounds on something. I did an extra part-time job on a Saturday, was paid cash. He would pick me up and I'd have to hand over the cash to him. All of this felt totally normal to me because it was what I'd become used to. I also don't believe he was being deliberately abusive like it may sound. We had different views on money and it made him controlling.

34:56So since we divorced 12 years ago, I vowed to never again merge finances with a man, beyond splitting bills 50-50 from a joint account if we live together, or paying 50-50 on dates. I'm 41 now and will never hand my money over to a man like I'm a little girl again. I will not answer to someone as to why I spent£3 getting a meal deal at work. I will not let anyone take away what I've had to build for myself and my children. Refusing to share finances fully doesn't mean a lack of trust or teamwork as suggested by some. I'm protecting my right to be independent as a woman. And I will strongly suggest to both of my daughters that they do the same when they're adults.

35:36Thank you, Carrie-Anne. Reading through these as a whole, it's just clear. It's never it's clear that it's never sort of entirely clear. there's no kind of right or wrong way. A lot of marriage, if you like, sort of muddling through and you find sort of what works for you. There's an age thing here. If we were to do the poll solely on the over 70s, you'd find the vast majority had one bank account and they work it and they say, we're perfectly happy, we've always done it that way. But we are trained, we have, first of all, the world of banking is different. It's online, it's on your phone, it's instant.

36:08So it's much easier to have it separate than to have different separate pots. So there is no right or wrong, it's what's right for you. but coercive behaviour is something to watch for. Don't take a loan out for somebody else. You know, the debt's in your money and, you know, even if it's not abusive, the use of love of a financial weapon can be very difficult. Just let me read one by Claire because there's an important point in this one. We got married in 2022 and haven't been able to get a joint account due to my husband's credit rating. Good. And I'll come on to why I'm saying good, not her.

36:38Very annoying now we're married. He pays the rent on our house and I pay all the bills and the food shop. Here's why I say good, Claire. what dictates whether your credit files are linked is not holding hand, kissing, or getting married. That is irrelevant. It is whether you have a joint product, such as a joint bank account, right, or a joint loan. There isn't such a thing as a joint credit card, or a joint mortgage, or in some cases, joint cash and electricity bills. In that case, your files are linked. then when you apply for credit they can look at the other person this would work even if you were you know you were flat sharing with a group of mates and you had a joint bills account they can look at the other people to decide whether to they lend to you you said we haven't been able to get a joint account due to my husband's credit rating and we won't go to credit ratings don't exist i get the point well if you did get a joint product then that could disenfranchise you both from getting credit because they'll be looking at his when you're applying, you are arguably far, far better off to stay separate if one of you has a poor credit rating and the other one doesn't, to use the common parlance of credit rating.

37:49And more so, an important reminder for those who divorce or are no longer financially linked, then you need to get in touch with all the credit rating agencies. And I mean genuinely, getting divorced, if you've still got a joint bank account, you're still financially linked. So it's about the financials. It's not about the marital status. If you are, then you need to get in touch with the credit rating agency or the credit reference agencies, you know, call credit Equifax Experian and you, sorry, TransUnion Equifax Experian, and you need to write and ask for a notice of disassociation. Okay. And that will separate you.

38:26And don't worry, I haven't forgotten. I am going to run through the best joint bank accounts a little bit later. Play the mastermind theme tune.

38:40Welcome to Martin's Money Mastermind, Adrian. It is your 14th ever go. The current score, Adrian, on this usually three option multiple choice question is you have got five right and eight wrong. Adrian, you are now riding very marginally ahead of random chance. Therefore, we can say you are smarter than a donkey picking lottery numbers with its snout. Yes, you are now finally better than an ass, in other words. Congratulations. I'll settle for that, being better than an ass. Better than an ass. You can put that on your CV if you like. Yes. Or my gravestone, even. Oh, yeah, it could be. Yeah, I was looking at it.

39:20Just because I like credit, could I just have a dash Martin Lewis on it? Of course, absolutely. So here's the question, as people will know the format. You may have seen it reported in the papers, but Adrian has a history of travel litigation. He famously sued when the airline misplaced his baggage containing his favourite West Brom pyjamas. Unfortunately, he lost his case. Just carry on. Oh, God. Took you a second, though, didn't it? It did. Because it's that bad. Still, with that experience, I'm sure you'll be able to answer a question about flight delays, Adrian. Are you ready? Yeah. Your flight from New York to London on Dutch airline KLM arrives four hours late.

40:04It is the airline's fault as they had an issue with staff rotors. Under the UK flight delay compensation laws, are you entitled to the usual fixed compensation? Which of these three statements, and it is only one, is correct? Yes, you are, because it was over three hours late. That's A. B, no, because it was from New York to London, not vice versa. It's only from flights from the UK. C, no, because as it was from New York to London, not vice versa, it must be a UK airline to get compensation. So, New York to London on Dutch airline KLM, four hours late, it was the airline's fault. Is it A, you're entitled to compensation because it was over three hours and that's the key amount.

40:56B, no, it was from New York to London. It's only for flights from the UK. C, no, because it's from New York to London, therefore it must be a UK airline to get compensation. Well, it can't only apply to British airlines. So that means it must be down to either the starting or finishing in London. And I can't believe if that or in the UK. And I can't believe if that... I just want to be very clear. Under the UK flight delay compensation laws. Yeah. Well, it's got to be... Well, I would say it's A then. I think you are entitled to it. If it begins or originates in the UK, then I would have thought...

41:48It didn't. It originates in New York. In New York. Sorry. Okay. But if it originates or terminates in the UK, then what good are those UK laws if they don't apply? They would not be better than an ass. That law would be an ass if it didn't apply. So I'm going for A. Yes, it applies. It's a direct flight, is it? It's a direct flight. Okay, you're going for A. Yeah. OK, so post-Brexit, the EU Regulation 261-2004 was adopted into UK law in the entirety. And this is about if you are delayed by over three hours on arrival. It's not the takeoff time, it's the arrival time. It's actually the doors opening time.

42:29If that's over three hours late on arrival, you are entitled to a fixed amount of compensation depending on the distance of the flight and the time of the delay. Fixed compensation under this regulation. That was adopted in full into UK law. That rule says it has to be an EU flight or a UK flight. What is defined as an EU or a UK flight? Well, first of all, all flights from a UK or EU destination. So anything leaving London or Manchester, wherever it is, or Glasgow, is an EU flight under the regulations and is covered by the regulations. What about the other way round? But it is different the other way round.

43:10So you were wrong to say that it should be covered both ways. The rule's the other way round. I was right to say it should be. You may be right to say it should be, but it is not practically. It said all flights to a UK or EU destination, provided it is a UK or EU airline. So even though your argument was wrong, we do get to play the hallelujah. Please. But only briefly, only briefly, off, off, off. Because had it been... I should never have shown my working. No, it's your working. So, you know, I've just been helping my daughter at my home and there's two points, one available for workings, one available for the answer.

43:53You get the one point for the answer, you don't get the point for the workings, effectively. So had the flight been New... I almost wrote this in the question, now I'm annoyed. Had it been New York to London on American Airlines, you would not be entitled to the fixed compensation. You'd have to look at whatever the American system is and I don't think it's anywhere near as generous as the UK one. So just a couple of other things. This is the passenger, not the ticket buyer. So if someone else has bought your ticket, corporate ticket, it's the passenger who is entitled to the fixed amount of compensation.

44:20It must be the airline's fault. So airport problems, weather delays are not... There's a lot of... Does anyone ever receive this comment? Oh, yeah, no, it's absolutely massive because it's generally the airline's fault. But the key point is when we had the storms recently and airports were closed for safety, the airline doesn't have to pay... Remember, you're always entitled, if your flight is cancelled to an alternative flight or a refund. This is about whether you get compensation on top for cancellations or delays. I was just thinking about Adrian's answer later, and the point that he missed was there's a jurisdictional issue here.

44:55You have to have limits to UK jurisdiction, because if every flight leaving and arriving in the UK were to be governed by the UK rules, they may also be governed by rules of other jurisdictions, such as US compensation jurisdiction. And therefore you will have an issue as who is in authority in each case, which is why the rules work the way that they do. On flight delays, it's worth remembering, by the way, that while I've given you the rule for a current flight delay, you can actually back claim for up to six years in England and Wales, five years in Scotland. So if you've had a flight delay, even if it was a year ago, if you have got the data on it and it fulfilled all the criteria I've talked about, arriving over three hours late, it being the airline's fault, then you may still be entitled to that fixed compensation.

45:42It's worth looking it up. Right, now that's the bit of the podcast with Adrian over. I have, you heard her talked about in the show, I have podcast producer Suze who's standing in this week to help me out while Simon's away. Suze, lovely to have you on the show. People will hear now how charming you are and why we thought you'd be able to bag Ben to come and talk on the radio. But you've got some of the remaining energy questions for me, haven't you? Yeah, some really great questions. Obviously, it's something that's front and centre after the cold snap last week. So Jack has this question for you, Martin.

46:15What's the rules on fixing? So what if you fix and then the price cap goes down? Can you use the cooling off period to change your fix again if the price cap ends up cheaper? I don't think that's ever going to happen, to be honest with you, because your calling off period is pretty short and you get the announcement of the next price cap a good few weeks before that price cap comes into play. So you would always know when the price cap is going to move. You would know that in advance. So I think that's very unlikely for it to happen. But if we take the big principle of, if I fix and later prices get cheaper or the price cap gets cheaper so that I'm paying too much on the fix, what can I do?

47:00Well, it wouldn't be a cooling off period. It would be an early exit penalties issue. When you are in a fix, most, not all firms, will levy early exit penalties if you leave before the end of the fix. Now, the first thing to understand is they are not legally allowed to levy those penalties in the last 50 days. So from day 49 to go and until the fix ends, you are free to leave without penalties. They may not tell you that, but that's the rules. They can't do it. So I would always put in my diary if I'm on a fix 50 days before the fix is due to end, because that's the point at which you're free to move without any early exit penalties.

47:36If we look at the penalties that are on most of the cheap fixes at the moment, most of them right now are£50 per fuel. So£50 per gas, £50 electricity, so£100 if you are dual fuel. If we look at that for somebody on typical use, which is around£1 ,700 a year, that means the exit penalties are equivalent to around of 5 % of what you pay a year. Now, clearly, if you're a very high user and you're paying£10 ,000 a year, the exit penalties are trivial. So effectively, you're free to ditch and switch because it won't really have any bearing. If you could save 5 % on£10 ,000, well, you'd be saving£500.

48:16So the £50 or£100 exit penalties are neither hither or tither. But for most people, it's around 5 % of your bill. So you would need prices to be dropping very substantially before it was worth paying the exit penalties. And what I would remind people, what people find difficult here conceptually is you have to think of your fix as it's a peace of mind play over a set period. If you're fixing for a year and you're saving in the first three months and you're saving in the second lot of three months and you're saving in the third lot of three months, but because it's a bit further out and things change, the price cap drops.

48:53So you're actually paying slightly more than the price cap in the last three months. People sit there and go, oh, I'm paying too much now. You have to think of it over the year. In total, you will have paid less over the year. You have benefited from it. Yes, of course, in that last three months, you would be weighing up, should I ditch? Well, to make it worth it for, because in the last three months, remember, you can leave with 49 days to go, which means effectively you've only got 41 days in which you're locked in. To pay to get out a few days early, 100 quid just wouldn't be worth it. It it would have to be so much cheaper for the saving over those extra days to be worth it to move early.

49:26I wouldn't bother. So in most cases, when you're going for a fix, you should be thinking, is this going to save me money on average over the fix period? And if it is, you know, I'll live with it. If you're on a much longer fix, then I think the early exit penalties come into play. And if you're worried, I wouldn't be locking myself into a very long fix, which has big early exit penalties. You know, some of them in over recent years have been up there in the two, three hundred pounds per fuel. and that really does prohibit you from fixing. But on a longer fix, if it were two or three years, then, you know, the 50 quid isn't that much over how much you'd pay over two or three years, so it may be worth doing it.

50:03I went on a bit long. That was a long fix and a long answer. What have you got next? Okay, quite a few people asking this question. So we've got listeners who are on octopus tracker tariffs, more than one, otherwise we wouldn't be asking the questions. We've had this maybe from four or five different people. a version of this question. Martin says, Pauline, what are your thoughts on Tracker for both electricity and gas? I'm on Octopus and Just Renewed. Roley also says, I'm quite happy with it so far. Is it worth fixing? Okay, so Octopus has two innovative tariffs, the Tracker and the Agile. The Tracker is gas and electricity.

50:39The Agile is electricity only. There's also a firm Tomato that has something very similar to the Agile that has come out. The Tracker tariff is a tariff where the price that you pay changes every day depending roughly on current wholesale rates. So over the last couple of years it has been substantially cheaper than the price cap. But in the last couple of months the benefit has diminished somewhat and there have certainly been some days where you're paying more than the price cap and that's because wholesale rates are rising. So in a period where wholesale rates are rising the tracker is a less attractive deal than it is at other times.

51:18But overall, it is still a pretty good deal and has been for most. I'm going to come on to my problem with it in a moment. I should also say that the Agile tariff is where the price of electricity you pay changes every half hour based on wholesale rates. Now, generally, that means overnight it's very, very cheap. And during the day, it's expensive. And at peak times, it can be way more expensive than the price cap. So it's a very good tariff for those people who can shift all their usage or have batteries, for example, that they can store power in and then use the battery power at the expensive peak times, because sometimes overnight you can actually be paid for using electricity because there's such an excess in the system that you actually get paid to use it.

51:56So if you could then charge up your batteries and use them during the day, or you could get all your storage heaters on or whatever it is overnight, it can be incredibly effective. So these offer sophisticated users, the agile tariff tracker less so, but still you have to be prepared to deal with the volatility. Now, I'm going to give you my issue with these time of use tariffs. It's the advantage of a podcast and I can go into detail probably a bit more than I would normally. My issue, and I've raised this with the government, I've raised this with the Secretary of State for Energy, and I've raised this with Ofcom.

52:24Here's the problem on time of use tariffs. The government is keen for us to move to more and more time of use tariffs, where you paid based on the wholesale rates at the time and especially these agile tariffs. Because, of course, the ultimate goal is to shift people's uses out of peak time. If we do that, we need less generating capacity in the country, which would bring down bills for everyone. That's one of the reasons they want smart meters in so that they can do this. The problem for me from a consumer perspective is how do you compare and how do you know if you've got competition? The only data I have on octopus, agile and tracker prices is past data.

52:58I don't have future data. So now let's fast forward two or three years time. And suddenly we have 10 of these time of use tariffs. We now have two, tomato and octopus coming out who are trying to push it mainstream, But we have 10, 15 and most of the big companies are having them and trying to shift people to them. And all you can do is look at their retrospective pricing. So how do you compare who's going to be cheapest? That's bad for consumers. So what I have asked the government to do is I think firms should be forced to publish their pricing algorithms. So how do they decide what they are going to charge based to the wholesale rates at that moment?

53:39If they publish their pricing algorithms, it would probably be in a way that consumers couldn't understand because they would really be complicated. But it would mean that trusted intermediaries could build tools that enable you to put in your usage over the past year and then play out a number of scenarios, compare all the different 10 time of use tariffs based on their pricing algorithm in those scenarios and tell you which would be cheaper. So people ask me about the tracker tariff, and all I can say is it has been pretty good over the last year, but I don't know the pricing going forward because we don't know the pricing algorithm.

54:10I suspect it would still be good, but I don't know the pricing algorithm. So I think there is a consumer issue to be looked at in these time of use tariffs as to how we make them truly transparent. None of that is knocking what Octopus has done. It's been innovative. It's saved a lot of people money by doing these tariffs. But I think as we move into a more widespread time of use system, where you're having to choose between different time of use tariffs, we're going to need a level of transparency to allow people to compare and choose what is right for them. OK, let's talk electric vehicles. So this text came in while we were on air.

54:43We've just come off air and hopped into the studio. Andy in Cheshire says, can I fix if I have an electric car tariff? And also Catherine on Facebook was asking you, what are the best deals for people with EVs? OK, there are two types of electric vehicle tariff. The first type, which is generally offered by OVO and Scottish Power, are add-on tariffs. Now, what that means is you can get any of their normal tariffs, including fixes, and then you can add on a much cheaper rate, very substantially cheaper rate, you know, less than half the cost, which you pay only for charging your vehicle. You need the right equipment to do it.

55:26so that your electric vehicle is paying a much lower rate for charging as an add-on to whatever its normal tariff is, and that's over on Scottish Power. The alternative type of EV tariff, so that's very useful for those people who want a fix. As long as you can get a decent fix at over on Scottish Power, they're not that cheap at the moment, but sometimes they are. Sometimes they have cheap fixes. Then you can get a fix, and then for your electric vehicle, you pay a lower rate anyway. The other rate is two-rate tariffs, which give you cheaper electricity overnight. They offer between five and seven hours off-peak a day, typically midnight to 5 a.m., and they're charging and paying around 7 to 10p a kilowatt hour rather than the price cap of 23p a kilowatt hour.

56:05The benefit with these is if you've got other appliances, you're getting that cheap overnight rate too, and you can use them on other appliances where the add-on tariff is only for the electric vehicle. The disbenefit of this is you're not getting a fix. You're reliant on whatever they're pricing during the day, and that's what most other firms offer. So the add-on tariff is good if you've got an electric vehicle and just normal usage, then go get a normal fix and do an add-on. The electric vehicle tariff is good as if your electric vehicle is a very large portion of your energy or a large portion of your energy bills and there's other energy usage that you can shift to those off-peak hours as well.

56:39You know, you've got storage heaters or you've got a way of putting on your washing machine overnight. I'm slightly nervous of drying machines because there can be a fire risk of putting them on overnight or other things that use electricity overnight. So that's the choice that's going there. And there are some good articles online about the various EV tariffs out there. It's very difficult to do in a comparison site because it depends on your personal usage and comparison sites simply aren't up to that yet. Can you bear one more cheeky little question on energy? This is from at under twock. That's his name.

57:08He is on Twitter. I don't even know actually that he's male. I'm going to call him twock for short. Okay, great. And they say, is it time to start taking a heat the person rather than a heat the home approach well my word is heat the human not the home and many people will be aware when we got to the really big energy crisis a couple of years ago I worked on a heat the human not the home guide and I didn't do that with relish I did it with gritted teeth because it isn't the way that we in our modern world we should be looking it's bad for the fabric of your house heating the human not the home, you know, it can cause damage to the house.

57:48It's not a particularly pleasant situation to be in. But absolutely, for those people who are really struggling on their bills and have no other choice, things such as USB heated, because USB is very cheap to run, USB heated gillets or soles of your shoes or gloves, wearing layering clothing, piling everything up, making sure you're being clever with your tactical curtains. You know, you have your curtains open during the day when the sun comes in to generate heat, you make sure you close them as soon as it gets dark. Chaining the heating temperature in your boilers to bring that down. There's the money-savingboilerchallenge.com, I think is the website.

58:25I'd have to double check that. It's something like that. It's nothing to do with me, even though it's got money-saving in there. I mean, all of those things are relevant and our Heat the Human Guide has been very popular amongst people who are struggling. But is it time? Well, my answer is no, I hope it isn't. But for some, it is.

58:42now let's nip back for a final few tellers and then i'm going to go into those best joint accounts for you the tellers of course if you're part of a couple how do you manage the finances suz you've got a few there you've got the uh the ones from x and i've got the ones from facebook you why don't you stop okay i think this one is mildly controversial so it's so it's simmer it's on simmering away emma says this one specific account for bills which everyone seems to do Then we cover the cost pro-rated to our respective salaries as I earn significantly more. So we each contribute the same relative percentage of earnings.

59:21Live together six years, works fine. I don't think it's that controversial at all. I think that's absolutely fine. She earns more, therefore she contributes more because it's done on earnings. Again, if we go back, if we travel back in time. Hello, it's 1952. I'm a man. I go out to work and earn a large amount of income. I'm married to the little lady who stays at home to look after the house, do the cooking and look after the children. We have one joint account we both spend from it. She's in charge of the budgeting, of course, because that's a household chore. I mean, that was a proper stereotype of how it often worked.

1:00:02and therefore there was one joint account, it was pro-rata to earnings because one earned 100 % of the income and the other had none of the income. And to do it in a way that you still keep charge of your independent finances, but you pro-rata the bills based on earnings, especially if there's a really big differential, seems pretty fair to me. I mean, you are a couple and you've made that declaration that you're shed. I mean, let's just remember, if you get divorced, I mean, how you work in your marriage, but if you get divorced, the general principles are things are shared 50-50. So the argument that you shouldn't be doing that within your marriage, I'm not sure how controversial it is.

1:00:39Fascinating. Here's one. Malcolm on Twitter. No joint account. I've always paid for big items and utilities. My other half for food. Never asked how much she earns. And she's never asked how much I earn. Haven't done any budgeting since we paid off the mortgage. So it's clearly working OK for them. I find this fascinating whether you know how much your partner earns or not. Because I talk about money all the time, so I think money is a really interesting subject, but I know some people find it taboo. I do find that fascinating. Let me do one from Sophie. Shared bank account for everything with separate pots for different budgets.

1:01:12Well done. Including our own personal spending pots, which we call pocket money. Ha ha. A spreadsheet budgeting tool used that we got from CAP, Christians Against Poverty, that is, years ago, and a budget meeting on the day we get pay slips. From me for the budgeting meeting. Works most of the time. We recently decided to make sure everything was joint on both our names and everything. As when my friend's dad died, her mum had zero idea about the finances and couldn't access anything just in his name. Lost lots of money. Well, there are ways to sort that we talked about earlier, but whatever works for you.

1:01:44I mean, some of this all depends on the trusted nature of the relationship. And in a way, I mentioned divorce before, but it's actually the situation is more difficult for those who aren't married or in civil partnerships than those who are. because if you're not married, you have less legal rights if you have a joint account to whose money is whom. If you are married, then the argument is when you get divorced, things are split and there's a way of deciding who gets what. Beforehand, there's no contractual obligation between the two of you and it is somewhat tougher. Have you got more? I've got a couple more to read.

1:02:16I have got a couple more, actually. So this one says, Main current and savings account is joint, but I have separate other savings. My husband used to be the financial whiz and I was terrible, but after 35 years together, somewhere along the line, the roles have reversed. I deal with all of the finances now. Yeah, and as long as you both understand that, that's good. Let me do Michelle. My partner earns four times my wage. He pays all the household bills, cars, shopping and I give him a small contribution per month. He keeps an Excel spreadsheet of all incomings and outgoings. I work part-time and study part-time.

1:02:49What I have after my contribution is mine to do with what I want. I will often pay for holidays, days out, weekends away. We have joint savings. There are ultimately no right or wrongs here. It's about how you work it together in a trusted, loving relationship. Whatever you want to do is right. The issues come if there's no trust or there's no love or the relationship ends. And that's where the problems come, which is about having a formula you're both properly happy with is so important. Whatever it is, I would never think to dictate to people. Now it's time for me to run through the top joint bank accounts, which, no surprise, are the same bank accounts that are just top general accounts because all main bank accounts allow you to open an account jointly as well as singly.

1:03:37Now it's worth noting I'm going to be talking about the free cash bonuses for switching. If you switch a joint bank account, you only get one lot of free cash bonus. If you switch a single bank account and move it to be a joint bank account, you only get one lot of free cash bonus. If you both have independent bank accounts and you're newbies to the bank, and you switch them and they stay independent bank accounts, you get two lots of free cash bonus. So it is worth factoring that in into how you do it. So what we've got available at the moment at the beginning of the year, there are three accounts that will give you free money for switching.

1:04:10You've got First Direct, which its first account pays you£175 for new switches. It's always had top service, 91 % great service. It's got a 7 % regular saver, a maximum of£300 a month you can put in that. It's got a top debit card for spending overseas, so you get near-perfect exchange rates, and most people get a 0 % overdraft up to £250. The Nationwide Flex Direct is also£175 for free. I'd call it a good all-rounder. You get interest on up to£1 ,500 put in there, so it's easy access savings if you like. 1 % cash back for a year, and there's a maximum of£5 a month on your spending on the debit card, and a 6.5 % regular savings account, but there's a lower maximum in there than First Direct, so you get less interest over the year at£200 a month.

1:04:55And then there's a really interesting account for people who have a joint bills account, which we know is very common. It is the Santander Edge. I'm pausing because my New Year's resolution is to say Santander correctly rather than Santander. I think I got it. Okay, you get 150 quid for switching to that, but you pay£3 a month. However, it gives you cash back on the bills you pay from that account via direct debit. So you get 1 % cash back on the bills that you pay up to a maximum£10 a month. For someone with typical bills, that will easily cover the£3 a month fee and more. You also get£1 cash back on your grocery and travel spend on the debit card up to a£10 a month.

1:05:39Again, those are two separate£10 a month, so it could be a maximum£20 a month of cash back. It also has a top debit card for spending overseas, and you get 6 % easy access savings, which is better than the top easy access savings account, up to a maximum£4 ,000. So if you have a joint bills account, you may as well have one that is giving you 1 % cash back on the bills that you're paying from it. So for bills, strong fan of Santander Edge there. Just the other thing I would mention when we're talking joint bank accounts is there are a number of packaged bank accounts out there. Now, a packaged bank account is where you pay a proper monthly fee, you know,£12.50,£15,£17.50 a month.

1:06:17But it includes insurance. I tend to think of it in a way as a way of paying for insurance and you get a bank account as well. So, for example, you've got the Virgin Money Club M, which gives you family mobile phone and gadget cover, worldwide family travel insurance up to age 74 and UK and European breakdown cover for the account holders. You pay£12.50 a month,£150 a year. Well, family mobile phone cover, if you've all got smartphones and worldwide family travel insurance, if you're going to go abroad and breakdown cover would cost you more than£150 a year. So as long as you actually would be paying for those insurances separately, that is a very good deal.

1:06:54You've got similar at the co-op and nationwide, though they cost a little bit more. Worth noting this one. Club Lloyd Silver account is slightly cheaper. It's£11.50 a month. The UK roadside breakdown cover is for account holders and eligible family members. But clearly, if you get a joint account, even if it's only one of your accounts, but you're a trusting relationship. so let's say it's my account sues and i normally marry adrian i'm marrying you today it's my account sues and you're not going to use it but i might just put you on it if we're in a trusted loving relationship because then you get the account holder benefits as well for when you want to do so you've got europe at uk roadside breakdown cover you've got europe and uk family travel cover you've got mobile phone cover for the account holder so obviously if we're in a joint account and we were a couple uh the others are family policies then if i put you on the account.

1:07:45You also get your mobile phone cover even if you're not really using the account and you get to choose an annual reward like 12 months Disney Plus. All of those are worth looking at. Absolutely make sure you're choosing your bank account based on your situation. These all have minimum pay-ins. Some of those I've talked about, they've all got eligibility criteria. I'm not dotting the I's and crossing the T's. See it as a here's something you should go and do a little bit more research on rather than definitely do this on the back of what I've said because I haven't given absolutely every detail but I hope that takes you there just a little bit.

1:08:17That's it for this week. If you've enjoyed it, please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast. We tend to put a new episode out every Thursday. Subscribe to keep up to date and then your pockets will be pleased with you. And if you haven't enjoyed it, I have zero sympathy. You know, this has been over an hour. You've listened for all that time. You're at the end of the podcast. You have an off button, you know. Just press it next time. Well, don't. I'll try and be better. I'm sorry. Martin Lewis is the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available.

1:08:53You can get in touch with Martin's podcast team by emailing martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk. The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you're listening on demand, it's worth double checking as the details can date. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts.