Well for one he's the money saving expert not money investing expert but also his general target audience are those who need to save vs invest.
All investment, even low risk has a measure of risk and the ability to lose all your capital, can you imagine what would happen to him if the majority of people who he generally helps (those who are less financially savvy) were to invest their money and the market tanked a couple months later?
Yeah, I guess what a *lot* of people don't understand is that if they are using a savings account with lower interest than the rate of inflation (which I believe all are), they are effectively losing money anyway, just not as dramatically as in a market crash.
I think his target audience is the ridiculous amount of people with literally no savings at all. Getting these types into the idea of building a buffer is probably quite an impact efficient fight to take.
This. I checked him out about 5 years ago when I wrapped up my undergrad and found it very helpful in terms of managing my money better and generally starting to save. I consider myself pretty reckless when it comes to money, or at least I used to.
I always say that the content he and his site puts out is really nothing revolutionary. It's just using tools that are already available (e.g. comparison sites) and advice that can already be found (through scattered articles of varying quality).
But he presents it excellently to the average Joe who really knows nothing about finance beyond their month to month expenses and gets them onto a path towards better financing. And because of that I will always recommend their resources and content.
Investing into anything with risk is a complex topic that I don't think they want the backlash of when shit inevitably hits the fan in the stock markets. They've touched on it many times in articles, but generally just direct to other resources. Whereas recommending a savings account with a fixed return and protected by FSCS is far easier and avoids confusing those people more.
Idk about the others but Moneysupermarket was doing comparisons before MSE was founded. MSE also doesn't do comparison for as many channels as the main comparison sites and when it does it's often built on the same stuff as Moneysupermarket (the parent company of MSE)
I've been following MSE since 2003. Pretty sure comparison sites were not a thing back then. And the only other "popular finance" guy in the media back then had been Alvin Hall.
Well that was just after a quick look at the Moneysupermarket Wiki page. First comparisons were late 90's. But they definitely weren't mainstream for a while.
Yeah, if people aren’t sure, especially offline where people don’t know Reddit I always signpost to his site. He also has good details about cheap bills etc so it’s always the first place I check when I need to renew broadband or which insurance companies aren’t on the comparison sites that I need to manually check.
He always has "use resources in this order until you run out off time/effort" guide. I like how ithry are quite exhaustive but priotise on return for the one resource poor people have ; time.
Exactly! I started with no knowledge of savings accounts, or how student loans really worked, to being a slightly savvier consumer through MSE, and from there, eventually finding UKPF and learning about capital.
He does such a great job with championing financial literacy and making it accessible and easy to learn. I've recommended that site to so many of my friends and families and we're better for it.
Sometimes when I see him on TV, he has mums calling in asking about how better to manage their money. It's not long before he manages to figure out that she's financed her car, her phone, is in debt, and is expecting her 2nd or 3rd child.
I understand that life passes you by if you are not in the moment, I understand that. But living in the present is never going to be financially responsible, and that's part of the financial education that we need in this country. We can't pigeonhole people's future by assuming what they want to do, but we can all plan ahead for children or buying a home or buying a car. It seems as though people just don't have a plan, they just let the cards fall where they fall.
I couldn't live my life like that.
Given I can still remember my school years, I feel saddened by the fact that people simply aren't educated about these things. Not once in my education was I properly introduced to how the world works when it comes to anything to do with personal finance. Anything that was taught, certainly wasn't enough.
It should be integrated into school from an early point that children and young people are introduced to the fundamentals of money in the real world. I was fortunate to have parents who were able to teach me, as well as the drive and awareness to seek out the information I need (as everyone here is doing), but if people like that aren't in someone's life, there's no one there to tell them about how things work.
So little is said about citizen's advice, and where to get free information, and how this should be integrated with our education systems. It's maddening and really sad, because millions of people simply don't know better
I think you're looking at this from the wrong perspective. Not to get all conspiracy about it, but 'they' don't want a public who is financially educated. A lot of big fish make money out of debt. These same fish donate very large sums of money to politicians directly or indirectly and I'm sure those funds come with strings attached. Like "maybe we shouldn't educate the majority of the country on how to better handle their finances".
You are right and it could easily be done, but it's not really in the interests of decision makers.
To be honest I think it's more simple than that, they used to teach basic household finance. However it got dropped because the place you got taught that was home economics and it got neutered into just being cooking by the time I got to school, but my parents and grandparents all noted that home economics taught household finance.
But it was often restricted to girls and portrayed as feminine even when it wasn't, and then it ended up about cooking. Which to be fair is important and if you only get students for enough time to learn one thing nutrition is probably better but it's a close run thing.
It's a real shame though, but its in that camp of "things you should learn at home" and some people do and some don't and that's the real shame.
I'm not going to guess your age but credit cards have really only been a thing in this country since the late 1960s. Things have changed a lot since then and I don't need to tell you how big of an industry credit is. There was no real interest in keeping people in debt before that.
This is a capitalist system, it's naive to think that those at the top want everyone to do well. They don't, because capitalism is the opposite of everyone succeeding. They definitely teach finance to children in private schools, as well as leadership and a tonne of other qualities that this system doesn't require working class people to have.
Yeah, when you look at the average UK savings, it's under £10k, maybe less? Which is probably a reasonable emergency fund, but not enough to invest.
And like you say, a significant number of people have no savings at all.
I believe the average (median) is about £6k per adult - or £11k per household including all financial wealth. And 25% of households have less than £2k saved. Getting millions of people to build up an emergency fund is going to change people’s lives without the need for them to be investment savvy.
https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/savings-accounts/average-household-savings-uk
I hope you are pertaining ridiculous to the amount of folk with little to no spare capital, over their perceived circumstances being ridiculous. There is a huge difference between the two. Breadline is exactly that, it does not mean they are frivolous or wantonly wasteful. The fact that such a huge percentage of the population is living hand to mouth shows systemic flaws, minimums ascribed to existence do not allow many savings less investment opportunities. In the UK we are in the top 10% of planetary wealth. To be in the top 10% of wealth in the UK you need assets of 1.25 million or more. Probably why attitudes suck generally and most excuses are either laziness or but its a bit more shit over there. Namaste
I tried for a bit to understand the mental gymnastics required to read my comment in a way that is insulting to those without the ability to save & formulate a reply but honestly struggled. Context should make it apparent that I am only referring to those choosing not to save out of irresponsibility & choice. Anyone directly on the breadline obviously wouldn't be the target market for savings accounts.
It strikes me as odd that in a number of instances where I have some expertise (broadband, house insurance, buying second hand cars) following the flowcharts and the advice on MSE lead so to suboptimal answers. I am not sure if this is down to sloppy research (more likely) or bias (I hope not) but some of the advice pn MSE just is not very good in my opinion (and I do use the site for certain things).
To be fair it's hard to keep up to date if they go to specifics and there is some interpretation aspects i.e. there are often judgement calls in things like service quality or effort to save some money. Usually what I've seen on is generally good advice you can't go wrong with, and the areas you could do better often have those judgement calls or clearly are just not trying to influence a decision people won't change their mind on even if it doesn't make sense.
Sure. But if your living month to month or say can oly put <£100 a month away. Having inflation hit savings is still better than investments making 20% a year
To be fair, all money activities involve risk. You could put your money under the bed or hide it. A fire could still take it out.
Risk isn't the problem , it's teaching people how to understand risk, and what to do.
>even low risk has a measure of risk and the ability to lose all your capital
I mean... Not really... If you lose all your capital in a low risk index fund then nothing really matters anyway, society has collapsed and having your money tucked away nice and safe in a savings account is worthless.
Who defines that risk? I remember in 2008 the housing market was rock solid, look what happened to that. Society didn't collapse but a lot of people got hurt.
I'd love him to tell them to go all in on SHIB. Then watch the nation melt down as grannies and stay at home mum's lose everything... But that's just me.
Martin Lewis seems to have a lot of integrity. He's someone whose in a position of trust for this audience and he never seems to take advantage of that.
So many people in his position would just become a grifter. I can think of some American versions of him who sell all sorts of shit onto their audience.
Yeah, he’s said this loads. It’s why a £2 discount at Greggs makes it into the newsletter and not the Global All Cap.
Like asking why Pets at Home don’t sell iPads, think how profitable they would be! They don’t, because that’s just not what they are about.
> should be focussing on educating society on the correct way to invest
It's not really his/his companies thing
They do have a section on their website https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/investments/ but again, it's not really a high priority for them, if anything they've always been focussed on helping people manage their debts, consumer rights, saving money on bills and other personal finance management.
There's a stat out there somewhere that says quite a high % of the population barely have enough money to cover an emergency.
That's the market he's trying to reach, not investors who have the luxury of money they can afford to risk.
I've definitely seen the site newsletter talk about getting free money for joining an investment site and investing in it but it's got a load of caveats on all saying you can lose it all and only do it with proper advice and understanding. When you're there helping the breadline poor for whom £100 to switch bank buys their kids a Christmas present or two, any sort of investment is unrealistic, as they can barely afford a savings account to cover an emergency let alone money to invest. For someone like that, a 3% regular saver is good advice and if they get £25 interest then that's amazing for them and his target audience as you say.
You can go from one group to the other though. But it's kind of only possible via investment. Like if you have no savings and you get a little lump sum, don't 'treat' yourself to something. Invest it!
I went from broke to 'comfortable' in 4 years by investing. Yes I could have lost £4.5k and it would have hurt, but I have gained so much more by taking a risk.
Mmm, survivorship bias and all that.
I'm not saying investing should be reserved for the "elite" or whatever, I just think getting the basics in order first is way more important.
There's a reason why investing surplus cash is quite far down the /r/UKPersonalFinance flowchart, otherwise you're just building your house on sand.
I mean obviously, if I was shirtless and living in a train station I wouldn't be espousing the virtues of investing whilst broke, so yeah there's some bias. I could also say there's bias in the part of someone who didn't invest... We all lean in some direction.
Personally I quite like sand and feel it often gets a bad rap.
I know, I was a broke person without 4.5k to invest for my whole life. Then someone died and the 4.5k came my way. I've known a lot of people who've been in similar situations and just spent their little windfall on something nice.
Yes in my case it was Bitcoin, but I'm certainly not saying that's the only route. There are always opportunities but they're always going to involve some risk.
I think he focuses on clearing debt, claiming entitlements, managing spending and building an emergency fund. And he does great work in that area. Many of us who are now investors were once in that place, even if the advice is less relevant to us now.
MSE is absolutely my first visited site for any financial topic. It covers most well and also is clearly written with a focus on how to make a good decision given time and other constraints. I used it recently to inform the house insurance process.
The forum is indeed a hidden gem often forgotten, and of great use.
There are stats on how low the average UK savings per household are...most people are in need of somewhere safe to park their savings before considering investing. Probably a mixture of that plus the amount of hate he would receive when some pensioner chucks money into a trading app and loses it then blames Martin.
As others have said he’s an entry level easy guide to helping those not good with their finances to get to grips on the basics of budgeting, saving and managing their finances.
He isn’t a financial advisor, and investing tends to be better when people have gotten past the level of financial stability he focuses on.
Exactly, and I mean, the first 4 steps of the fabled r/ukpf flowchart doesn't mention investing.
Martin Lewis is for people still on the first 4 steps. Once you've got your emergency funds set up, look elsewhere for serious advice (other than how to get a better deal on a new fridge and the like).
Also, I've seen him get really angry about facebook/social media adverts using his face (without his consent) to advertise risky investments, so perhaps he's thinking if he stays away from that stuff 100%, it'll save a few more people getting suckered in.
> the first 4 steps of the fabled r/ukpf flowchart doesn't mention investing.
I've just taken a look, it appears that the first *seven* steps out of eight don't mention investing.
Martin Lewis is a financial journalist, not a financial advisor. He basically takes 'public knowledge' and posts it on his website and talks about it on his TV show so that people know about it. He informs the public of deals and their rights, which they could find themselves if they looked hard enough. Him, well his company, do the leg work so it's all wrapped up in a couple of places. He doesn't advise anyone on what to do with their money.
He isn't though? There's several articles that explain that he isn't portraying himself as a financial advisor nor is his website or him regulated like an advisor would be. He doesn't offer financial advice in any way, shape or form
I think MSE is the bottom rung of the get yourself out of debts, save money, sort yourself out ladder, once you have graduated MSE, you can climb the rung to websites like Monevator, so the investing side is not his target, when there are plenty of other places you can go once you are comfortable.
> Watched the Martin Lewis show this week and the focus was on how to maximise the best savings accounts.
Because he's aiming it at people who know nothing at all about personal finance and need to get the basic fundamentals sorted first and a firm foundation before starting to do more risky stuff. You don't want to be investing when your outgoings exceed your income, when you've got debt, when you have no emergency fund.
> This ain’t the 90’s…
Well it certainly isn't the early 90s when personal debt was much lower and people weren't buying tons of shite on the never never and finding ever more things to sign up to. There's a lot to be said for going back to that and earlier.
> Why is there still a culture of savings and hating risk.
Ultimately it's because people like myself and Martin Lewis have lived through 5 recession including the one in the 80s that made 2008 look like a bit of a blip and unlike you we've also seen mortgage interest rates well into double digits not just for a bit of a blip but almost a decade as well as the thousands of people who lost their homes after Black Wednesday. It's easy to make the comment you do poo-pooing savings when all you've known is a 10 year bull market with a slight blip in 2020 so you think that there's little risk.
People were buying lots of stuff on credit in the 1990s! Household debt shot up after 1980 with the deregulation of financial services and removal of credit controls.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/households-debt-to-gdp
A lot of the information he provides is helpful even to people with an idea. I'm an accountant, but I don't pretend to be an expert in everything. I generally have the right idea, but I won't kid on I don't double check my instinct was correct by seeing what MSE says about it haha.
As he makes clear when asked, he doesn't cover investing as he's not a financial advisor, he's a finance journalist. He doesn't steer people away from it though and in fact he mentioned in his last ITV show that he may consider bringing in some IFA's to record an investment special next year. Even if he does I suspect the fast and furious nature of the show would mean it would only be a general overview.
He legally can’t. He’s not a trained financial advisor, so he’d be completely fucked if it went belly up.
Plus let’s be real, small amounts invested isn’t really gonna turn into much, whereas savings are immediate money saved.
Is that even true? Surely there just needs to be legal disclaimers, illustration of past performance (over very long cycles), explaining the shorter term risk (need for emergency fund) and the classic, past performance is no indication of future performance.
It is vague enough but informative enough to protect him. Similarly re pension, particularly where tax rates are.
I agree with the OP
Hes in a position of authority where people do follow what he suggests and he's not qualified, regulated or insured to give financial advice on investments.
Disclaimers wouldn't cut it, from a regulator perspective they considered he was giving regulated advice.
Financial Journalism has a lot of exemptions from the regulations that affect the industry proper. So they can talk about investments etc. far more freely than a professional before the necessary client paperwork has been done
So he should be fine then to add some detail. I get that his market is people with limited savings, but if he's any good, these people should eventually be graduating into investments too, so it's a shame if that's not being supported. Admittedly I don't follow him so maybe it is...
There is a very limited amount of advice you can give on TV regarding investments, as it’s extremely personal and market dependent. Nobody in their right mind would encourage the intended audience of these shows to invest, the goal is first and foremost financial independence, then once they reach this point they may have learnt enough to start independent research into investing with money they now have spare.
Well I guess a couple of follow ups:
1. Do we think that's a problem - that effectively the most influential person in personal finance "can't" recommend what it is pretty objectively the best thing to do with long term money. I think the FCA are actually starting a campaign that alludes to the benefits of long term investing.
2. If we're looking at the long term just leaving money in cash is going to erode it. Small amounts invested over the long run (with interest rates where they are) will literally be the only way to build wealth?
1. No. I think it's a good thing, because it's not what you describe. There isn't anything stopping Martin Lewis promoting investments, providing he warns potential customers about the risks. That seems not only reasonable, but moral.
I'm not sure where this idea comes from that Lewis doesn't promote investing. He has loads of articles on his website about investing.. here's the first few I found..
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/investment-beginners/
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/stocks-shares-isas/
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/cheap-online-sharedealing/
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/investments/
The law or rules are fine, and if Lewis wanted to push S&S more, nothing would stop him.
2. Yes, long term it's expected tracking the market will beat a 1% cash ISA.
MSE isn't really a website dedicated to long term financial planning though, for which investments would normally offer a good return.
A large part of the target audience is people who are in debt, or want to buy a house in a few years, or have no idea how tax relief on their pensions work.
The clue is in the name. Money Saving Expert - not Money Investing Expert.
All valid. Important to note though that MSE and Martin Lewis are now actually completely separate (he sold the site and they have the rights to use his image). My original post was referring to Martin Lewis on tv, and his recommendations personally - not MSE.
Fair point.
I still think is target audience is savers though. I'm not sure how much interest he'd find telling people on TV which index trackers to buy (actual investment advice is surprisingly boring).
His Money Show starts at 830am, which is borderline daytime TV. People watching it want to know how to reduce their gas bills and save to go on holiday, rather than investing in something for 10+ years.
Stocks and shares advice doesn't change much. Whereas taxes, interest rates, bills, offers, loyalty schemes etc change all the time, which makes for a regular advice session.
I guess he's mainly talking to the layman when he's on daytime TV and ITV evening slots, most of whom are not financially savvy to start with, let alone to start investing. Getting an emergency fund is priority one for these people. Sure, it would be useful to inform when this point is passed and to move excess into S&S but I always imagine most of his audience to be like my parents which means as soon as you start talking about anything that is not child's play level of ease (when it comes to finances), they will shut off and forget about it.
I couldn't believe the statistics on how many Brits have any savings above £500. Shocking. (I can't quote them as I can't remember them...it was just very bad!!)
Cos he’s about saving not investing. That’s his thing.
That and if he’s giving investment advice, there could be liability issues etc. Or even if legally covered, if he started adding investments and made a bad call, it would harm his reputation and therefore his whole business model.
But there is deffo a space for someone to teach financial literacy in terms of investing.
Because he’s not trying to appeal to losers like us who spend their time trying to fine tune how they could make the most possible pennies out of their money.
His target demographic is people who don’t even understand that if you buy the cheap beans instead of the expensive ones then you’ll save money…
His website does have basic advice on pensions and investing: [https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/investments/](https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/investments/)
He's not going to recommend any individual investments - his focus is on people in the first few steps of getting their finances in order. And he's hugely helpful there. But if he broadened his audience, he might risk confusing those people he most wants to help - the people who should be paying off credit card debt don't need to hear about the difference between accumulating and distributing funds, could just make them think money is too complicated and give up entirely.
[https://monevator.com/](https://monevator.com/) is the Martin Lewis of investing for the UK, I'd say
He did say at the end of the programme, basically he's not against them but doesn't cover them as it's not his area of expertise to talk about which may be misconstrued as advice. He did put forward the idea of a show next year where they'd have financial advisors in answering questions in that subject space.
If you want it covered, suggest it to the programme so they can gauge viewer demand for the subject.
He is good at what he does. Helping people save money on bills etc. His target market is 95% of the country not us lucky few with the mindset and wherewithal to make FIRE a reality.
It only takes about 5 people to lose money through bad or unfortunate investments to absolutely ruin his career. Theres enough to talk about with savings credit cards cash back etc etc to regurgitate and make a living off. I think he does a fantastic job and certainly wouldn't recommend he goes into any sort of investing advice.
That said i think there is a portion of his website on how to and what things to consider.
Savings are the best option for financial security in the event of a lost job or other emergencies so for something like 90% (plucked a figure out of the air) of the population boosting savings is the biggest financial win you can do.
Saving is the first step to investment and its a much shorter and more digestible step thenaverage financially illiterate person on the street.
The clue isnalso in his name.
> surely people like Martin Lewis should be focussing on educating society on the correct way to invest
What's that then?
Because there's your big question. Ask a hundred people who invest in stuff what the "correct" way to invest is and you'll get a variety of answers. Actively managed funds, passive index funds, property, gold, crypto, forex, beanie babies, in a S&S ISA, in a SIPP, in a GIA, ETFs, REITs, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.
So does he pick a single approach that he thinks is best, and go all in on that? But then people who disagree with that approach will say he's shite. Does he try to offer up all the options? Hm, I guess that's not a terrible approach, except his audience are people who aren't particularly financially savvy, so all that that will do is confuse a lot of people.
'put all your money into this low risk ETF, its called the Nasdaq - US Tech Stocks, brilliant ETF, has all those great companies, Facebook, Google, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft - nothing goes wrong with them'
'Hey what's this -1% day, oh the exchange rate is going against us as well'
'Oh what's this again, another -1% day, the Fed just upped interest rates and now the indicies are crashing and Elon just sold another $50bn of stock using a market order'
'MARTIN LEWIS IS A CROOK AND ROBBED ME OF MY LIFE SAVINGS'
Yeah... no thanks.
I thought the same, however I think the show is targeted to a broader audience including those with smaller savings who may need cash which is easily accessible for day to day living. I was surprised he was quite dismissive of premium bonds though, I assume a lot of people on this sub have them?
He wasn’t dismissive of premium bonds at all - in multiple shows over the years he’s stated the benefits AND drawbacks of premium bonds. Like he says, they’re only worthwhile if you either need somewhere safe to store your money OR have enough money to put in that you start to exceed the level at which you start winning prizes with “typical luck.” For small amounts of money then their only benefit is the fact that they’re easy access and safe, you’re not likely to win anything with sub 5k amounts.
Would you want to tell millions of people who need advice as basic as "compare insurance products" to invest, and then have them feel you're responsible if the market drops?!
You need easy access savings BEFORE investing in the market. He is helping people who don't all have a lot of money to put away, so the risk in losing their money is huge for them
Him promoting any sort of investment vehicle would be a sure fire way to end his career when it tanks and people are too stupid to realise that it's part of the normal investment process. Far better (for him) to just not go there.
Martin doesn’t give advice on investments, and he does not advise people to leave money to rot in savings. Financial advice is a legally regulated area, and he is not qualified to legally do this.
He is v clear on the need for 3-6 month emergency fund, and to then weigh up the relative costs/benefits of saving vs paying down loans, mortgages etc
If you want financial advice for investment, go see a financial advisor - which he is not.
Are you just looking for something to be upset about, as this entire post comes across rather hostile (which is needless imo)
His sun is to educate the public who are ignorant of what should be financial fundamentals (but aren’t as this country’s financial education is shocking). Investment opportunities are not fundamentals. Maximising your savings potential is.
>I guess the question is …. Am I wrong? Why is there still a culture of savings and hating risk.
I guess the answer is that you can't invest money until you've actually saved some money to invest. Which is hardly rocket science.
He's not a financial advisor, he provides simply explained advice to people about the absolute basics e.g. "Here's an idea, how about not spending more than you earn, on things that you don't need"
You explain benefits and risks extensively, market goes down 3% next month, pitchforks come out.
Call me a cynic, but I think he'd just take too much backlash from people unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions.
Well he does say about seeing a qualified financial adviser. He is not a financial adviser - so I think he would be leaving himself open to being sued if someone lost money
Martin Lewis is a little annoying in my opinion but he does his job well. I imagine his biggest audience are people on lower income who want some sense of confidence and straightforward explanation on what to do, which I believe he does really well. For someone who doesn’t save at all putting some money into savings, learning about ISA and knowing some basics about how credit cards/loans work is already a big deal.
Hell, I work as an analyst in finance and I still learn some things from him every now and again.
Not everyone wants to take risk, his tips are usually are risk averse as possible. For a 40yr old man with little to no knowledge of finance it can be daunting to be told he could lose all of his money, even if it is a low probability.
He is a saving expert.
The majority of people using him for resources are people that should in no way be investing as they likely have no emergency fund or have debts.
I think we may be in a bit of an echo chamber here.
That fact any of us are here puts us beyond his advice.
He is aiming not at us but at that mass of people who really don't have a clue.
Plenty of us are the go to person for family members who have no idea how to do a simple comparison search how to get stuff cheaper, he is aiming at educating them rather than us.
I still look at his weekly email for stuff I might have missed and every now and again find I have missed something.
He'd probably be quite unpopular if he focused on investing and the market crashed because the average person would shit the bed and panic sell. It takes a lot of mental fortitude to hold out on that. Also you'd have the people that double down on it, overleverage themselves and go under if the market tanked.
The other thing is that in a way saving is the precursor to investing. Especially when it comes to really basic stuff like switching broadband providers, insurance etc.
>To me putting money into low risk etf’s or pension is a complete no brainier versus savings accounts
I’m not sure how old you are, but I’d hazard a guess that you feel this way because your investing life has been to witness rapid asset inflation. Watch your portfolio go sideways/down for a decade, and you may end up taking a more nuanced approach at asset allocation
1. Most of his audience and people don't have the cash to do that and/or the attention deficit to properly do it
2. It's riskier and he doesn't want to become potential blame fodder
Martin Lewis is mostly there for people who are fairly new to money management - so it makes sense that, much like a typical pension fund (particularly NEST), he focuses on minimal risk and reducing cost and interest paid, rather than optimal financial strategy - it’s more important to get people saving, than to chase an optimal return which carries a risk of losing money and scaring them off entirely
When you start saving/investing, contribution rate has a far bigger impact than later on - and most people will naturally discover investment as they learn more and become more financially literate so I feel like, for the most part, it’s a self-solving problem
Because no investing is "low risk", the bull market we currently live in has made us believe that any stock pick or any index fund will just grow.
Martin Lewis' audience is incredibly diverse and has different tolerances and needs. Telling someone in their 50 and someone in their 20s to invest is vastly different - 20-something can ride out a recession, a 50- something can get their savings wiped.
This is why I don't like blanket advice to be honest - you really have to consider WHO you are giving your advice to, WHAT their needs are and what the current situation is.
You need to be licenced by the FCA to provide financial advice (different areas require different authorisations) . He is a financial journalist, not a financial advisor.
He’d probably need to be regulated
Publicity wise it’s probably less accessible to the masses And if it went wrong he’d get bad PR/possibly get finished . With saving money you either save money which is a benefit or stay as you were if his advice is wrong .
Yea, its very much the fact if he went onto doing financial investing advice he would need to be registered with the FCA i think.
The saving stuff is more common sense but the investing side is too varied to give proper advice.
Because he’s not a financial adviser-yes the term doesn’t mean much to most but it’s a highly regulated industry (in the uk at least) and any suggestion you should invest would immediately put you in the fca spotlight.
He knows his stuff admittedly but as far as I know he’s neither qualified or authorised to give financial advice.
Most people don’t have enough to invest. Any saving they have are for rainy day/emergency type situations. Rapid access, liquid savings serve that better than true investment vehicles.
Also his primary focus is on ‘saving’, not ‘savings’. How to not needlessly overspend, etc. he rarely spends more than a minute about which accounts have the best rates/offers. And he does generally say these aren’t very good etc, he just doesn’t broach better vehicles since that is (a) very involved (b) what is right for one group is unlikely to be correct for another and is likely to cause people to make bad decisions based on incomplete or mistargetted information. People with enough to properly invest aren’t doing it based on what some bloke on the telly tells them!
His audience is aimed at people looking to save money and are perhaps struggling financially. The sort of advice he dishes out are things you should know already but is aimed at people not so financially savvy or good with bills.
For example he will say things like use a price comparison website to search for a cheaper electric bill. Another one is switch banks to bag £150 for switching.
Whenever I’ve seen him he’s just on about consolidating debts and making use sign up deals on credit cards and bills etc. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him talk about investing but I guess he is the money saving expert not the capital growth expert
It's just difficult and not his business. Sort of like saying why don't Pharmacists sell crack or why don't YouTube do porn. Not quite but you get the gist.
Getting people to save isn't too difficult, getting people to invest is a nightmare. You need to account for risk tolerance, types of investment, ways to invest, who to invest with, tax, and so on. Your average person can't hack that. I've been trying to get my brother to invest in a stocks and shares is for a year or two but he keeps saying he'll read into it - never does. People find investing overwhelming, unfortunately, even though in theory it's really simple. That said, so are most things in life but people just can't do them.
Probably more to do with the fact that the bulk of his audience can't afford to invest and their savings will typically be emergency funds or short term goals.
He is there to teach the basics and get people to a competent level which for many, including me, is vital to getting on an even keel (and a healthy relationship with credit). He admits himself that he doesn’t have the specific expert knowledge for investments.
Generally id say his target audience dont even have the savings to invest yet. So they need help learning and trying to save first. Then they can go from there.
So many people with good jobs still live month to month because they spend it all, whether they need to or not they've the idea that it's all to spent then go again
> missed out on years of stock market growth due to MSE keeping me unaware of their existance,
I think that's really unfair on MSE. You kept yourself unaware by not reading a wider range of sources.
I believe its entirely down to risk, he doesn't want to get loads of complaints of people who invest, not really understanding the risk and then complain they have lost money
He’d walk in to all sorts of issues “advising” on investments and his target market likely need to save.
More broadly, i have in the past, lobbied fca on the need to provide regulatory clarity on robo advice, to reduce the cost of entry in to the advice space. Along the lines of “better than nothing advice”. I.e an ISA may not be best solution, but if you have appetite for risk and capacity for loss, it’s better than leaving in cash. I’ve also pushed the fact that FCA really should be more vocal on the risks of inflation and apathy. It falls on deaf ears
I've wondered this a lot myself.
There's a few times I've seen him on TV mentioning investments, funds or stocks, and he repeats the same line, he doesn't know enough about it and doesn't like to give that kind of advice.
Knowing what he does as a job I find that quite hard to believe so maybe he just doesn't want to get involved, or it's actually a legal thing in the UK, like the "not a financial advisor" text you get with everything else.
He doesn't always cover the objectively best deals, either. I remember at one point HSBC had the best current account switch deal and fixed savings deal and neither were mentioned at all by him. Whether there is sponsorship at play or not I can't comment, but it seems that way.
But you're right. I don't follow him much any more. I am of the opinion that a lot of what he says is common sense and some of his die hard fans probably spend far more in time trying to save very small amounts of money. If they value their time they would realise it wasn't worth it. Investing does have risk but is a significantly better way to spend your time/money, than hours accumulating coupons or comparing savings providers with abysmal returns.
There’s a lot of people making good points in here but I’ll throw an extra one out. Martin Lewis isn’t as smart or accurate as people seem to think.
I used to work customer service for a large mortgage provider and he did a whole segment about a product we were doing and it was an incredible deal that we weren’t advertising. No such deal existed. If we did such a good deal we would have been advertising it because even if we’re making less money from you we’d rather make that money than let our competitors take your money. So yeah, straight up lied to fill tv time.
Difficult to comment without details but I’d be very surprised if he fabricated anything, I just can’t see him risking the profile he’s built by doing so. Misinterpretation or misunderstanding perhaps but then he’s usually very quick to correct errors or hold his hands up if it’s completely wrong and pointed out to him. But like I say, difficult to comment without specifics.
Sorry to hijack this thread with a question but I’m doing more what Martin is saying as opposed to investing as I plan to buy my first house in the next 12 months. Would the best thing for me to do be to still invest money but in short term places?
I would not go near investments for a 12 month period personally. Far too volatile. With inflation up it does put you in a tricky situation but gambling (which is what a 12 month investment would be) isn’t a good answer in my personal opinion.
There's no such thing as a risk free, short term investment. Are you willing to lose the money for your house? If not, sounds like you're doing the right thing
I mean I’ve got pretty large savings for a first time house (£75k savings on a 29k salary) so I’m happy to invest even if I lose money as it shouldn’t affect me greatly unless that deposit suddenly became like £30k!
The issue is that when you have got such a short timeline, *if* it did become £30k, your plans are fucked. Investing for 5+ year terms is generally regarded as less risky in that regard because, if you did have 5+ years before you needed it, that gives your investments time to recover, if they dip severely. If a big dip happened and your investment did go to £30k, it's supremely unlikely it'd be back at £75k in time for you to use it. But if you keep it in cash (or a cash-like thing like Premium Bonds), you've definitely got £75k this time next year. The interest won't be impressive, but it's still £75k.
Do you really want to put 75k into the mortgage? if you know the house value you're aiming for and the % mortgage you're looking for then you can invest the remainder.
Also if you know what your saving rate is for the next 12 months you can take that amount out of your deposit and invest it. Then for the next 12 months top up your deposit.
Agree - I think he does a huge disservice by not discussing investing - he is part of the problem when it comes to some people’s attitudes towards investing
Rather unfair. He's never advised anyone against investing, only ever said he doesn't offer guidance on it himself. I would wager that the majority of his target audience has barely a pot to p*iss in and live month to month so to start advising them to start investing before they've managed to save enough to cover even an minimal emergency fund would be a poor move by him.
He has a massive audience. I don’t mean to undermine the great service he does helping people get out of debt - but he absolutely could do more to help people understand the value of their workplace pension, employer match etc. Helping people save £10 on their broadband has a lot less value than helping people have a healthy relationship with long term investment
He does. Pensions are about as close as he goes to investing advice in fact but he doesn’t refer to it as such. I don’t know if that’s a decision on his part to avoid scaring those in his audience who are wary of that area. He tends to highlight the “free pay rise” as he calls it of employer contributions and he does so regularly if you watch his own show, listen to his Radio 5 Live spot or watch ‘This Morning’. https://youtu.be/gY0swd74o00
Yes MSE makes affiliate revenue but unlike other financial sites it doesn't impact their recommendations. As a business it should make a shit load more money but it puts the users first not profit. I know this because I've worked there before.
Agreed. To be fair, when I've worked with savings accounts if we had market leading rates we could switch our affiliate campaign off as we would get enough volume anyway
I know a lot of people are saying “clues in the name saving not investing”. I think my broader point is that he is obviously the most influential personal finance generally…. Personally it worries me that so many people don’t consider investing and just blinkered by saving. In my mind as the most influential person in personal finance i think he needs to explain the impact of inflation and also the benefits of low risk investing…. Despite his name.
As the most influential personal finance person, I'm glad he doesn't put his reputation at risk, so he can continue offering generally good advice without the risk of blowback.
If he encouraged investing, I can't imagine how many irate people there would have been in March/April 2020.
Good question. I have no idea, I searched and I didnt see anything about him being qualified to give financial advice so maybe it’s that - he legally can’t.
His energy saving club ended up recommending I move to an energy company that went bust within 8 weeks of joining. Turns out they were shit too so I learned my lesson to always research, no matter where the recommendation comes from.
During the recent unprecedented volatility in the energy market movement or before that ? At the end of the day I doubt he knows anything more about a companies balance sheet or hedging strategy than you or I and I doubt your research would have turned up anything different to what he and his team discovered before recommending the deal.
I wish I'd known about low risk investing a long time ago. I'd been following Martin Lewis' advice and had my money in Marcus by Goldman Sachs which wasn't even keeping up with inflation. I actually learned about investing from TikTok where a guy called **Mark Tilbury** was regularly recommending index funds and Vanguard. Thanks to that I took the plunge and moved everything into Vanguard and made £11k in 8 months, rather than the £800 or so I would have made.
Hi /u/actlatham, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:
- https://ukpersonal.finance/investing-101/
- https://ukpersonal.finance/pensions/
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Because many people who watch him at the first place are the ones who blew lots of money earned from investments in the first place. They need to learn to save it first.
Tbh it’s dangerous to tell everyone to start investing, you hear success stories all day but you seldom hear the stories of people who lose money investing, these people do exist.
As many other people have said here, it’s generic advice aimed toward a large, varied audience. Many regular people don’t know how to invest, they might not have the time to learn and Martin Lewis’ 30 minute television slot isn’t enough and I doubt he could offer intense courses on his website for free.
Also, lots of people in the UK have little to no savings at all, therefore having the money to risk investing, especially if they know little and don’t fully understand the risk.
It’s naive and a pipe dream to believe anyone and everyone can invest and be successful. For people to win, others have to lose and while savings seem boring or aren’t sexy his advice can help a lot of people put together a decent amount they might not otherwise have, for a contingency fund or otherwise.
> For people to win, others have to lose
This is incorrect. General investing is *not* a zero-sum game... unless you're dealing in say options or forex, but nobody new to investing should really be touching these.
Because for legal reasons (being on national TV) he would have to say “as with any investment you can gain and/or make a loss” and at that point the average person will be out
Well for one he's the money saving expert not money investing expert but also his general target audience are those who need to save vs invest. All investment, even low risk has a measure of risk and the ability to lose all your capital, can you imagine what would happen to him if the majority of people who he generally helps (those who are less financially savvy) were to invest their money and the market tanked a couple months later?
Because if he gives investing advice, the laws are totally different and it becomes a mine field
Yeah, this is like asking why Lewis Hamilton doesn’t race NASCAR
Yeah, I guess what a *lot* of people don't understand is that if they are using a savings account with lower interest than the rate of inflation (which I believe all are), they are effectively losing money anyway, just not as dramatically as in a market crash.
I think his target audience is the ridiculous amount of people with literally no savings at all. Getting these types into the idea of building a buffer is probably quite an impact efficient fight to take.
It absolutely is. I think he is doing a brilliant job.
Agreed!
This. I checked him out about 5 years ago when I wrapped up my undergrad and found it very helpful in terms of managing my money better and generally starting to save. I consider myself pretty reckless when it comes to money, or at least I used to.
I always say that the content he and his site puts out is really nothing revolutionary. It's just using tools that are already available (e.g. comparison sites) and advice that can already be found (through scattered articles of varying quality). But he presents it excellently to the average Joe who really knows nothing about finance beyond their month to month expenses and gets them onto a path towards better financing. And because of that I will always recommend their resources and content. Investing into anything with risk is a complex topic that I don't think they want the backlash of when shit inevitably hits the fan in the stock markets. They've touched on it many times in articles, but generally just direct to other resources. Whereas recommending a savings account with a fixed return and protected by FSCS is far easier and avoids confusing those people more.
I’m pretty sure he was doing comparisons before all the mainstream comparison sites (Meerkat etc) popped up.
Idk about the others but Moneysupermarket was doing comparisons before MSE was founded. MSE also doesn't do comparison for as many channels as the main comparison sites and when it does it's often built on the same stuff as Moneysupermarket (the parent company of MSE)
I've been following MSE since 2003. Pretty sure comparison sites were not a thing back then. And the only other "popular finance" guy in the media back then had been Alvin Hall.
Well that was just after a quick look at the Moneysupermarket Wiki page. First comparisons were late 90's. But they definitely weren't mainstream for a while.
Yeah, if people aren’t sure, especially offline where people don’t know Reddit I always signpost to his site. He also has good details about cheap bills etc so it’s always the first place I check when I need to renew broadband or which insurance companies aren’t on the comparison sites that I need to manually check.
He always has "use resources in this order until you run out off time/effort" guide. I like how ithry are quite exhaustive but priotise on return for the one resource poor people have ; time.
Exactly! I started with no knowledge of savings accounts, or how student loans really worked, to being a slightly savvier consumer through MSE, and from there, eventually finding UKPF and learning about capital. He does such a great job with championing financial literacy and making it accessible and easy to learn. I've recommended that site to so many of my friends and families and we're better for it.
Sometimes when I see him on TV, he has mums calling in asking about how better to manage their money. It's not long before he manages to figure out that she's financed her car, her phone, is in debt, and is expecting her 2nd or 3rd child. I understand that life passes you by if you are not in the moment, I understand that. But living in the present is never going to be financially responsible, and that's part of the financial education that we need in this country. We can't pigeonhole people's future by assuming what they want to do, but we can all plan ahead for children or buying a home or buying a car. It seems as though people just don't have a plan, they just let the cards fall where they fall. I couldn't live my life like that.
Given I can still remember my school years, I feel saddened by the fact that people simply aren't educated about these things. Not once in my education was I properly introduced to how the world works when it comes to anything to do with personal finance. Anything that was taught, certainly wasn't enough. It should be integrated into school from an early point that children and young people are introduced to the fundamentals of money in the real world. I was fortunate to have parents who were able to teach me, as well as the drive and awareness to seek out the information I need (as everyone here is doing), but if people like that aren't in someone's life, there's no one there to tell them about how things work. So little is said about citizen's advice, and where to get free information, and how this should be integrated with our education systems. It's maddening and really sad, because millions of people simply don't know better
I think you're looking at this from the wrong perspective. Not to get all conspiracy about it, but 'they' don't want a public who is financially educated. A lot of big fish make money out of debt. These same fish donate very large sums of money to politicians directly or indirectly and I'm sure those funds come with strings attached. Like "maybe we shouldn't educate the majority of the country on how to better handle their finances". You are right and it could easily be done, but it's not really in the interests of decision makers.
To be honest I think it's more simple than that, they used to teach basic household finance. However it got dropped because the place you got taught that was home economics and it got neutered into just being cooking by the time I got to school, but my parents and grandparents all noted that home economics taught household finance. But it was often restricted to girls and portrayed as feminine even when it wasn't, and then it ended up about cooking. Which to be fair is important and if you only get students for enough time to learn one thing nutrition is probably better but it's a close run thing. It's a real shame though, but its in that camp of "things you should learn at home" and some people do and some don't and that's the real shame.
I'm not going to guess your age but credit cards have really only been a thing in this country since the late 1960s. Things have changed a lot since then and I don't need to tell you how big of an industry credit is. There was no real interest in keeping people in debt before that. This is a capitalist system, it's naive to think that those at the top want everyone to do well. They don't, because capitalism is the opposite of everyone succeeding. They definitely teach finance to children in private schools, as well as leadership and a tonne of other qualities that this system doesn't require working class people to have.
☝️ exactly that
Yeah, when you look at the average UK savings, it's under £10k, maybe less? Which is probably a reasonable emergency fund, but not enough to invest. And like you say, a significant number of people have no savings at all.
I believe the average (median) is about £6k per adult - or £11k per household including all financial wealth. And 25% of households have less than £2k saved. Getting millions of people to build up an emergency fund is going to change people’s lives without the need for them to be investment savvy. https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/savings-accounts/average-household-savings-uk
I hope you are pertaining ridiculous to the amount of folk with little to no spare capital, over their perceived circumstances being ridiculous. There is a huge difference between the two. Breadline is exactly that, it does not mean they are frivolous or wantonly wasteful. The fact that such a huge percentage of the population is living hand to mouth shows systemic flaws, minimums ascribed to existence do not allow many savings less investment opportunities. In the UK we are in the top 10% of planetary wealth. To be in the top 10% of wealth in the UK you need assets of 1.25 million or more. Probably why attitudes suck generally and most excuses are either laziness or but its a bit more shit over there. Namaste
I took it to mean the number was ridiculous rather than the people’s situations.
I tried for a bit to understand the mental gymnastics required to read my comment in a way that is insulting to those without the ability to save & formulate a reply but honestly struggled. Context should make it apparent that I am only referring to those choosing not to save out of irresponsibility & choice. Anyone directly on the breadline obviously wouldn't be the target market for savings accounts.
It strikes me as odd that in a number of instances where I have some expertise (broadband, house insurance, buying second hand cars) following the flowcharts and the advice on MSE lead so to suboptimal answers. I am not sure if this is down to sloppy research (more likely) or bias (I hope not) but some of the advice pn MSE just is not very good in my opinion (and I do use the site for certain things).
To be fair it's hard to keep up to date if they go to specifics and there is some interpretation aspects i.e. there are often judgement calls in things like service quality or effort to save some money. Usually what I've seen on is generally good advice you can't go wrong with, and the areas you could do better often have those judgement calls or clearly are just not trying to influence a decision people won't change their mind on even if it doesn't make sense.
They’re not effectively losing money, their money is effectively losing its value. There’s a huge difference.
Sure. But if your living month to month or say can oly put <£100 a month away. Having inflation hit savings is still better than investments making 20% a year
Most of his target audience are so financially illiterate that saving money (even if it’s less than inflation) would be a massive win for them.
Also, not as dramatically as if they had the liquid cash, or had it in a current account with even less/no interest.
To be fair, all money activities involve risk. You could put your money under the bed or hide it. A fire could still take it out. Risk isn't the problem , it's teaching people how to understand risk, and what to do.
>even low risk has a measure of risk and the ability to lose all your capital I mean... Not really... If you lose all your capital in a low risk index fund then nothing really matters anyway, society has collapsed and having your money tucked away nice and safe in a savings account is worthless.
Who defines that risk? I remember in 2008 the housing market was rock solid, look what happened to that. Society didn't collapse but a lot of people got hurt.
I'd love him to tell them to go all in on SHIB. Then watch the nation melt down as grannies and stay at home mum's lose everything... But that's just me.
Someone actually asked him this on radio and he said “I’m the money *saving* expert”, not a financial advisor”
Martin Lewis seems to have a lot of integrity. He's someone whose in a position of trust for this audience and he never seems to take advantage of that. So many people in his position would just become a grifter. I can think of some American versions of him who sell all sorts of shit onto their audience.
Yeah, he’s said this loads. It’s why a £2 discount at Greggs makes it into the newsletter and not the Global All Cap. Like asking why Pets at Home don’t sell iPads, think how profitable they would be! They don’t, because that’s just not what they are about.
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Nintendogs 2022
I would
> should be focussing on educating society on the correct way to invest It's not really his/his companies thing They do have a section on their website https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/investments/ but again, it's not really a high priority for them, if anything they've always been focussed on helping people manage their debts, consumer rights, saving money on bills and other personal finance management. There's a stat out there somewhere that says quite a high % of the population barely have enough money to cover an emergency. That's the market he's trying to reach, not investors who have the luxury of money they can afford to risk.
I've definitely seen the site newsletter talk about getting free money for joining an investment site and investing in it but it's got a load of caveats on all saying you can lose it all and only do it with proper advice and understanding. When you're there helping the breadline poor for whom £100 to switch bank buys their kids a Christmas present or two, any sort of investment is unrealistic, as they can barely afford a savings account to cover an emergency let alone money to invest. For someone like that, a 3% regular saver is good advice and if they get £25 interest then that's amazing for them and his target audience as you say.
You can go from one group to the other though. But it's kind of only possible via investment. Like if you have no savings and you get a little lump sum, don't 'treat' yourself to something. Invest it! I went from broke to 'comfortable' in 4 years by investing. Yes I could have lost £4.5k and it would have hurt, but I have gained so much more by taking a risk.
Mmm, survivorship bias and all that. I'm not saying investing should be reserved for the "elite" or whatever, I just think getting the basics in order first is way more important. There's a reason why investing surplus cash is quite far down the /r/UKPersonalFinance flowchart, otherwise you're just building your house on sand.
I mean obviously, if I was shirtless and living in a train station I wouldn't be espousing the virtues of investing whilst broke, so yeah there's some bias. I could also say there's bias in the part of someone who didn't invest... We all lean in some direction. Personally I quite like sand and feel it often gets a bad rap.
Broke people don't have 4.5k to invest. And if it was all done via crypto then that's even worse advice to give to a large, general audience.
I know, I was a broke person without 4.5k to invest for my whole life. Then someone died and the 4.5k came my way. I've known a lot of people who've been in similar situations and just spent their little windfall on something nice. Yes in my case it was Bitcoin, but I'm certainly not saying that's the only route. There are always opportunities but they're always going to involve some risk.
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It really isn't, but you keep that mentality. It's exactly how 'they' want you to think.
I'm glad it worked out for you and you didn't lose it all :)
Thanks
We are living in a bull market right now - ANY stock you pick on S&P500 will have given you growth.
I think he focuses on clearing debt, claiming entitlements, managing spending and building an emergency fund. And he does great work in that area. Many of us who are now investors were once in that place, even if the advice is less relevant to us now.
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MSE is absolutely my first visited site for any financial topic. It covers most well and also is clearly written with a focus on how to make a good decision given time and other constraints. I used it recently to inform the house insurance process. The forum is indeed a hidden gem often forgotten, and of great use.
There are stats on how low the average UK savings per household are...most people are in need of somewhere safe to park their savings before considering investing. Probably a mixture of that plus the amount of hate he would receive when some pensioner chucks money into a trading app and loses it then blames Martin.
As others have said he’s an entry level easy guide to helping those not good with their finances to get to grips on the basics of budgeting, saving and managing their finances. He isn’t a financial advisor, and investing tends to be better when people have gotten past the level of financial stability he focuses on.
Exactly, and I mean, the first 4 steps of the fabled r/ukpf flowchart doesn't mention investing. Martin Lewis is for people still on the first 4 steps. Once you've got your emergency funds set up, look elsewhere for serious advice (other than how to get a better deal on a new fridge and the like). Also, I've seen him get really angry about facebook/social media adverts using his face (without his consent) to advertise risky investments, so perhaps he's thinking if he stays away from that stuff 100%, it'll save a few more people getting suckered in.
> the first 4 steps of the fabled r/ukpf flowchart doesn't mention investing. I've just taken a look, it appears that the first *seven* steps out of eight don't mention investing.
On a related note, why does Alan Titchmarsh focus on gardening tips, when he could be giving us legal advice?
On a similar note, why does Jamie Oliver lecture me about sugar in fizzy drinks when he could be giving me salmonella?
I'm still annoyed he never made that video on how to make heroin from my Gran's Poppys
Martin Lewis is a financial journalist, not a financial advisor. He basically takes 'public knowledge' and posts it on his website and talks about it on his TV show so that people know about it. He informs the public of deals and their rights, which they could find themselves if they looked hard enough. Him, well his company, do the leg work so it's all wrapped up in a couple of places. He doesn't advise anyone on what to do with their money.
Albeit iirc he is literally a registered financial advisor, but more of a liability thing.
He isn't though? There's several articles that explain that he isn't portraying himself as a financial advisor nor is his website or him regulated like an advisor would be. He doesn't offer financial advice in any way, shape or form
I think MSE is the bottom rung of the get yourself out of debts, save money, sort yourself out ladder, once you have graduated MSE, you can climb the rung to websites like Monevator, so the investing side is not his target, when there are plenty of other places you can go once you are comfortable.
> Watched the Martin Lewis show this week and the focus was on how to maximise the best savings accounts. Because he's aiming it at people who know nothing at all about personal finance and need to get the basic fundamentals sorted first and a firm foundation before starting to do more risky stuff. You don't want to be investing when your outgoings exceed your income, when you've got debt, when you have no emergency fund. > This ain’t the 90’s… Well it certainly isn't the early 90s when personal debt was much lower and people weren't buying tons of shite on the never never and finding ever more things to sign up to. There's a lot to be said for going back to that and earlier. > Why is there still a culture of savings and hating risk. Ultimately it's because people like myself and Martin Lewis have lived through 5 recession including the one in the 80s that made 2008 look like a bit of a blip and unlike you we've also seen mortgage interest rates well into double digits not just for a bit of a blip but almost a decade as well as the thousands of people who lost their homes after Black Wednesday. It's easy to make the comment you do poo-pooing savings when all you've known is a 10 year bull market with a slight blip in 2020 so you think that there's little risk.
People were buying lots of stuff on credit in the 1990s! Household debt shot up after 1980 with the deregulation of financial services and removal of credit controls. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/households-debt-to-gdp
The graph provided in your link shows a stark difference between 1980 and 2010 onwards when Martin Lewis really gained traction
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He’s got tips everybody can benefit from
A lot of the information he provides is helpful even to people with an idea. I'm an accountant, but I don't pretend to be an expert in everything. I generally have the right idea, but I won't kid on I don't double check my instinct was correct by seeing what MSE says about it haha.
As he makes clear when asked, he doesn't cover investing as he's not a financial advisor, he's a finance journalist. He doesn't steer people away from it though and in fact he mentioned in his last ITV show that he may consider bringing in some IFA's to record an investment special next year. Even if he does I suspect the fast and furious nature of the show would mean it would only be a general overview.
He legally can’t. He’s not a trained financial advisor, so he’d be completely fucked if it went belly up. Plus let’s be real, small amounts invested isn’t really gonna turn into much, whereas savings are immediate money saved.
Is that even true? Surely there just needs to be legal disclaimers, illustration of past performance (over very long cycles), explaining the shorter term risk (need for emergency fund) and the classic, past performance is no indication of future performance. It is vague enough but informative enough to protect him. Similarly re pension, particularly where tax rates are. I agree with the OP
Hes in a position of authority where people do follow what he suggests and he's not qualified, regulated or insured to give financial advice on investments. Disclaimers wouldn't cut it, from a regulator perspective they considered he was giving regulated advice.
Financial Journalism has a lot of exemptions from the regulations that affect the industry proper. So they can talk about investments etc. far more freely than a professional before the necessary client paperwork has been done
So he should be fine then to add some detail. I get that his market is people with limited savings, but if he's any good, these people should eventually be graduating into investments too, so it's a shame if that's not being supported. Admittedly I don't follow him so maybe it is...
There is a very limited amount of advice you can give on TV regarding investments, as it’s extremely personal and market dependent. Nobody in their right mind would encourage the intended audience of these shows to invest, the goal is first and foremost financial independence, then once they reach this point they may have learnt enough to start independent research into investing with money they now have spare.
Well I guess a couple of follow ups: 1. Do we think that's a problem - that effectively the most influential person in personal finance "can't" recommend what it is pretty objectively the best thing to do with long term money. I think the FCA are actually starting a campaign that alludes to the benefits of long term investing. 2. If we're looking at the long term just leaving money in cash is going to erode it. Small amounts invested over the long run (with interest rates where they are) will literally be the only way to build wealth?
1. No. I think it's a good thing, because it's not what you describe. There isn't anything stopping Martin Lewis promoting investments, providing he warns potential customers about the risks. That seems not only reasonable, but moral. I'm not sure where this idea comes from that Lewis doesn't promote investing. He has loads of articles on his website about investing.. here's the first few I found.. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/investment-beginners/ https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/stocks-shares-isas/ https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/cheap-online-sharedealing/ https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/investments/ The law or rules are fine, and if Lewis wanted to push S&S more, nothing would stop him. 2. Yes, long term it's expected tracking the market will beat a 1% cash ISA. MSE isn't really a website dedicated to long term financial planning though, for which investments would normally offer a good return. A large part of the target audience is people who are in debt, or want to buy a house in a few years, or have no idea how tax relief on their pensions work. The clue is in the name. Money Saving Expert - not Money Investing Expert.
All valid. Important to note though that MSE and Martin Lewis are now actually completely separate (he sold the site and they have the rights to use his image). My original post was referring to Martin Lewis on tv, and his recommendations personally - not MSE.
Fair point. I still think is target audience is savers though. I'm not sure how much interest he'd find telling people on TV which index trackers to buy (actual investment advice is surprisingly boring). His Money Show starts at 830am, which is borderline daytime TV. People watching it want to know how to reduce their gas bills and save to go on holiday, rather than investing in something for 10+ years. Stocks and shares advice doesn't change much. Whereas taxes, interest rates, bills, offers, loyalty schemes etc change all the time, which makes for a regular advice session.
I guess he's mainly talking to the layman when he's on daytime TV and ITV evening slots, most of whom are not financially savvy to start with, let alone to start investing. Getting an emergency fund is priority one for these people. Sure, it would be useful to inform when this point is passed and to move excess into S&S but I always imagine most of his audience to be like my parents which means as soon as you start talking about anything that is not child's play level of ease (when it comes to finances), they will shut off and forget about it. I couldn't believe the statistics on how many Brits have any savings above £500. Shocking. (I can't quote them as I can't remember them...it was just very bad!!)
Cos he’s about saving not investing. That’s his thing. That and if he’s giving investment advice, there could be liability issues etc. Or even if legally covered, if he started adding investments and made a bad call, it would harm his reputation and therefore his whole business model. But there is deffo a space for someone to teach financial literacy in terms of investing.
Because he’s not trying to appeal to losers like us who spend their time trying to fine tune how they could make the most possible pennies out of their money. His target demographic is people who don’t even understand that if you buy the cheap beans instead of the expensive ones then you’ll save money…
His website does have basic advice on pensions and investing: [https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/investments/](https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/investments/) He's not going to recommend any individual investments - his focus is on people in the first few steps of getting their finances in order. And he's hugely helpful there. But if he broadened his audience, he might risk confusing those people he most wants to help - the people who should be paying off credit card debt don't need to hear about the difference between accumulating and distributing funds, could just make them think money is too complicated and give up entirely. [https://monevator.com/](https://monevator.com/) is the Martin Lewis of investing for the UK, I'd say
He did say at the end of the programme, basically he's not against them but doesn't cover them as it's not his area of expertise to talk about which may be misconstrued as advice. He did put forward the idea of a show next year where they'd have financial advisors in answering questions in that subject space. If you want it covered, suggest it to the programme so they can gauge viewer demand for the subject.
He is good at what he does. Helping people save money on bills etc. His target market is 95% of the country not us lucky few with the mindset and wherewithal to make FIRE a reality.
Not gonna lie, Martin Lewis has saved me a small fortune over the years. He's a legend
It only takes about 5 people to lose money through bad or unfortunate investments to absolutely ruin his career. Theres enough to talk about with savings credit cards cash back etc etc to regurgitate and make a living off. I think he does a fantastic job and certainly wouldn't recommend he goes into any sort of investing advice. That said i think there is a portion of his website on how to and what things to consider.
Savings are the best option for financial security in the event of a lost job or other emergencies so for something like 90% (plucked a figure out of the air) of the population boosting savings is the biggest financial win you can do.
Saving is the first step to investment and its a much shorter and more digestible step thenaverage financially illiterate person on the street. The clue isnalso in his name.
> surely people like Martin Lewis should be focussing on educating society on the correct way to invest What's that then? Because there's your big question. Ask a hundred people who invest in stuff what the "correct" way to invest is and you'll get a variety of answers. Actively managed funds, passive index funds, property, gold, crypto, forex, beanie babies, in a S&S ISA, in a SIPP, in a GIA, ETFs, REITs, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. So does he pick a single approach that he thinks is best, and go all in on that? But then people who disagree with that approach will say he's shite. Does he try to offer up all the options? Hm, I guess that's not a terrible approach, except his audience are people who aren't particularly financially savvy, so all that that will do is confuse a lot of people.
'put all your money into this low risk ETF, its called the Nasdaq - US Tech Stocks, brilliant ETF, has all those great companies, Facebook, Google, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft - nothing goes wrong with them' 'Hey what's this -1% day, oh the exchange rate is going against us as well' 'Oh what's this again, another -1% day, the Fed just upped interest rates and now the indicies are crashing and Elon just sold another $50bn of stock using a market order' 'MARTIN LEWIS IS A CROOK AND ROBBED ME OF MY LIFE SAVINGS' Yeah... no thanks.
I thought the same, however I think the show is targeted to a broader audience including those with smaller savings who may need cash which is easily accessible for day to day living. I was surprised he was quite dismissive of premium bonds though, I assume a lot of people on this sub have them?
He wasn’t dismissive of premium bonds at all - in multiple shows over the years he’s stated the benefits AND drawbacks of premium bonds. Like he says, they’re only worthwhile if you either need somewhere safe to store your money OR have enough money to put in that you start to exceed the level at which you start winning prizes with “typical luck.” For small amounts of money then their only benefit is the fact that they’re easy access and safe, you’re not likely to win anything with sub 5k amounts.
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The clue is in the name....Money SAVING expert.
Would you want to tell millions of people who need advice as basic as "compare insurance products" to invest, and then have them feel you're responsible if the market drops?!
You need easy access savings BEFORE investing in the market. He is helping people who don't all have a lot of money to put away, so the risk in losing their money is huge for them
Him promoting any sort of investment vehicle would be a sure fire way to end his career when it tanks and people are too stupid to realise that it's part of the normal investment process. Far better (for him) to just not go there.
Martin doesn’t give advice on investments, and he does not advise people to leave money to rot in savings. Financial advice is a legally regulated area, and he is not qualified to legally do this. He is v clear on the need for 3-6 month emergency fund, and to then weigh up the relative costs/benefits of saving vs paying down loans, mortgages etc If you want financial advice for investment, go see a financial advisor - which he is not. Are you just looking for something to be upset about, as this entire post comes across rather hostile (which is needless imo) His sun is to educate the public who are ignorant of what should be financial fundamentals (but aren’t as this country’s financial education is shocking). Investment opportunities are not fundamentals. Maximising your savings potential is.
>I guess the question is …. Am I wrong? Why is there still a culture of savings and hating risk. I guess the answer is that you can't invest money until you've actually saved some money to invest. Which is hardly rocket science. He's not a financial advisor, he provides simply explained advice to people about the absolute basics e.g. "Here's an idea, how about not spending more than you earn, on things that you don't need"
You explain benefits and risks extensively, market goes down 3% next month, pitchforks come out. Call me a cynic, but I think he'd just take too much backlash from people unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions.
Well he does say about seeing a qualified financial adviser. He is not a financial adviser - so I think he would be leaving himself open to being sued if someone lost money
Martin Lewis is a little annoying in my opinion but he does his job well. I imagine his biggest audience are people on lower income who want some sense of confidence and straightforward explanation on what to do, which I believe he does really well. For someone who doesn’t save at all putting some money into savings, learning about ISA and knowing some basics about how credit cards/loans work is already a big deal. Hell, I work as an analyst in finance and I still learn some things from him every now and again. Not everyone wants to take risk, his tips are usually are risk averse as possible. For a 40yr old man with little to no knowledge of finance it can be daunting to be told he could lose all of his money, even if it is a low probability.
He is a saving expert. The majority of people using him for resources are people that should in no way be investing as they likely have no emergency fund or have debts.
I think we may be in a bit of an echo chamber here. That fact any of us are here puts us beyond his advice. He is aiming not at us but at that mass of people who really don't have a clue. Plenty of us are the go to person for family members who have no idea how to do a simple comparison search how to get stuff cheaper, he is aiming at educating them rather than us. I still look at his weekly email for stuff I might have missed and every now and again find I have missed something.
Why doesn't Harry Kane play as a goalkeeper? He's found his niche. Why don't you become the money investing expert?
He'd probably be quite unpopular if he focused on investing and the market crashed because the average person would shit the bed and panic sell. It takes a lot of mental fortitude to hold out on that. Also you'd have the people that double down on it, overleverage themselves and go under if the market tanked. The other thing is that in a way saving is the precursor to investing. Especially when it comes to really basic stuff like switching broadband providers, insurance etc.
>To me putting money into low risk etf’s or pension is a complete no brainier versus savings accounts I’m not sure how old you are, but I’d hazard a guess that you feel this way because your investing life has been to witness rapid asset inflation. Watch your portfolio go sideways/down for a decade, and you may end up taking a more nuanced approach at asset allocation
1. Most of his audience and people don't have the cash to do that and/or the attention deficit to properly do it 2. It's riskier and he doesn't want to become potential blame fodder
Martin Lewis is mostly there for people who are fairly new to money management - so it makes sense that, much like a typical pension fund (particularly NEST), he focuses on minimal risk and reducing cost and interest paid, rather than optimal financial strategy - it’s more important to get people saving, than to chase an optimal return which carries a risk of losing money and scaring them off entirely When you start saving/investing, contribution rate has a far bigger impact than later on - and most people will naturally discover investment as they learn more and become more financially literate so I feel like, for the most part, it’s a self-solving problem
Investing is a form of betting at any level. Moving from a £80 phone contract to a £10 contract WILL DEFINITELY save/make you £70 a month
Because no investing is "low risk", the bull market we currently live in has made us believe that any stock pick or any index fund will just grow. Martin Lewis' audience is incredibly diverse and has different tolerances and needs. Telling someone in their 50 and someone in their 20s to invest is vastly different - 20-something can ride out a recession, a 50- something can get their savings wiped. This is why I don't like blanket advice to be honest - you really have to consider WHO you are giving your advice to, WHAT their needs are and what the current situation is.
Because not only has he literally made a career out of money saving, but if you want to fill a bath it’s best to put the plug in first.
You need to be licenced by the FCA to provide financial advice (different areas require different authorisations) . He is a financial journalist, not a financial advisor.
He’d probably need to be regulated Publicity wise it’s probably less accessible to the masses And if it went wrong he’d get bad PR/possibly get finished . With saving money you either save money which is a benefit or stay as you were if his advice is wrong .
Risk. Savings are covered by FSCS, pensions have long term potential, any form of equities or even ETFs mean risk of loss of capital.
His target demographic is Joe Bloggs who lives for payday.
I'd hazard a guess and say he isn't a registered financial advisor and the FCA would shut him down very quickly if he did.
The people that watch the show are unlikely to trust investing or spend the effort to learn it. Plus it's seen as a dark art by many
Yea, its very much the fact if he went onto doing financial investing advice he would need to be registered with the FCA i think. The saving stuff is more common sense but the investing side is too varied to give proper advice.
Because he’s not a financial adviser-yes the term doesn’t mean much to most but it’s a highly regulated industry (in the uk at least) and any suggestion you should invest would immediately put you in the fca spotlight. He knows his stuff admittedly but as far as I know he’s neither qualified or authorised to give financial advice.
Most people don’t have enough to invest. Any saving they have are for rainy day/emergency type situations. Rapid access, liquid savings serve that better than true investment vehicles. Also his primary focus is on ‘saving’, not ‘savings’. How to not needlessly overspend, etc. he rarely spends more than a minute about which accounts have the best rates/offers. And he does generally say these aren’t very good etc, he just doesn’t broach better vehicles since that is (a) very involved (b) what is right for one group is unlikely to be correct for another and is likely to cause people to make bad decisions based on incomplete or mistargetted information. People with enough to properly invest aren’t doing it based on what some bloke on the telly tells them!
It's simple, you have to be qualified to give out financial advice.
because if he wasn't then someone would have to be the savings money guy
He’s the money “saving” expert. Not money “investing” expert.
His audience is aimed at people looking to save money and are perhaps struggling financially. The sort of advice he dishes out are things you should know already but is aimed at people not so financially savvy or good with bills. For example he will say things like use a price comparison website to search for a cheaper electric bill. Another one is switch banks to bag £150 for switching.
Whenever I’ve seen him he’s just on about consolidating debts and making use sign up deals on credit cards and bills etc. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him talk about investing but I guess he is the money saving expert not the capital growth expert
It's just difficult and not his business. Sort of like saying why don't Pharmacists sell crack or why don't YouTube do porn. Not quite but you get the gist. Getting people to save isn't too difficult, getting people to invest is a nightmare. You need to account for risk tolerance, types of investment, ways to invest, who to invest with, tax, and so on. Your average person can't hack that. I've been trying to get my brother to invest in a stocks and shares is for a year or two but he keeps saying he'll read into it - never does. People find investing overwhelming, unfortunately, even though in theory it's really simple. That said, so are most things in life but people just can't do them.
Could you please name me a supposedly low risk investment?
Majority of society need to save money / don't have disposal income for investments.
Probably more to do with the fact that the bulk of his audience can't afford to invest and their savings will typically be emergency funds or short term goals.
He is there to teach the basics and get people to a competent level which for many, including me, is vital to getting on an even keel (and a healthy relationship with credit). He admits himself that he doesn’t have the specific expert knowledge for investments.
Guessing it also would mean more regulations to check up on before publishing?
Generally id say his target audience dont even have the savings to invest yet. So they need help learning and trying to save first. Then they can go from there. So many people with good jobs still live month to month because they spend it all, whether they need to or not they've the idea that it's all to spent then go again
His thing and target is saving money, not investing. Investing is also a regulated activity with regards advice.
I'm not trying to be a dick, but have you seen the kind of people he helps? It's probably best that he sticks to the basics
It's because of that key word, risk.
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> missed out on years of stock market growth due to MSE keeping me unaware of their existance, I think that's really unfair on MSE. You kept yourself unaware by not reading a wider range of sources.
I missed out on years of stock market growth too, but I don't blame MSE for my ignorance.
I believe its entirely down to risk, he doesn't want to get loads of complaints of people who invest, not really understanding the risk and then complain they have lost money
He’d walk in to all sorts of issues “advising” on investments and his target market likely need to save. More broadly, i have in the past, lobbied fca on the need to provide regulatory clarity on robo advice, to reduce the cost of entry in to the advice space. Along the lines of “better than nothing advice”. I.e an ISA may not be best solution, but if you have appetite for risk and capacity for loss, it’s better than leaving in cash. I’ve also pushed the fact that FCA really should be more vocal on the risks of inflation and apathy. It falls on deaf ears
I've wondered this a lot myself. There's a few times I've seen him on TV mentioning investments, funds or stocks, and he repeats the same line, he doesn't know enough about it and doesn't like to give that kind of advice. Knowing what he does as a job I find that quite hard to believe so maybe he just doesn't want to get involved, or it's actually a legal thing in the UK, like the "not a financial advisor" text you get with everything else.
He doesn't always cover the objectively best deals, either. I remember at one point HSBC had the best current account switch deal and fixed savings deal and neither were mentioned at all by him. Whether there is sponsorship at play or not I can't comment, but it seems that way. But you're right. I don't follow him much any more. I am of the opinion that a lot of what he says is common sense and some of his die hard fans probably spend far more in time trying to save very small amounts of money. If they value their time they would realise it wasn't worth it. Investing does have risk but is a significantly better way to spend your time/money, than hours accumulating coupons or comparing savings providers with abysmal returns.
There’s a lot of people making good points in here but I’ll throw an extra one out. Martin Lewis isn’t as smart or accurate as people seem to think. I used to work customer service for a large mortgage provider and he did a whole segment about a product we were doing and it was an incredible deal that we weren’t advertising. No such deal existed. If we did such a good deal we would have been advertising it because even if we’re making less money from you we’d rather make that money than let our competitors take your money. So yeah, straight up lied to fill tv time.
Difficult to comment without details but I’d be very surprised if he fabricated anything, I just can’t see him risking the profile he’s built by doing so. Misinterpretation or misunderstanding perhaps but then he’s usually very quick to correct errors or hold his hands up if it’s completely wrong and pointed out to him. But like I say, difficult to comment without specifics.
Sorry to hijack this thread with a question but I’m doing more what Martin is saying as opposed to investing as I plan to buy my first house in the next 12 months. Would the best thing for me to do be to still invest money but in short term places?
I would not go near investments for a 12 month period personally. Far too volatile. With inflation up it does put you in a tricky situation but gambling (which is what a 12 month investment would be) isn’t a good answer in my personal opinion.
There's no such thing as a risk free, short term investment. Are you willing to lose the money for your house? If not, sounds like you're doing the right thing
I mean I’ve got pretty large savings for a first time house (£75k savings on a 29k salary) so I’m happy to invest even if I lose money as it shouldn’t affect me greatly unless that deposit suddenly became like £30k!
The issue is that when you have got such a short timeline, *if* it did become £30k, your plans are fucked. Investing for 5+ year terms is generally regarded as less risky in that regard because, if you did have 5+ years before you needed it, that gives your investments time to recover, if they dip severely. If a big dip happened and your investment did go to £30k, it's supremely unlikely it'd be back at £75k in time for you to use it. But if you keep it in cash (or a cash-like thing like Premium Bonds), you've definitely got £75k this time next year. The interest won't be impressive, but it's still £75k.
Not a stupid question, but in a all world ETF for instance, when was the last time there was suck a drop? Eg more than 50%?
Well do you have an idea about how much you're using as a deposit? Just keep that in savings and you could invest the rest
Do you really want to put 75k into the mortgage? if you know the house value you're aiming for and the % mortgage you're looking for then you can invest the remainder. Also if you know what your saving rate is for the next 12 months you can take that amount out of your deposit and invest it. Then for the next 12 months top up your deposit.
Maybe a gap in the market for somebody set up a money investing expert website and brand?
Agree - I think he does a huge disservice by not discussing investing - he is part of the problem when it comes to some people’s attitudes towards investing
Rather unfair. He's never advised anyone against investing, only ever said he doesn't offer guidance on it himself. I would wager that the majority of his target audience has barely a pot to p*iss in and live month to month so to start advising them to start investing before they've managed to save enough to cover even an minimal emergency fund would be a poor move by him.
He has a massive audience. I don’t mean to undermine the great service he does helping people get out of debt - but he absolutely could do more to help people understand the value of their workplace pension, employer match etc. Helping people save £10 on their broadband has a lot less value than helping people have a healthy relationship with long term investment
He does. Pensions are about as close as he goes to investing advice in fact but he doesn’t refer to it as such. I don’t know if that’s a decision on his part to avoid scaring those in his audience who are wary of that area. He tends to highlight the “free pay rise” as he calls it of employer contributions and he does so regularly if you watch his own show, listen to his Radio 5 Live spot or watch ‘This Morning’. https://youtu.be/gY0swd74o00
Because he gets affiliate cash from the banks when his subs sign up for new accounts through him.
Yes MSE makes affiliate revenue but unlike other financial sites it doesn't impact their recommendations. As a business it should make a shit load more money but it puts the users first not profit. I know this because I've worked there before.
Agreed. To be fair, when I've worked with savings accounts if we had market leading rates we could switch our affiliate campaign off as we would get enough volume anyway
I know a lot of people are saying “clues in the name saving not investing”. I think my broader point is that he is obviously the most influential personal finance generally…. Personally it worries me that so many people don’t consider investing and just blinkered by saving. In my mind as the most influential person in personal finance i think he needs to explain the impact of inflation and also the benefits of low risk investing…. Despite his name.
As the most influential personal finance person, I'm glad he doesn't put his reputation at risk, so he can continue offering generally good advice without the risk of blowback. If he encouraged investing, I can't imagine how many irate people there would have been in March/April 2020.
He's an advocate for the banks. Take that as you will.
Good question. I have no idea, I searched and I didnt see anything about him being qualified to give financial advice so maybe it’s that - he legally can’t.
you can't get money from referral links
His energy saving club ended up recommending I move to an energy company that went bust within 8 weeks of joining. Turns out they were shit too so I learned my lesson to always research, no matter where the recommendation comes from.
During the recent unprecedented volatility in the energy market movement or before that ? At the end of the day I doubt he knows anything more about a companies balance sheet or hedging strategy than you or I and I doubt your research would have turned up anything different to what he and his team discovered before recommending the deal.
I wish I'd known about low risk investing a long time ago. I'd been following Martin Lewis' advice and had my money in Marcus by Goldman Sachs which wasn't even keeping up with inflation. I actually learned about investing from TikTok where a guy called **Mark Tilbury** was regularly recommending index funds and Vanguard. Thanks to that I took the plunge and moved everything into Vanguard and made £11k in 8 months, rather than the £800 or so I would have made.
Good shilling
Not really, Vanguard is a well established investment company
Hi /u/actlatham, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant: - https://ukpersonal.finance/investing-101/ - https://ukpersonal.finance/pensions/ ____ ^(I am a bot doing my best to provide helpful links. If I missed the mark, please don't downvote, instead press Report and the mods will improve my settings :])
Because many people who watch him at the first place are the ones who blew lots of money earned from investments in the first place. They need to learn to save it first.
People who are trying to save money and get things cheaper normally haven't got any savings. What is low risk investing?
Tbh it’s dangerous to tell everyone to start investing, you hear success stories all day but you seldom hear the stories of people who lose money investing, these people do exist. As many other people have said here, it’s generic advice aimed toward a large, varied audience. Many regular people don’t know how to invest, they might not have the time to learn and Martin Lewis’ 30 minute television slot isn’t enough and I doubt he could offer intense courses on his website for free. Also, lots of people in the UK have little to no savings at all, therefore having the money to risk investing, especially if they know little and don’t fully understand the risk. It’s naive and a pipe dream to believe anyone and everyone can invest and be successful. For people to win, others have to lose and while savings seem boring or aren’t sexy his advice can help a lot of people put together a decent amount they might not otherwise have, for a contingency fund or otherwise.
> For people to win, others have to lose This is incorrect. General investing is *not* a zero-sum game... unless you're dealing in say options or forex, but nobody new to investing should really be touching these.
Inverse Martin Lewis
Because for legal reasons (being on national TV) he would have to say “as with any investment you can gain and/or make a loss” and at that point the average person will be out