Episode 5 - Your views

jo_b_2

My favourite show so far. :T

The pace was perfect. No rushing and lots of attention was given to the individual topics - giving the inexperienced time to soak up the ideas.

As I said last week, Ruth and Martin seem really comfortable with each other now and work well together.

The only thing missing to me is the Thrifty Tips bit. Has that been killed altogether because of time constraints or is that coming back in future episodes?

Angelina-M

jo_b wrote: »

My favourite show so far. :T

The only thing missing to me is the Thrifty Tips bit. Has that been killed altogether because of time constraints or is that coming back in future episodes?

I did the keeping chickens tip and they filmed me doing three other tips but they have decided not to use them and are going to do a little couple of minute film of me making homemade beauty products instead so yes they have changed the format. I'm assuming this means the end of the 30 second thrifty tip

jo_b_2

Angelina-M wrote: »

I did the keeping chickens tip and they filmed me doing three other tips but they have decided not to use them and are going to do a little couple of minute film of me making homemade beauty products instead so yes they have changed the format. I'm assuming this means the end of the 30 second thrifty tip

That's a shame.

I suppose something has to give though as the first couple of shows just had too much info on there for people to take in. Martin comes across much better when he doesn't need to talk quite so fast!

Flylady_Flower

chocolatebutton wrote: »

I think what you meant was http://www.itpaystowatch.co.uk/ - you can click on 'get paid to shop' and it will take you through to them being very indiscreet (and slightly inaccurate ) about which shops I shop. What they actually asked me was 'which companies are best to work for' - and I refused to answer that! I did say which companies are best to start with: I recommended http://www.gapbuster.com/xec/Default.aspx?cp=CC000818_frontright and http://online.tns-global.com/wix/p56523701.aspx

TBH I'm not sure if the second link works. But you can find out loads more about MS on this site if you are serious and have the patience to read a very long thread! http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=614705

Thanks Chocolate Button!
Thats a great help, much appreciated.
Denise x

yorkie98

First post....

I'd like to say thanks for the info on BT phone charges and also to offer some info which might save others some cash, (certainly did in my case).

Coincidentally, I was sitting reading the letter and price change leaflet from BT just before the show and thought to myself it looked like the prices were being hiked for daytime and especially evening calls whilst giving the free weekend calls (I'm on Option 1). Martin confirmed this on the show and now evening calls will cost over 20 times as much (I think thats what he said and seemed to confirm what I thought the leaflet said). So altogether, BT have given with one hand and taken back 20X with the other (plus 75p extra line rental!!).

Inspired by Martin's advice about changing to the Primus deal, I remebered something I have been sitting on for years and never taken up..(Martin will probably cringe if he hears of my apathy..)
My broadband provider also offers a Carrier pre-select phone service for just £4.99 per month for anyone and FREE if you are already a broadband customer. Best of all the FREE deal includes 500 FREE ANYTIME minutes for UK 01/02 landline calls. I switched immediately, so now I will never pay another penny for landline calls EVER!! (I'll never use over 500 mins, and if I do, I can pay an extra £5 and get 3000 mins!!).

In addition, I have signed up with 1899.com which seemed comparable to the 18185 service but I went for 1899 simply because it has a shorter access code. This means my mobile calls will be slashed too (which used to make up two thirds of the call charges on my BT bill).

Hopefully, my phone expenditure should reduce drasticly, my quarterly bills were only usually around £120 but I expect overall to make a good saving now.

What I would say is to urge those who have a broadband service, to check and see if they can get any phone services from their ISP (NOT Voip but Carrier pre-select) as people generally look to a telecoms provider to bundle broadband with the phone but not the other way round.

I have been with my broadband provider for over 5 years (a premium quality provider, not a cheap one) and they have been offering the phone service for around 3 years. I now feel quite stupid and slightly ashamed that I didn't do anything about it years ago, I guess I always felt a loyalty to BT (I used to work for them) and never changed. Thankfully, it took this highly sneaky and greedy move from BT and Martins' advice to finally push me to make changes and to no longer accept BTs' poor charges.

It now gives me great satisfaction to give only the very bare minimum money I can to BT and hopefully many others will follow suit as the latest price move on weekday calls looks like it will absolutely sting some people.

So big thanks to BT for finally pushing me over the edge, you have just lost many customers over this I should think and a HUGE thanks to Martin (and the team) for pointing me in the right direction and helping me to find the best deal for my other calls.

Yorkie98.

Happy_Girl_2

I totally LOVE this show. It's the one show I have to watch every week! And it's been surprising how many other people I talk to who are also avid fans!

Hope you get loads more series Martin, and maybe C5 will give you an hour next time!

But one query I have, is that I couldn't get the C5 link to work. In the end I googled it, and got the www.itpaystowatch.co.uk link.

Sadly I don't qualify for the council tax revaluation, or the mortgage exit fee refund, but I'm pressing on with the bank loan insurance and late payment fees refund request.

I'm determined it will 'pay me to watch' hehe

MSE_Martin

samtheman1k wrote: »

One question though, are the people selected for the 'on screen tests' pre-selected because of their status, or are they completely random?

It depends on the task. We always try and ensure that if they're selected we explain it.

For MEAFs all we ensured was they'd paid off/reclaimed a mortgage.

For council tax, as I said in the programme "everyone should do this, but you three are people chosen as who think you're in too high a band". This was therefore self selecting. Doing a similar experiment before with 8 random home owners only one was in the band. This time we'd done a little pre-check to ensure that at least one would find it worth doing all the checks (as a case study).

I almost made it clear that i think this impacts between "1 in 10 and 1 in 20" people but everyone (in fact I think I said everyone, everyone, everyone) should do it to see

For car insurance they were just three people with car insruance - our main criterai was to get a range of prices...

Martin

MSE_Martin

Some more answers

1. No I dont want to be an ice cream salesman
2. We havent dropped thrifty tips. To make space for them we're planning to show either an "extraordinary moneysaver" film or a "long thrifty film" each week. So we've enough time for other things so they'll roughly alternate (depending on the balance of that weeks show)
3. Yes ItPaysToWatch has had another ten shows commissioned
4. And as a trial we'll be doing the web show after the main show ina Sunday mornign repeat

nanamags

[PHP][/PHP]One question though, are the people selected for the 'on screen tests' pre-selected because of their status, or are they completely random?

I was one of the council tax people and I replied to posting on this forum. Laura from the IPTW team asked me to provide my address and after the details were checked they asked me to come on the show. Although everything was researched before hand we were not told the result and we actually had to to check the websites ourselves when we walked off with the laptops. I did not know how much money I could possibly get until Martin told me on screen.

I would encourage anyone else to respond to the IPTW postings if it something that effects them. I had a brilliant time, thanks again to Martin Ruth and all the team.:A :A
:T :T :T

Little_Pickle

ello!

I was there too, with my mum, for the council tax show... I was the nervous blonde (I think I standing behind you nanamags?) and my mum was horrified to see she was the first face on the show when the camera panned around from her! he he!

Dad taped it for us... I haven't seen it yet, but mum said it is a great show!
We found it really really great when we were there... the team were great.

We went on to Oxford Street to meet some MSE ladies from the 'making friends' thread.. all of whom were lovely!

xox