You're pants, you know you are, and you shouldn't be! Blog Discussion 2 September 2005 at 5:34PM in Debt-free wannabe 6 replies 2.1K views

Former_MSE_Andrea

Click reply to discuss Martin's blog here.

skintchick

I'm too stunned to comment. What an idiot.

newfunk

Why doesnt that surprise me one bit!!

Joe_Bloggs

The first part of the solution is to admit that the problem exists. There are no stupid questions on this forum and therefore no stupid questioners. The credit card PR person should give Martin's advice a try and consider joining the forum. It is never to late to learn.
J_B.

Clowance

The "chick lit" series of books by Sophie Kinsella "shopaholic abroad...shopaholic ties the knot" etc etc are based on the premise that the central character is a financial journalist who spends her days researching financial issues for a magazine yet is so ditsy that she is deeply in debt, ignoring final demands and exceeding credit card limits etc. So the problem is probably quite common.
Yesterday I spent 3 hours changing my 2 car insurances from More Than to more Than - the renewal was so high that I shopped around, using Martins instructions. (I always have shopped around, but his way was better). Oddly, the cheapest quotes for both cars were with More than! Ringing them did little good, they couldnt get the quote as low, even when a supervisor came on. So the supervisor advised me to insure online and then cancel my existing policies. I did this and got the cheaper price, phoned them back etc. At the end of three hours I was exhausted but had saved cir £150 AND got extras like legal and protected NCD, and stayed with the same company!
If you add the tax and NI to this I would have had to earn £220 to spend this amount.
Its purely laziness by consumers who wont sort out their affairs. I am guilty of this too sometimes.

skintchick

Clowance wrote:

The "chick lit" series of books by Sophie Kinsella "shopaholic abroad...shopaholic ties the knot" etc etc are based on the premise that the central character is a financial journalist who spends her days researching financial issues for a magazine yet is so ditsy that she is deeply in debt, ignoring final demands and exceeding credit card limits etc. So the problem is probably quite common.
Yesterday I spent 3 hours changing my 2 car insurances from More Than to more Than - the renewal was so high that I shopped around, using Martins instructions. (I always have shopped around, but his way was better). Oddly, the cheapest quotes for both cars were with More than! Ringing them did little good, they couldnt get the quote as low, even when a supervisor came on. So the supervisor advised me to insure online and then cancel my existing policies. I did this and got the cheaper price, phoned them back etc. At the end of three hours I was exhausted but had saved cir £150 AND got extras like legal and protected NCD, and stayed with the same company!
If you add the tax and NI to this I would have had to earn £220 to spend this amount.
Its purely laziness by consumers who wont sort out their affairs. I am guilty of this too sometimes.

I did the same thing with MoreTHan last year - it is best to get a new quote from EVERYONE as they want new business more than they want to retain old customers, so it's set to give lower quotes to 'new' people. I saved quite a bit too, about £60.

fgaughan

Where are there no RSS feeds in martins blog?