About the Site
What’s MoneySavingExpert.com all about?

Also Read: How the site is financed, Martin Lewis' biography

The average person in the UK can give themselves the equivalent of a 25% payrise, by being an active, savvy consumer and shifting to the very best deals. This takes cash from companies' pockets and puts it in their own. This site hopes to show you how.

How the site works

Rather obviously MoneySavingExpert.com is here to save you money, and there are four main routes for that, all ad-free and free to use of course.

• The Weekly 'Martins Money Tips' E-mail. This isn't a site with an e-mail, it's an e-mail with a website to back it up! The real key to MoneySaving is to be on the distribution list for the weekly e-mail. Over two-thirds of the best deals date within a week; the aim of the e-mail is to make sure you hear before it's too late. Simple as that. Add yourself to the distribution list.
  
  
• MoneySaving Articles. The main site has a huge range of articles, from Childcare Vouchers to Cheapest Contact Lenses; Balance Transfers to Boots Bargain Hunting. Rather than saying ‘shop around’ the articles are prescriptive, and include unique super-detailed product research.
  
  Martin personally writes the vast majority of articles, and still devises the methodology and does the product analysis for the others.Articles are regularly updated, and each then links through to a discussion in the Chat Forum (see below), allowing newbie MoneySavers to ask questions and more experienced MoneySavers to discuss the practical implementation.
  
  
• MoneySaving Tools. This site is a cuckoo; articles unapologetically link to the best money tools on the web on other sites too, after all why be precious?, if something's good, it's good.
  
  And if good enough tools don't exist elsewhere, then they're built here, such as the FlightChecker , CallCheckers, RewardsChecker, Budget Planner and Tart Alert.
  
  
• MoneySaving Forums.Taking companies on isn't the job of any one individual. This site has a huge community of MoneySavers' at any one moment thousands of people are in the Chat Forum talking about ways to save. In fact there are roughly 20 paperback books' worth of MoneySaving info written there daily.
  
  Thus it'd be impossible for anyone to read everything there, so it's split into over 50 different subjects, each with their own mini-community, including Debt-Free Wannabe (mutual support for those in debt), Grabbit While You Can (top bargain spotting), MoneySaving Old Style (thrifty ways from older days), The Benefits Board (making sure you're getting you're entitlement), Credit Cards(from debt cost cutting to profiting with plastic) and to relax the MoneySavers' Arms .

Terms and Conditions of Use

It's important to let you know information on this site does not constitute financial advice. All information is based on journalistic research and analysis rather than tailored advice aimed for individuals. Decisions should be taken only after considering the effects of all specific circumstances. Please read the Full Legal Terms and Conditions. To protect the site both Martin Lewis® and Money Saving Expert® are registered trademarks owned by Martin Lewis.

The history and the growth of the site

The easiest way is to let Martin tell the tale:

I'd been working as ‘the Money Saving Expert' since June 2000 and was already lucky enough to have a newspaper column and regular slots on different TV and radio programmes. During the course of my research, I began to send tips to my friends as and when I spotted a good deal during my research. Jokingly I called it 'Martin's Money Tips'."

"After a couple of months, I was at a party and people I'd not met kept thanking me for the e-mails. It turned out my friends were forwarding it to their friends, so to make it easier, I set up an e-mail list built around a basic homepage."

"The e-mail took off with 1,000 recipients, so I decided the site had potential to help me promote my journalism work, and I paid a web designer in Uzbekistan £100 to design a proper site. This was launched on 20 February 2003, which for me is when it really started."

"Frankly the growth of the site after that astounds me. It luckily coincided with more high profile broadcast work, which helped build my reputation and thus bring people to the site. And vice versa, the site's growth also helped bolster my reputation, bringing more TV work."

"Now, only a few years later (as at 27 Feb '07) there are nearly 6 million visits a month to the site from 2.48 million people in the UK and over 1,000,000 people who have added themselves to the distribution list to receive the weekly e-mail."

"Writing and running the site now takes most of my week, and I'm more than ably assisted these days by a team. I'm staggered by how it all happened, but very grateful, and hope the site will go from strength to strength, continuing to be a true force to be reckoned with by companies, and a place consumers can call home!"

The MoneySavingExpert Team

For a long time the site was a one man band, then in May 2004 Brendan joined as full time web-manager looking after the technical side of the site. And the huge growth of the site has allowed a good few more to join (read ‘How The Site Is Financed ’).

Having the team has enabled more MoneySaving and the site to be much more up to date. Over to Martin...

"In the old days I did all the data compiling, now that's a group effort, as is keeping the site up to date and fact checking the weekly e-mail. Originally I only updated when I wrote a new article, yet now most of the big credit card, loan, bank account, savings, phones and insurance articles are updated weekly and most others monthly. So this site has the accuracy of a super-independent price comparison service, but in an editorial style."

"Sadly, I'm too much of a control freak to become more hands off, but even so, it leaves me free to write more articles and dedicate myself fully to looking at MoneySaving."

"This is important to me. The site now may have huge traffic, but it is still a personal site, following a cohesive MoneySaving logic, and hopefully one you can trust. My aim is to keep standards, MoneySaving logic, (occasional appalling spelling) and research consistent even with a bigger team".

The MoneySavingExpert.com Charity Fund

As part of the site's ethical stance, a chunk of the revenue received (see how the site is financed) is donated to charity. Two thirds goes to the new MSE Charity, which will be giving grants to individuals and charities to help educate and inform about debt and consumer issues.

The remaining third goes to charities chosen by users of the site. Plus there's also one off additional donations to the like's of Children in Need and Comic Relief.

This money can really make a difference. For example Re-Cycle, a small charity which has been included in the site's selected charities for the past four years, have written many times to thank MoneySavers for the great support this cash gives them.

How to nominate a charity

Charities are nominated annually by site users and put to a site-wide vote. If you would like to nominate a charity please add yourself to the distribution list of the free Martins Money Tips weekly email, which will include the announcement that nominations are being re-opened.

Donations as at 13 February 2008: £336,775.25 Current charities (started 1.9.06)

One third of the cash goes to this year's site charities Re-Cycle £18,508.35 Cancer Research £18,508.35 Tools For Self Reliance £18,508.35 Different Strokes £18,508.35 Usable Websites £18,508.35 Plus special one off donations Festive Donation: £3,000 went to Children in Crisis as part of the site's Christmas festive donation Children In Need: In the run up to Children in Need 2007, 50p was donated per new recipient of the weekly e-mail, meaning an overall donation of £8,200 donation. Comic Relief: To celebrate Comic Relief, 50p was donated per new recipient of the weekly e-mail in the run up meaning a £7,700 donation. Charities Aid Foundation: £1,100 was given to this charity which provides low-cost banking, financial and training services to other charities. Govan Law Centre: received a £9,000 donation for providing legal support to the Bank Charges campaign. National Eczema Society: received a donation of £50. JustGiving-cimaracing: received a donation of £100. Two thirds goes to the MSE Charity So far that means £215,083.49 has been donated to the MSE Charity Fund (Registered Charity Number: 1121320). Though this has only just launched, and the exact process is still being formulated. The charitable aim is that it will be a grant giving charity in its own right dedicated to improving information and education about debt, money and consumer issues. Once this is fully set up and ready to go, more information will be put in the free weekly e-mail.