Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert, is an award-winning TV and radio presenter, national newspaper columnist and bestselling author.
An ultra-specialised journalist, he spends his life focusing on how to cut bills without cutting back and created, runs and owns this, the UK’s biggest money site with over 8 million users a month and 3.8 million people receiving the Martin's Money TIps email.
He's commonly credited as the 'big gob in chief' behind the campaign to reclaim Bank Charges, with over 6 million template letters downloaded, he has also run massive financial justice campaigns to reclaim Council Tax, Mortgage Fees and PPI.
In 2009 an authoritative report revealed Martin was the most searched person in the UK and he won the London Press Club Consumer Journalist of the year award.
Martin is 37 years old and was born in Manchester but grew up in Cheshire. He now lives in North Kensington, West London, is a Governor of the London School of Economics and, most bizarrely, has even had a featuring credit in the top 40 single I Fought The Lloyds.
TV, Radio and the papers
As well as creating, running and writing this site, Martin is phenomenally busy. His work includes...
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Resident Expert on GMTV. He's also GMTV’s resident Money Saving Expert, with a slots on GMTV & LK on Tuesdays, and a Deal of the Week slot on LK on Thursdays, plus ad hoc news reactive interviews.
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ITV1's Tonight. For the last four years Martin's been a regular presenter of ITV1s Tonight (Mon and Fri at 8pm) bringing detailed half hour MoneySaving shows and exposes to a prime time ITV audience.
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Five TV's It Pays To Watch. He’s had his own prime time Five series It Pays to Watch, and ITV1 daytime series Make Me Rich.
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Radio 2 Jeremy Vine and Radio 1 Jo Whiley Shows. Martin's radio work includes a hour-long Friday lunchtime phone-in on BBC Radio 2's Vine show every three weeks and a regular monthly slot on Radio 1's Whiley show.
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News of the World column. Martin has his own weekly campaigning page in the News of the World with a main item on how to save money and answers to readers' questions.
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Telegraph, Woman & other columns. Martin has a monthly column in the money section of the Telegraph, a fortnightly column in the Sunday Post, Woman magazine and a syndicated column in a range of regional newspapers, including the Manchester Evening News and the Jewish Chronical.
As well as these regular slots, Martin's constantly interviewed and appears on a range of other programmes including Moneybox Live, BBC1 Watchdog, Five's The Wright Stuff and the ITV News regular sits in Dictionary Corner on Channel 4's Countdown and ITV1's Celebrity Who Wants To Be a Millionair for Citizens Advice. And just to get really silly, he's even had a featuring credit in a top 40 chart hit...I Fought The Lloyds.
Previous work
In the past, amongst other things, he’s been a columist for the Sunday Times, Guardian and Sunday Express, had his own ITV1 daytime series Make Me Rich and was also resident expert on both ITV1's Richard Hammond 5 O'clock Show and This Morning.
Martin's books the Money Diet, Three Lessons & Thrifty Ways have all been bestsellers. The updated edition of the Money Diet followed in the footsteps of the first edition by topping the Amazon Bestsellers list. This time it was number one for over two weeks, knocking Jamie Oliver and Sharon Osborne off the top spot.
What Martin says in Three Lessons:
"The Three Most Important Lessons You've Never Been Taught"
1. A company's job is to make money from you
2. Debt isn't bad, bad debt is bad
3. Loyalty doesn't pay.
Comments and quotes
While Martin's very often quoted on ways to save money, please don't believe everything you read in the papers, not all the facts are right. Only those available online have been included here.
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The Scotsman (Apr. 09) Living by numbers
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The Observer (Mar. 09) This much I know
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Hitwise most searched person in the UK (Feb. 09) Martin Lewis most searched
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The First Post (Dec. 08) From GMTV’s sofa - credit crunch star Martin Lewis
Manchester Evening News (Feb. 07) Mr Supersaver's on a mission
The Independent (Feb. 07) The consumer champion behind growing rebellion
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Sunday Herald Magazine (Jan. 07) Lend me your arrears (PDF - it's big so may take a minute to download)
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Moneywise Magazine (Mar. 06): A true 21st century cash saving champ (PDF - it's big so may take a minute to download)
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Telegraph (Jan. 06): This man can save you £6,000 a year
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The Guardian (Dec. 05): Cashing in on being a real nerd
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Metro (Dec. 05) 60 second interview
Watch Martin's showreel
Watch Martin's showreel
(c. 2006)
A showreel is the tape that is sent to TV producers to show them how a broadcaster is on air. It's usually up to five minutes in length and is intended to show range and diversity (Discuss the showreel)
For more images and downloads see the Funny Money Gallery
What does Martin say about it?
If you ask him what he does for a living he says,
“I'm a broadcaster by training, but presenting programmes or talking about money on the telly and radio is my job. When I originally set up this site in February 2003 for £100 it was barely more than a home page. Yet without spending on marketing or advertising, it's become the huge monster it is.
It staggers me that it now has nearly eight million in the UK using it each month and is ranked the biggest consumer & personal finance site in the UK - for that massive thanks are due to many regular MoneySavers kindly recommending it to their friends.
I was hugely proud, gobsmacked even, recently when there was a specific motion in the House of Commons to support the site. It's one of the reasons I strive to keep the original intimate one-person feel of the site, and why every word of every article goes through me. More importantly, I deliberately retain 100% ownership. This way, regardless of scale, it can retain its ethical stance."
Read more on this site and its history.
Watch Martin's showreel
(c. 2006)
A showreel is the tape that is sent to TV producers to show them how a broadcaster is on air. It's usually up to five minutes in length and is intended to show range and diversity (Discuss the showreel)
For more images and downloads see the Funny Money Gallery
Martin's background
Martin specialised into MoneySaving on a small, now defunct, Sky Channel called Simply Money. After that he began writing a column for the Sunday Express and started his first terrestrial Money Saving Expert slot on Open House with Gloria Hunniford.
Before focusing on MoneySaving, he worked on personal finance and business programmes in the BBC's Business unit and has reported for BBC1, BBC Network Radio and even spent time as a Business Editor of Radio 4's Today Programme. Prior to that he worked ‘for the other side' as a City Spin Doctor, advising major companies on how to communicate, and dabbled in stand up comedy to ‘relieve the tedium' at the time.
Martin has a postgraduate degree in Broadcast Journalism from Cardiff University, and is a graduate of the London School of Economics, where he was also General Secretary (President) of the Students' Union.
Read an interview with Martin by site users...
Some of the names Martin has been introduced as
"Like Nicky Campbell with much bigger balls, Martin Lewis is a man who gets mad, then gets even. Tonight, the financial enforcer investigates the mis-selling of payment-protection insurance."
- The Indie's Pick of the Week Comment on Martin's Tonight
“The Dumbledore of debt”
- Paul Ross, This Morning
"The consumer champion behind this growing rebellion"
- The Independent
“The UK's biggest financial anorak”
- Paul Lewis, Radio 4's Moneybox
“If anyone can help, it's this man. Martin Lewis knows more about credit cards than possibly anyone else in the country.'
- Justin Rowlatt, BBC1 Panorama
“The UK's Tightest Man”
– Philip Schofield, This Morning
"A FINANCIAL revolution is here and it's all thanks to the money-saving genius that is MARTIN LEWIS ."
- The Sun
"A thorn in the corporate establishment's side"
- Sunday Times
"A highly politicised, single-issue campaigner, working to correct the imbalance of power between companies and their customers"
- Daily Telegraph
"Calm down Martin, it's only a Radio Programme"
- recorded specially for Radio 2 Vine programme by Michael Winner!
(listen to it)
"Mr Lewis is to financial institutions
what Kryptonite was to Superman"
- Willesden and Brent Times
"A Fiscal Superhero"
- Channel 4 Teletext
"Stripy-shirted tightwad money saving expert Martin Lewis"
- Michael Clarke, This is Money
"Martin can lead you through big decisions involving huge amounts of money as if they are laughably unscary. He is a modern day Robin Hood"
- Katy Guest, The Independent
"Tiggerishly excitable"
- Sunday Times, critics pick for Martin's ITV1 council tax cashback programme
To keep up to date read
Martin Lewis' Blog
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