Martin Lewis

[beagle]

Lots of good stuff http://www.moneysavingexpert.com

and in his book

The Money Diet

But lots of the finance stuff (ISAs,SIPPs, council tax etc) and the switching utilities stuff may be UK specific.

[Griffin NoName]

The old phone buying tip may be useful. (I've just flagged up a problem I'm having getting stuff off it to go on my new phone in another thread.)

But who is this guy? How reliable is his advice?

[beagle]

I believe him to be be considered mainstream and respectable* . The wikipedia entry article on him seems accurate.

The only criticisms I've heard about him are that he's a money saving zealot (Doh. That's his job; you don't have to follow all the tips.), and that the advice is common sense. Possibly true, but common sense is a rare commodity in my experience.

----

* For someone who was at the LSE.

[Griffin NoName]

How odd. My son went to LSE and he is mainstream and respectable too. Must just be coincidence. 

[beagle]

But has he appeared on TV with Gloria Hunniford? Not many reach that apex of respectability.

[Griffin NoName]

So not that respectable, Apex being a supervillain on the TV show Portal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex

[Black Bart]

But has he appeared on TV with Gloria Hunniford? Not many reach that apex of respectability.

When he appears on Richard and Judy...I'm buying the book!

[Pachyderm]

My father rates him highly. And, no stereotyping at all, he's a Scottish accountant and financier, who positively delights in saving money.

(He still doesn't truly quite understand why neither of his sons works for a bank. One used to sell booze, and now peddles Welsh spring water, and the other used to count badgers for a living.....)

[goat starer]

you are all terrible capitalists with your 'money saving tips', ISAs, SIPS etc.... Go out and give all your money to the poor and needy or next christmas Karl Marx, disguised as father christmas will come down your chimney and do a poo in your armani stocking!

[Sibling Chatty]

The 'older American' response to this thread title: Dean Jerry??

I crack me up sometimes.

[beagle]

you are all terrible capitalists with your 'money saving tips', ISAs, SIPS etc.... Go out and give all your money to the poor and needy or next christmas Karl Marx, disguised as father christmas will come down your chimney and do a poo in your armani stocking!

But Goat, without all these tips how are we going to afford to pay for ChamberBrown's ever expanding public sector, with its, so I'm reliably informed, ridiculously bureaucratic form-filling culture?

Actually M.L. seems to have recently picked up on the fact that the real way to make money is to behave manicly on prime-time TV.