Martin Lewis’ BBC podcast tackled some household debates between couples regarding their finances this week, from whose credit card to pay off first to being pulled in as a “Judge Judy” mediating feuds over luxury spending. However, one common query saw the Money Saving Expert uncovering one of the biggest “financial sins” in his opinion.
While the MSE founder was dishing out advice for those facing some financial “marital disharmony”, Gethin Jones, the guest on this week’s Martin Lewis Podcast, started to pick up on a “theme”. He explained that a few couples seemed to be disagreeing over if they should “be loyal to certain banks or utility providers”.
Without hesitation, the finance expert urged households to disregard their loyalty whenever possible, warning: “Financial loyalty tends to be a financial sin.”
Martin urged people to instead be clinical in looking at the products rather than who is offering them as a single company will rarely be the best option across multiple product offerings. Explaining how he managed his finances with this in mind, he shared: “ I personally always focus on the product and not the provider.
“I look at the product, I don’t really care who it’s with, and I go with the product that’s best rather than going with the same bank or organisation. What you want to do is have the best buys in all different product categories. They often do not reward existing customers, existing customers get worse deals,” he claimed.
With a bit of optimism, Martin admitted that certain sectors are “moving a little bit” away from this structure but claimed the general outlook at the moment is: “Loyalty tends not to pay,” and emphasised that it’s “best to go around and find which product is best”.