MoneySavingExpert.com
Encyclopedia
MoneySavingExpert.com is a British consumer finance information and discussion website founded and owned by financial journalist Martin Lewis
in February 2003 with the aim of providing information and journalistic articles enabling people to save money.
The website has no advertisements; however, the website contains affiliate links
to merchants and receives commission
for each purchase made. A small proportion of this income is donated to charity; of this, two thirds is donated to the MSE Charity, and the rest is donated to five other nominated charities by members.
In 2008, shortly before the 2007 accounts were due, Lewis chose to convert the company to an unlimited company
named 'Moneysavingexpert.com', which meant it would no longer have to publish financial information. This structure means that Lewis has unlimited personal liability for any legal actions taken against the site.
The site's profits are thanks to affiliate payments, which can be £100 or more on the sale of financial products. The rival website Moneysupermarket.com is capitalised at £280 million and according to Alexa
has lower traffic, although much of Moneysavingexpert's traffic is to non-revenue generating activities, such as its chat forums.
Lewis has also caused disquiet in Affiliate Marketing circles for promoting cashback sites where the consumer gets the money for affiliate payments for themselves. This is likely to have had a substantial impact on the revenue his own site makes too.
Vouchers to Cheapest Contact Lenses; Balance Transfers to Boots Bargain Hunting.
, with over 26 million posts, to discuss matters related to money in general (including loans, benefits, debt, shopping, etc.), as well as a few forums for general chat.
band. Over a number of months an increasing number of people reported £1000s in backdated payouts. On 26 January 2007 Martin Lewis presented a Tonight
programme on this following up the successes from the site; it rated 4.5 million viewers and saw the site covered in many national newspapers including the full front pages of the Express
and Metro
.
During late 2005, the issue of reclaiming unfair bank charges
was highlighted and a few small websites started to highlight the issue. The site has been one of the main campaigning forces on this ever since. In November 2006 the original article was updated by a step-by-step guide, including template letters which speedily achieved its 1,000,000th download towards the end of February 2007. Martin Lewis has also regularly appeared across the media to champion the issue. By January 2008 over 4.4m template letters had been downloaded
Other large scale campaigns for the website include reclaiming council tax, payment protection insurance, reclaiming mortgage exit fees and reclaiming credit card charges all of which have had over 100,000 people using template letter downloads.
In December 2006 the book Thrifty Ways for Modern Days was launched by the site. Uniquely, the book was compiled completely from advice given on the threads of the MoneySaving Old Style section of the site. As the book was created from community knowledge and only edited by Martin Lewis, it was decided that all profits from the book would go to the MoneySavingExpert.com Charitable Fund.
Martin Lewis (financial journalist)
Martin Steven Lewis is journalist, television presenter, website entrepreneur and author in the United Kingdom, who specialises in ways to save money...
in February 2003 with the aim of providing information and journalistic articles enabling people to save money.
Overview
The website claims that it is the UK's biggest independent money site, with 10 million unique users a month. The site aspires to have an ethical stance with the principles of being free to use with no advertisements, independent, unbiased and journalistic in all its research and money-saving articles.The website has no advertisements; however, the website contains affiliate links
Hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...
to merchants and receives commission
Commission (remuneration)
The payment of commission as remuneration for services rendered or products sold is a common way to reward sales people. Payments often will be calculated on the basis of a percentage of the goods sold...
for each purchase made. A small proportion of this income is donated to charity; of this, two thirds is donated to the MSE Charity, and the rest is donated to five other nominated charities by members.
Corporate structure
The company owning Moneysavingexpert was registered in October 2002 as Martin S Lewis Ltd. The company published annual accounts as required by law each year up to financial year ending October 2006, which showed that the company had cash of £58,538 and had payments due to it at that time of £1.08 million.In 2008, shortly before the 2007 accounts were due, Lewis chose to convert the company to an unlimited company
Unlimited Company
An unlimited company or private unlimited company is a hybrid company incorporated either with or without a share capital but where the liability of the members or shareholders is not limited - that is, its members or shareholders have a joint, several and unlimited obligation to meet any...
named 'Moneysavingexpert.com', which meant it would no longer have to publish financial information. This structure means that Lewis has unlimited personal liability for any legal actions taken against the site.
The site's profits are thanks to affiliate payments, which can be £100 or more on the sale of financial products. The rival website Moneysupermarket.com is capitalised at £280 million and according to Alexa
Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
has lower traffic, although much of Moneysavingexpert's traffic is to non-revenue generating activities, such as its chat forums.
Lewis has also caused disquiet in Affiliate Marketing circles for promoting cashback sites where the consumer gets the money for affiliate payments for themselves. This is likely to have had a substantial impact on the revenue his own site makes too.
Weekly MoneySaving E-mail
Martin's Free Money Tips e-mail is sent to over 5 million people every week and contains a mixture of editorial articles and the best and current tips from users in the site's Forums.MoneySaving Best Buy Guides & Articles
The main site has a large variety of articles, from ChildcareChildcare
Child care means caring for and supervising child/children usually from 0–13 years of age. In the United States child care is increasingly referred to as early childhood education due to the understanding of the impact of early experiences of the developing child...
Vouchers to Cheapest Contact Lenses; Balance Transfers to Boots Bargain Hunting.
MoneySaving Tools
MoneySavingExpert creates and hosts their own price comparison tools including the FlightChecker, Premium Bonds Calculator, CallCheckers, Demotivator and the Budget Planner.The MoneySaving Forums
The site has forumsInternet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
, with over 26 million posts, to discuss matters related to money in general (including loans, benefits, debt, shopping, etc.), as well as a few forums for general chat.
Petitions
The site has launched three petitions:- The first aimed to have the secured loan adverts banned from children's television which the site claims received 45,000 signatures. This campaign was the subject a of Parliamentary early day motionEarly day motionAn Early Day Motion , in the Westminster system, is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by Members of Parliament for debate "on an early day" . Controversial EDMs are not signed by Government Ministers, PPS or the Speaker of the House of Commons and very few are debated on the floor...
. - The second, launched in collaboration with the Consumer Credit Counselling Service and Credit ActionCredit ActionCredit Action is a UK charity founded in 1994 that promotes money education and financial literacy. Credit Action works with government, regulators and the lending industry and has a close partnership with the Consumer Credit Counselling Service , a debt counseling and management service.The...
, appealed to Carol VordermanCarol VordermanCarol Jean Vorderman MBE is a British media personality, best known for co-hosting the popular game show Countdown for 26 years from 1982 to 2008. In September 2011 she became a co-anchor of the ITV1 panel show Loose Women....
to stop appearing in secured loan advertising. This petition received over 80,000 signatures. - The third was in conjunction with the site's work on Bank Charges, and was placed on the UK Prime Minister's website, attracting over 70,000 signatures.
- Both of these campaigns have been the subject of Parliamentary early day motionEarly day motionAn Early Day Motion , in the Westminster system, is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by Members of Parliament for debate "on an early day" . Controversial EDMs are not signed by Government Ministers, PPS or the Speaker of the House of Commons and very few are debated on the floor...
s.
Campaigns
In August 2006 the site started to develop a system to check whether people were in the correct council taxCouncil tax
Council Tax is the system of local taxation used in England, Scotland and Wales to part fund the services provided by local government in each country. It was introduced in 1993 by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, as a successor to the unpopular Community Charge...
band. Over a number of months an increasing number of people reported £1000s in backdated payouts. On 26 January 2007 Martin Lewis presented a Tonight
Tonight (TV series)
Tonight is a British television newsmagazine, produced by ITV Studios and ITN for the ITV network. Since 1999, Tonight replaced the long-running investigative series World in Action...
programme on this following up the successes from the site; it rated 4.5 million viewers and saw the site covered in many national newspapers including the full front pages of the Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
and Metro
Metro (Associated Metro Limited)
Metro is a free daily newspaper in the United Kingdom published by Associated Newspapers Ltd . It is available from Monday to Friday each week on many public transport services across the United Kingdom.-History:The paper was launched in London in 1999, and can now be found in 14 UK urban centres...
.
During late 2005, the issue of reclaiming unfair bank charges
Bank Charges
The term bank charge covers all charges and fees made by a bank to their customers. In common parlance, the term often relates to charges in respect of personal current accounts or checking account...
was highlighted and a few small websites started to highlight the issue. The site has been one of the main campaigning forces on this ever since. In November 2006 the original article was updated by a step-by-step guide, including template letters which speedily achieved its 1,000,000th download towards the end of February 2007. Martin Lewis has also regularly appeared across the media to champion the issue. By January 2008 over 4.4m template letters had been downloaded
Other large scale campaigns for the website include reclaiming council tax, payment protection insurance, reclaiming mortgage exit fees and reclaiming credit card charges all of which have had over 100,000 people using template letter downloads.
Charity contributions
MoneySavingExpert.com regularly contributes to charities nominated by site users. It is estimated that £100,000 may be donated in the 2006-2007 year. In previous years all money has been given to nominated charities based on the percentage of the vote given by site users, but it has been announced that in the future a new registered charity, the MoneySavingExpert.com Charitable Fund, will distribute the money. It has also been announced that a proportion of the money will fund a feasibility study into setting up a "MoneySaving Kids charity" to help educate children about how to be consumers.In December 2006 the book Thrifty Ways for Modern Days was launched by the site. Uniquely, the book was compiled completely from advice given on the threads of the MoneySaving Old Style section of the site. As the book was created from community knowledge and only edited by Martin Lewis, it was decided that all profits from the book would go to the MoneySavingExpert.com Charitable Fund.
Awards and support
- The site has been praised by a specific Early Day MotionEarly day motionAn Early Day Motion , in the Westminster system, is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by Members of Parliament for debate "on an early day" . Controversial EDMs are not signed by Government Ministers, PPS or the Speaker of the House of Commons and very few are debated on the floor...
in the House of CommonsBritish House of CommonsThe House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
- Winner of the New Media award at the Personal Finance Media Awards, November 2005
- The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper wrote that the site has "a fearsome reputation for deconstructing the deals on offer from the banks and building societies to find out whether they are really good value"
- The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
listed the site as one of "ten that stun with sheer insight or inspired rich media".