Martin Lewis' Biography Full details on the Money Saving Expert

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Martin LewisMartin Lewis, Money Saving Expert, is an award-winning campaigning TV & radio presenter, newspaper columnist and bestselling author.

An ultra-specialised journalist, he spends his life focusing on how to cut bills without cutting back. He runs and owns this, the UK's biggest money site, with 10 million users a month and over five million receiving the Martin's Money Tips email.

He's commonly credited as the "big gob in chief" behind the campaign to reclaim Bank Charges and PPI with over 7 million template letters downloaded and over a billion pounds paid back, he has also run massive financial justice campaigns to reclaim Council Tax and Mortgage Fees amongst others.

Martin is also founder and chair of the MSE Charity which so far has distributed over �200,000 of grants to consumer finance education charities and individuals.

In 2009 Martin was revealed as the UK's most searched person by the web analysts Hitwise (in 2010 he was 2nd to Cheryl Cole), he's been Consumer Journalist of the Year, Citizens Advice Consumer Champion and named by The Grocer as no. 1 in its 2011 Retail Power100 list.

That's the quick summary, now read on if you want the nerdy details

http://mse.me/mlbio

In this guide

Quick links

The Background Stuff...

Recent awards

Martin is 39 years old, was born in Manchester, grew up in Cheshire's Delamere Forest and now lives in North-West London, with his wife Lara.

He first moved to London to study Government and Law at the LSE, where he then spent a year as General Secretary (President) of the Students Union. After that he worked 'for the other side' as a City spin doctor in financial public relation while dabbling in stand-up comedy in his spare time to "relieve the tedium".

Then back to Uni, this time a practical postgraduate diploma in broadcast journalism at Cardiff University which led to a staff job on personal finance and business programmes in the BBC's Business unit. He spent time as a Business Editor of Radio 4's Today programme, and later reported for BBC1, BBC Radio 4 & 5.

Martin left the BBC on 31 Dec 1999 to go to a small, now defunct digital channel called Simply Money Television, which is where he first became the ' Money Saving Expert'.

These days he's even done his own one-man West End show MoneySaving Live and just to get really silly, had a featuring credit in a top 40 chart hit...I Fought The Lloyds

Outside of pure MoneySaving, Martin is a Governor of the London School of Economics, tries to get his scrabble average above 400 (it's 399.3 c March 2011), his golf round under 90, does a bit of rock n roll-esque dancing, and tries to be a athletics track and field stats nerd. For more see Martin's blogs.

Watch Martin's 'Life Story'
Courtesy of ITV Lorraine

TV, Radio, Books & Newspaper Stuff

As well as creating, running and writing this site, Martin is phenomenally busy. His current portfolio of work includes...

  • Daybreak ITV1. After a number of years with GMTV Martin carried straight over to the Daybreak team where he continues his resident Money Saving Expert role with regular slots every Tuesday as well as ad hoc news reactive appearances.
  • Watchdog, BBC1. During the Watchdog run, Martin regularly appears alongside Annie to report and work as Money Saving Expert.
  • Lorraine ITV1. Martin has his own 'Real Deals' slot (formerly Deals of the Week) every Thursday on Lorraine, presenting top deals and ways to save.
  • Vine Show, BBC Radio 2. For six year Martin has had a regular hour-long Friday lunchtime phone-in on BBC Radio 2's Vine
  • The Consumer Panel, Radio 5. Every Thursday at 12pm Martin joins the Radio 5 Gabby Logan show's team to form the Consumer, chatting through the latest stories and giving them a MoneySaving spin.
  • Sunday Post, Woman & other columns. Martin has a fortnightly column in the Sunday Post and Woman magazine and a syndicated column in a range of regional newspapers, including the Manchester Evening News and the Jewish Chronicle.

As well as these regular slots, Martin's constantly interviewed and appears on a range of news and current affairs programmes, often sits in Dictionary Corner on Channel 4's Countdown and appeared on ITV1's Celebrity Who Wants To Be a Millionaire playing for Citizens Advice.

MoneySaving Live

Past TV & Newspaper Stuff

In the past Martin has had a number of TV series and newspaper columns of his own, these include...

  • News of the World column. Martin had his own weekly campaigning page in the News of the World with his main column, plus tips of the week and a reader Q&A.
  • Martin It Pays To Watch, Five. Martin presented three series of this prime time MoneySaving show on Five - in a live format the aim was jam as much MoneySaving as possible into the half hour - at the speed he talks, that's serious content.
  • Tonight ITV1. For five years Martin was regular presenter of ITV1s flagship Tonight current affairs programme bringing detailed half hour MoneySaving shows and exposes to a prime time ITV audience.
  • Make Me Rich ITV1. Martin's first TV series was Make Me Rich, a money makeover show where he was challenged to save families as much as possible in just one day. The average saving over the series was more than �5,000 per family.

Previously Martin's had columns in the Sunday Times, Guardian and Sunday Express, and was resident Money Saving Expert for two years on This Morning.

Click here to find the MoneySaving books cheapestThe MoneySaving Books...

Martin's books the Money Diet, Three Lessons & Thrifty Ways have all been bestsellers.

The 2nd 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.

Profile and other stuff written about Martin

Many profiles have been written of Martin in the papers. Those still available online have been included here - though please don't believe everything you read, as always with these things, some are riddled with inaccuracies, though we've included 'em anyway.

The stuff on his showreel...

A showreel is the tape that is sent to TV producers to show them how a broadcaster is on air.

It's been a long time since Martin sent one out, so this dates back to 2006, but it's an easy way to get a quick look on air. For more up to date stuff, see MoneySaving live, the MSE You Tube Channel, funny money videos and the Daybreak Martin Lewis section.

Watch Martin's Showreel (c.2006)

For more images and downloads see the Funny Money Gallery

What he says about his work

If you ask him what he does for a living he says (c. March 2011),

I'm a broadcaster by training, a few years ago I'd have said that presenting programmes or talking about money on the telly and radio was my job. These days Im just as focused on running the site and the financial justice campaigns like bank charges or council tax reclaiming that we work on.

Going forward my key campainging focus is lobbying hard to get compulsory financial education in schools, something I believe could help solve many problems as well as mental health and debt"

I originally set MoneySavingExpert.com up this site in February 2003 for �100 as barely more than a home page. Yet soon, without spending on marketing or advertising, it started to take shape as the huge monster it is now.

To say I'd have been shocked that it'd end up a top 100 UK website, by far the biggest consumer site with over 10 million users a month is an understatement. For that massive thanks are due to many regular MoneySavers kindly recommending it to their friends.

Read more on this site and its history.

What they say about him...

"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 insu rance." - The Indie's Pick of the Week

"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