Artifact Choice and Closing Remarks

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It's on top of your normal ISR allowance that you can put those new assets in Hello and welcome to the cunningly named the Martin Lewis podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our Question Time episode where you are Esquires extremely savvy questioners. Get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything open brackets within reason closeed brackets This week, you ask me, I'm twenty three and saving fifteen percent of my salary into my pension. Is that enough I'm starting to see my credit card debt grow. What should I do? How long Do I keep financial documents for? What happens to an ICA when you die? and a success? My daughter's Share Junior ICSA is up twenty four percent Play the theme tbe Hello and welcome to ourQestion timeim Eedition of the podcast. Yes, the one where you can ask me questions on anything and everything, open brackets within reason and closed brackets. And you know who's here It's the curator of Qions himself Professor Lord, Sir, Matthew Burnham E squire PhD I've actuallyly changed it So many changes. I've added in a lord. A Lord. I like Lords. you know, I think I would take if I was if you were offered? If I was offered, I think I would take it Well you moved your PhD to the back rather than having the doctor in the front. I don't know what you thought of that I think I prefer doctor to PhD. I know it's the same thing, but You're very picky. I am very picky. obviously to first time listeners, these are all legitimate titles that Matt has within the canon of the podcast. Well earned titles still. Potentially earned titles. potentially. And actually when we when I called you on Friday to discuss the lastastQuestion time podcast And I as I called you in our just private phone call referred to you by those titles. You did You then referred to me as Mr. Martin Lewis And I actually have a CBA. Yes, you correct. Didn't? Even put in my title. And I've just given you all of those honorifics. But no you don't use it, so. No don' I just feel I don't know it's interesting. I'm incredibly proud to have the honor of a CBE, but I do sort of feel that to put it after your name is just a bit too showy offy. I think there's something very British about not putting it after your name. Do you know what am mean? It comes on official letters to me are often addressed CBE or if someone's formally inviting me to something, but I feel like putting it in your social media profile or something like that is just a little bit What about your email signature? Is in that? Hold on No, it isn't in my email signature. It isn't in my email signature. I don't know. it just feels a little It feels a little bit like n n n. No, you've earned it. Yeah, I have, I have, but I will sometometimes it's better There are certain things that you don't call yourself And I think it's better for other people to call you. It's interesting because people often say, oh you're so you call yourself a consumer champion. I've never called myself a consumer champion people have called me consonsuma Champion, it is not a term I think I can self imbue. So and I think even though I do have the CBR anyway, we're talking about them because there's big news today. Everybody The big news is Rosie For those who don't know, Rosie works with me. She is my live on air fact checker and brilliant, super clever researcher. She's always a part of the pod but she never speaks. She is a woman of mystery who many of you wonder what the real Rosie is like. Now Rosie There was a staff party in Manchester yesterday. Rosie went up to Manchester and she's actually in the studio with you, Matt, not with me. Yes she is. Shes sat opposite me. So this this is quite difficult because normally I ask Rosie things and then I reply for her based on the looks that she gives me back You're going to have to be the voice of Rosie today. Okay, so I'll do my first one. I looked at her while you were introducing her and she smiled in a way of saying Oh min Shut up not shut it wasn't I thought it would be the Mona Lisa smile. I often get the Mona Lisa smile. It's sort of a smile, but I'm not sure if she's slightly going I'm cringing but okay or It's definitely that. It's definitely that. All right, first question First question, stop in there. What are we doing? We're doing first question. What's the first question? I don't know. Oh, Isaac Yes, Okay. You know the first you're the curator of questions. ex me my first question is's your job. Right. Isaac is em mailed this in You called yourself cringey. No I I wasn't sure if Rosie's look was saying I was cringy. I didn't say I was cringy. Anyway, let's do the question. Yes, Isaac emailed this one in to Martin Lewis podcast at pbc dot co dot uk. He just says Dear Martin, which I don't know if I'm happy with or not. I think after our earlier bany interchange, I like it. Okay Yeah Is it because I've been for so? You've been off for six weeks, you're going to get the deer Martin and Mats when you decide to go gallivanting around. I know. Anyway, he says I've got a question about pension savings. I'm aware of the general rule of thumb that to maintain a similar standard of living in retirement, you should contribute roughly half your age as a percentage of your salary into your pension from when you start working Brillant That is my rough rule of thumb yeah. you take your rage. So if you start your pension at thirty, hal of it, fifteen percent of your total income of your salary should be going into a pension to give you a decent income at retirement. It is not a hard and fast rule. Many people do not do it, but it is a nice intuitive rule that helps It also makes the point very strongly, start at twenty, it's ten percent, start at thirty, it's fifteen percent, start at forty it's twenty percent. the earlier you start the better Do carry on He guys, I'm currently twenty three and I've just started my first job after university. I'm contributing nine percent of my salary into my pension and my employer is also contributing six percent. So in total fifteen percent is going in. Is that good? Very good. Brilliant. well done you He says what I'm not sure about is whether the half your age figure, so about eleven and a half percent for me, refers to my personal contribution only All the total including employer contributions. I'm trying to understand whether I should be increasing my own contributions. He then says, love the podcast. It's saved me plenty of money since I started saving Well let me, wonderful Liza, and it's so brilliant that you've listened and you've been thinking about your pension at such a young age. It's really important because the earlier you start putting money in the pension, the reason it's beneficial you'll have it in an investment. The the effect you' have that investment can compound over so many years. And I'm making this number up now. I used to have an actual figure, sort of make it up soci of a conceptual, not a numerical idea. But for every pound you put in in your early twenties, you're going to have to put in thirty quid in your fifties to get the same result. So it's so worthwhile doing it early when you've got disposable income, Maybe you're living at home, I don't know The general rule of thumb is about the total going in, so it includes your employer contributions. So you are over the rule of thumb. That is not me saying not to. It's brilliant to get a head start, especially at this age. If you do not need that money, don't lower your contributions And why I find our pension rules so frustrating, I am a supporter of pension auto enrollment. just to say here, we're talking private pensions here. Workpace pensions are a private pension. Generally, you're building up their money purchase pensions or defined contributions. You're building up a pot of money, you're putting money in, it's being invested and you'll have that when you retire And you can take it out currently age fifty five, the rule is changing to age fifty seven. probably when Isaac retires, it'll be somewhere around age sixty and If you put money in your workplace pension, your employer has to contribute. The minimum figures are you put five percent in, they put three percent in. I'm glad to see it's higher in this particular case Here's my problem map G on The rules say Aro enrollment only starts once you're aed twenty two and earning ten thousand pounds If you earn six thousand two hundred and forty pounds You can ask to be in your firm's pension scheme and it can't refuse and it must contribute too. And you can do that when you're eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one Why don't we just make it automatic if you're earning ten grand or eighteen that it goes into your pension? because it means people are starting even earlier. And often at that age, funnily enough, they do have disposable income because many people are living at home. And it will be tougher later on where they have many more costs to put money away in their pensions. And the law actually changed so this is really complex now. the law changed a couple of years ago giving the government the ability to change the rules so that auto enrollment started at a younger age But they have never enacted that. And I think it's a shame. I think far more people should be more like Isaac. Well done Isaac. Hopefully, this will bear huge fruit. And if you really want to get complicated parents, there's actually a rule that says you can contribute three thousand six hundred pounds to a pension even for a non taxpayer or the non taxpayer to do it themselves, and they still get relief So you can put two thousand eight hundred and eighty pounds a year in a pension. pension company, the relief will come in a private pension. that' mean they actually have three thousand six hundred pounds saved on the back of putting two thousand eight hundred and eighty pounds in. And you can do that for a child. You can do it for a baby, of course Not only grandparents can do it, parents can do it, aunties and uncles can do it, but it's often a great way for grandparents to put money away for their grandchildren and be remembered once they're age sixteen and get their pension, you go My grandpa, my grandma started this off It' quite nice Right, Matt, it's an even number It's a caller Who have you got for me? It's a caller. Chris in Chelmsford is here. Hi, Chris Hi, are you okay? Hi Chris. Welcome aboard. What can we do for you Well, I suppose it's I hope it's not just for a badge No, not at all, not at all. My email definitely didn't. Isn't there a mention somewhere in your email about a badge? No, maybeag I might have signed off with Equire to be, maybe I think Yeah. Well you are already in E squire and you are gonna to get a badge, which is very exciting and just for anyone listening who doesn't know if your voice is in this podcast either on a voice record message or a caller You get one of our special new exclusive ESQ badges with a picture of my face saying that you're an extremely savvy questioner. And in one of the full stops, I've learnnt, I haven't seen it yet, there's a tiny picture of Matt too. What more could anyone want? probably your question answered. So let's do that Okay, so I suppose it's kind of threeree questions in one, if that's okay. Greedy? Well,'s do it. while I've got you Currently, I've got a credit card that I generally use for work expenses. Over the last sort of year or so, I've kind of spent outside of that and ended up with about seven hundred pound on it I'm trying to clear it in full everyvery full. Well done. but It's not always easy, so it's timeing to build up a little bit of interest. Um So I suppose my kind of question is what to kind of do with that. So Me and my wife when we got married we and all our credit cards to one balance transfer card, which has got about twenty four months left on N percent, which we are more than comfortable in paying. And willill you clear that before the twenty four months ends? But notot on how we're aying it now, but we could if we probably wanted to. And and you've got a pretty decent credit score. So if you needed to, you could either clear it or you could shift it again at the end of that balance transfer period onto another zero percent card Okay. So so in my head, I'm not worried about that. I don't want you building up deAt, but it's at zero percent, which is as good as it gets. okay So yeah, I suppose my question is kind of what to do with that one. So've got as I said, we've got another card that has that n percent on it. My view or mynce preference would be to take out a n percent card in my name and then transfer this excess balance to that and then it's comfortable for me to pay off in sort of twenty four months. We could pay it off from savings, but I'm a little bit cautious and don't necessarily want to do that. I'll kind of want it sa for a rainy day. another thing we thought about is on our other card, we were sent sort of an offer to transfer another n percent for twelve months But my worry with that is is from what I've kind of read is I don't really know how those payments work. So if we put it on that card and we were paying the same amount offer a little bit more each month. How do they split that payment you know, wouldould it just pay off the original balance first and then at the end of twelve month offer We might have paid off more off the original balance, but actually that So hundred p. So you've already got debt on that card, have you Yes, so that's the one we've got the n percent on. Okay, fine Right And then they've offered us a promotion for add on an additional n percent balance transfer, which is one of the options we're looking at But I don't know how they do the payment. I don't want to kind of get to the end of those twelve months and go Actually, that's seven hundred pound we added on we We ha't actually haven't cleared that And we're now adding paying interest on that evenven though the other card or the original balance still has an all percent on it for a couple of Okay, so let's try and break this down a little bit. First of all, can I ask, do you know why the infull rule is the in full rule U because it'sirrelevant on what The Esentially it's what the balance is on there that you pay the interest on. So even if there's a pound on there, you pay the interest essentially for the whole amount that was on there for the month. Is that correct? It's exactly correct. If you had one thousand pounds on it and you paid nine hundred ninety nine pounds and ninety nine p off, you would still pay interest on the entire thousand pounds. If you paid one thousand pounds off, you don't pay any interest Yes. That's the reason it's such good. So you've got that. So I'm going to answer technically. There's a little bit of me that feels I need to give a bit of a vuncular for those who don't know, that means uncle like caution, if you don't mind You've got savings and you're building up this debt But And while the debt, you're managing it the right way because you're moving it to zero percent and you're utilizing the credit that you've got to do so There's a little bit of concern here that you are flippantly building up a bigger debt balance than you need. And and I just think it's It's worth me saying before I answer I'd like you to be a bit more cautious. You know, ultimately debt is debt and it has to be repaid. The fact there's no interest on it, yes. I mean you can stoos where you're deliberately building up artificial debt in order to make money from keeping it in a savings account. And that's a good clever thing to do. And yes, you've got the money in the savings. so You're going to me, I don't want to use my savings because I want those for a rainy day and all my debt is at zero percent. Therefore actually I'm up in doing it that way, which is good conceptually. But you're actually spending more than you earn and building up debt from that. And I don't like that for you If nonees fair Yeah, I think that's probably my wife's concern with Get another card I think what we have to do is we have to deal with the situation that you are in. But I do think that you should probably see this as a bit of a warning sign. And I would say from this moment on You do not need to build up any more debt Now and I would probably, I mean, if your credit score allows it, I'd probably have a separate card for work expenses, a reward card because hopefully they're going to pay you on time. and therefore you can separate that out from your own spending. and in your own spending, you should be paying off in full each month Right And you shouldn't be building up and running up a bigger debt. And I say this I say this with love in the right way. not I'm not telling you off. but I think just listening to this, is setting off Not loud alarm bells Tiny little bit of ringing, a tiny little bit of ringing. That's my aim is to get it so It's all clear, essentially, start afresh, We know where we're at. Well, so on that basis, well, then yes, absolutely. I would go quite simply and get yourself. As long as you've done you go and do an eligibility check and it's saying that you can get a new card. I would get yourself a new card. You can even go Right now, there's thirteen months zero percent fee free available. And if it's a small amount, you might be able to clear it within that period because you know that when you do a balance transfer, that's a balance transfer for those who don't know is when you get a new card that pays off debts on existing cards for you, so you owe the new card, but at a better interest rate, hopefully a zero percent in interest free interest rate, you normally pay a fee up to three or four percent of the amount you're transferring. But right now there are cards available where you can transfer for up to thirteen months with no fee So then there's absolutely no cost So perhaps there ass a discipline thing, if you were looking to get a zero percent card anyway, you've got your twenty four months that you're paying off G You could get yourself a shorter card just for this seven hundred quid, which has no fee. so there's absolutely no cost to doing it. and you can clear that And then I would suggest, you know, the danger of credit cards, they're very cheap when they're zero percent. The danger of them is They are an open ended borrowing facility. And I always say borrowing is for a one off plan, deliberate purchase where you've budgeted the repayments Borrowing willilly, nilly because you have a few months where you spend more than you need is a danger sign. So I don't think you're in any danger. I'm not saying your finances are a big problem. I think there is a danger of getting into bad habits here. That's roughly where I'd. Does that arere you happy with what I've said? I haven't been rroved or offended you? No, no, no, no, makes perfect sense and I thinkre you're sort of hesitancy and caution there is exactly the same as my wife's with the situation. so I completely get that. Sometimes the right thing to do is listen to your wife We w't tell us should probably listenen. All right, it sounds like you're doing well. I think it's a good conversation and actually asking the question when you're in your position is important because hopefully it just firms everything up, a little bit tighter budgeting, get these cards paid off, listen to your wife and it should all be fine Ecellent. All right. I appreciate that Martin, Thank. Thank you. And and you're getting a badge? What more could you help? Chis more Could you want's it? What a day with the sun shin in and now we get a badge. Chris Hayden, Esquire, thank you Thank you very much. Cheers me. Cheers Grace. bye. Are you sitting there thinking Oh, I know what I wanted to ask him? Well, this is your opportunity. If you've got a question, then just send them in to Martin Lewis podcast at bbc. co. uk and please do start them Dear Martin. No deimmer Dear Martin, there m Okay Matt It's a read. It's question number three. Question three is from Susan, or Susanne How would you pronounce, Suzan, Suzan? It depends. it could be both I'm going to say And you know what, You were quite rude about my pronunciation off air a moment ago. because I was saying when my brain was elsewhere, okay, I said a pake as opposed to a pue And you and Lady Rosie were both, a lady Rosie was doing it far more kindly than you was slightly making fun of me and there were aggeist remarks going on So now you want my help to know how to say Suzanne or Susan. I'm not giving it. That's fair.' hoistster Potard y man fair enough. I'm going to say Susanne because it's the Zed So Susan is emailed in, Martin is podcast at bBc. com Uk. Hello, Martin and Matt way Hello Susan orusanusan. She says, I enjoy listening to your podcasts. Could you answer the following? I'm trying to streamline my filing by keeping online records. Which documents should you keep original paper copies of What an interesting question. The conventional wisdom is you only need to keep bank, credit card and other personal finance documents for six years because HMRC, the tax office, is said to only be able to ask you to go back that far. Now you actually HMRC only requires most tax records to be kept for people doing self assessment for twenty two months after the end of the tax year. Limited companies generally must keep accounting records for at least six years But I would probably go for the six year rule anyway for safety just in case you have a tax investigation. becausecause there is nothing worse than a tax investigation. They have huge powers. It can be very distressing. What was that fifty two pounds you got from that? I don't even know who the company was You know, so you just want to keep those records Beyond that I have a very different take to other people And I am going to read you something now because I was hastily finding it while you were asking me from a blog I wrote Back in twenty thirteen Were you still in school, Matt? Yes, I had just started my sixth So A levels are just at A levels. So you oo young to have even read this blog at the time Yeah. I don't think I knew who you were, then. You probably wouldn't have done that in that blog, I specifically said Evidence of systemic misselling often takes years to work through the system If it's related to a pension, it could be many decades. So it's impossible now to say what you may need the paperwork of in a few years time Therefore, for safety, keeping on documents as long as you can, even for now closed products is a reasonable precaution And I did it in a blog entitled How Long to Keep Your doocuments for. since that point We have had the car finance misselling scandal where you can now claim back to two thousand seven but the biggest problem people have is finding their own documentation. So obviously, with car finance, that worked well for anyone who was following that advice that I gave in twenty thirteen That's really my read across. While for complaints or firms to the Ombudsman, the usual rule is six years from it when it happened. those rules can stretch when there's widespread misselling So what I would say is You don't want to be keeping a record of every payment you've ever made But for most major transactions, products or services I would want to keep my sign upp documents, any upgrade documents and any closure documents which detail exactly what was paid and what wasn't paid and what the terms were So here's my list of what I would suggest. Any product that you sign up for and any product once you've paid it off, I would keep details of the terms that you signed up to and that you had when you got it in the first case and the details of how much it was for. and I would store that digitally, but not all the payments in between. So applications and agreements for loans, credit card, mortgages, car finance, highire purchase couple of bank statements a year showing interest fees or add ons and before switching or closing accounts downownload your key statements and agreements opening or upgrading paperwork for financial products like package bank accounts and savings, booking confirmations for flights or costly travel because you might be able to back claim those too. You won't need to keep those soent long. and costly purchases. Keep a record of who you paid and when and keep the receipts and any warranty or guarantee. So anything that's enough to prove what you had is where I'd go with this Okay, Y guru of the format, it's question number four, It's even We must have a caller. Wh's on the phone? And we don't. have a caller. Matt I know. So I tried really hard, but no one was available come and talk to you. No one wanted a badge. In fact, no they all wanted badges. In fact, they all expressly said how much they wanted to come on and wanted a badge, but couldn't make it work because of meetings and childcare issues things like that. Well there's no badge people. No badge There' no badge. did say. We'll give you the answer. We'll give you the information. We can never deprive you of that information. But badge is a sacrrosant If you're not willing to lend us your voice, We're not willing to give you a batchge. But you can see the type of people we are, isn't it, Matt? We're tough We're hard. We're mean. We're sticklers for the rules. We are I wanted to do badge something, but I couldn't come up with anything We are We're badgers No it didn't work. But But you can call yourself an a squire if we read out your Qestion right? Yeah, yeah so that's fine. Yeah, you're still in a squad I' not going to deprive you of that. Just no badge. But badge a badge is a special, okay. So have we sent out all the people so far Yeah, are we up with our back dating of badges for all the people who promised badges? Yes. To everyone who's come back to me and said with their address, I have sent them out and I sent them out a few days ago. so they should be on the way Have we had any thank you for the badges? I really love them responsse to. Yeah, it's only been a couple of days though so you must keep us in touch. I will I will Because I'm highly invested Okay in Badge Gate I think a lot of people are. Yeah ye Should we be a suspect to badge of you about it That was better than my first batcher Right, Jordan's emailed in He's em in an invest Pin the blame on you how we got there sorry, Rosie's doing the smile that you mentioned. Okay The Mona lisa sm the cringe smile. Okay, fine. What' you What's your question? So this one's from Jordan andail he has emailed in Dear Martin, Matt, Matt, and Simon, and Rosie Well, that's very nice. I know. So everyone's included. And I'm sure Matt you were the first Matt. I think I was. yeah, read it. I read it that. He has said, I hope you're all well. afterfter listening to this week'sQuion time Pod, which was couple of weeks ago He said he was compelled to email in. It was in relation to the chap who wanted to swap his junior ICS to investment junior ICers, but was worried and was meeting resistance from his partner. He says, I've always been interested in investing and had some success during COVID in twenty twenty but lost some money I've also tried to build an investment pot, but with recently having a child, that pot has depleted too unfortunately However, when my daughter was born on New Year's Eve twenty twenty three, I almost instantly opened a Stocks and Share junior ISA for her and had been religiously investing a hundred pounds a month to build her a nest egg for the future Due to my philosophy of time in the market not timing the market, I went for the most ambitious managed fund available and have had an unbelievable result so far. It's not all been plain salent and there have been some dramatic swings Overall, her account is up to over twenty four percent Obviously, I've been very lucky, but I believe this impressive gain is because I'm consistently investing and buying the dips as well as the highs pound cost averaging, if you will. I've made forty one regular investments plus some additional totaling four thousand six hundred pounds and her account is now worth five thousand seven hundred pounds He says, I know the thought of investing can be daunting, but the sooner you start, the more time you have for your kids account to grow Oh Well, Jordan, thank you very much. It's really important because yes, we we had a caller on who was talking about putting money into a cash junior Iicer and debating whether it should go to a shares junior icer And my view on this, as I've said many times before is The golden rule for investing is you want to be using money that you don't need, that you can lock away for more than five years. And any money put in a junior ISA is by definition locked away until the child is eighteen and cannot be accessed. So it's money you definitely currently don't need. And in most cases, especially because most people tend to start these things when the child is very young, you're locking it away way more than five years. So it really fits in the center of the nd diagram of when it's right to invest And it's lovely to hear that you've been doing that and it's working well and to have a testimonial And it's actually given me an idea, Matt. Oh, go on For a sort of it's a new element to the Question Time podcast So we normally ask people for questions. Yes But often and what I'm starting to find is we're getting some very personal questions which are about life experience coming in and what you should do. We had the brilliant question from Sarah in last week's podcast about, you know, effectively she's saying, am I a failure U because I'm nearly fifty and I haven't bought my own home And I thought that was fascinating and no was my answer But I actually think I would like to invite our listeners Get in touch if they have anything to add or any experience on the back of the questions that they've heard And so it's more a response read rather than the question. And I think whichich this was, this was the first example of it. So Treat this listeners as an open invite If you hear something and you want to engage in that debate and discussion, of course, this is the Question Time podcast. Well, Matt and I can Bicker. We must always be nice and considerate to anybody who gets in ask a question and give them a reasoned answer. but I know you would do that anyway. Then feel free to send us a note on your thought on it It's going to lead to, we'll probably have have to have some production thought, won't, Matt. Do we play a clip of the question from the first time and how we deal with it in that sense? Yeah And you and I will chat about that. We shall I think it'd be quite a nice part of the show. What does Rosie think? She's looked at me. She's smiled, she's laughed. Yeah, she's she's noded alongside me. She's'' full of agreement Yeah. So get your questions. In if you'd like a question, Get your Acance funny questions in if you would like one of those And Get your responses in two now, we'll say, all to Martin Lewis podcast bBc. co. Uk and address them Dear Martin, Or you could say dear Matt. Dear Martin, deear Mat O dear Rosie I think we can squeeze in one more quick question. Shall we have a f? Yeah, I've got one. I've got one from Mike. He has emailed in. He says, Hi Martin, please can you tell me what happens to both cash and stocks and shares ICS at death with regards to the tax implications. I can indeed. let's start with inheritance tax. ISAS aren't special for inheritance tax purposes is the easiest way to say it. There is no the ISA wrapper does not protect you from inheritance tax any cash or stocks and shares held inside an NSA form part of your estate when the total value of your estate is totaled and counted. and therefore if it is above the amount that you can leave tax free, then it is taxable. The fact it's in an Iicer won't help that The interesting thing though is while you can't you don't get any ISA benefited inheritance tax, specifically in the case of a spouse or civil partner, someone who's been through a legal civil partnership sdoning. Not if you're just cohabiting, even if you've been cohabiting twenty years and have seven kids, this doesn't work for you. The spouse or civil partner can inherit IA allowance of the person who has died Interestingly, you can do that even if you have not left the assets or the cash that was in the ISA, you can still inherit the allowance It means as well as your normal ISR allowance, you can add a tax free amount. up to either the value they held in that ISA when they died or the value of that ISA when it was closed, to the amount that you can save or invest tax free each year Now this I know some people say, what about kids? It doesn't work for kids. This is only for spouses but you can effectively increase your ISR allowance. It's on top of your normal ISR allowance, that you can put those new assets in. Now it may be that you're utilizing money, cash or shares that have been left to you and you're going to put that in an Iicer wrapper or maybe you're using assets that come from elsewhere. You still get this extra allowance To do it, contact your ISA provider or the provider of your late spouse or civil partner's ISA for details. Did that all make sense to you, Matt? It's a bit complicated. Yeah made total sense, really. Phew ye So do you have a funny slash acance question for me this week. Of course I do. Good. Good Well, I mean, you say, of course, we arere missing a caller. It's not necessarily It's not a guarantee, but this week I do. Okay, good. what is it? I've got one from Duncan. He says, Hi Martin Etel. Who's out? We don't a an now. We have a sign. We have a map, Anyway Carry on. Thank you to the whole team for all you do. I've listened every week for ages. Can't even remember how long for years. Not a question type podcast it's only started last September, but the main pod has been going now Yeah, think I think it's over twenty years. Wow possibly. It might not be. I'll have to chat When you do, can you tell us becausecause I'm interested to now. It wasn't actually a pod. Originally it was aado it was on the radio, rightight It's and then it turned into the pod I will find that out. Okay. I'll read Duncan's question. He says I've also listened to the comedian Richard Herring's Years of Output two He's created several books of what he calls emergency questions to help him if he has a blank during an interview What he's written recently is something I've asked a couple of famous people as I'm fascinated by the replies. So I'd like to ask you in the style that mister Herring does. Okay. Martin Richard Herring, that's cool. Martin Lewis All the world's museums and art galleries got together and said, Okaykay, Martin You've done so much for good. You can choose one artteifact or piece of art to keep and do with as you wish you pick? He then says many thanks, I'm sorry to bother you. Oh, you're not bothering as I like it, Duncan, I like it. So instant off the top of my head answer is a terrible answer. it's a money answer. I believe there is a block of gold in the Bank of England Museum. So I think it's probably ten fifteen kilograms because it doesn't have to be big to be ten fifteen kilograms. so it's probably worth over a million quid. But that's a bit trked, isn't it Okay, give me a second Oh, I know what I'll pick the thing that I'm almost always mesmerized by when I see it. And I know there are issues with it and which country it should be in, but it is in the British Museum And it is the Rosetta stone. Have you ever seen the Rosetta stone map? I've not seen it, but I I know what it is. So the Rosetta stone is what they originally used, I think it was in the eighteenth century Maybe it was a bit later U to work out what hieroglyphics meant And of course, hieroglyphics was sort of a picture language as opposed to a letter based language. Because on three different sides, they realized it said the same thing. One side was ancient Greek, one side was sort of Egyptian demotic, which is a sort of script more like modern language, and one side was hieroglyphics and they knew the ancient Greek And I think I may have this wrong, they knew a bit of the demotic and they used the ancient Greek to work out what the demotic was and then they used both to work out what the hieroglyphics were. Now, in our modern day of huge mass computing power It doesn't seem so remarkable, but when you consider they were doing this, the brainpower it took Doing this on pen and paper totally Deconstruct a language just by a relatively short piece of text on three sides of this great piece of rock I think it is just one of the greatest testaments to human ingenuity. anywhere in the world and it is staggering when I look at it because I wouldn't have a clue where to start. what geniuses these people must have been. So if I got my gift from any museum, I wouldn't take the block of gold take the Rosetta stone and I would look at it every day and just wonder because it is wonderful in all senses of the word The amusing thing is becausecause she is never off duty Even though I just gave what I thought was a very nice poration to finish my or at what the Rosetta Stone is. I just got a fact check note from She who must be obeyed, Rosie. to say that on the Rosetta stone, they're not actually on different sides. I remember it being on different sides, but hey, memory can fool you on certain things, the writing is all on the same side above each other. so they have the writing of the three different languages in a row which enable them to do so. Thank you for the fact check, Rosie, Not as romantic as my ending, but hey, we need to be technically correct So Matt, I think that's it, isn't it? That's it. The only other thing, you can probably hear the Russin in the background. The only other thing is as Rosie's here, And the badges are here. I want to give Rosie a badge and I can give her one for you to take as well. But can we just say technically that means Rosie gets a badge before I do teechnically yes, but you just need to come up to Manester No, I'm delighted, Rosie deserves the badge. So abbsolutely. Rosie Bge We'll take a speech in writing because under the canon of the podcast, Rosie isn't allowed to say thank you or speak. I'm sure she's smiling and saying, A you actually pinning it on Rosie? I'm not going to pin it on her because that's a health and safety hazard. and I don't the BBC's insurance would cover me to do that. But I do want to see her reaction when she looks at the badge. Okay So Rosie, could you please open the envelope and pull out a badge? Be I will describe what she's doing. here we go we can hear the rustling