Martin Lewis Show

[stevetay3]

The was an item on tonights show about looking after the pennies, the question was if you saw a coin sitting on the ground what would be the minimum value coin you would be prepared to bend down to pick up. I don’t think I would bother for less than a pound, would leave smaller amounts for people that need it more than me to find.

 

[Cletus]

10p and upwards for me. No coppers or those pesky 5p's

 

[busestrains]

I pick up anything. Even a 1p coin i will pick up. It is free money. So even 1p is better than nothing. It all adds up. So whenever i see a coin on the floor i pick it up regardless of the value of it.

 

[Thirteen]

I pick up any money I see on the floor because it's free money.

 

[AlterEgo]

See a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck.

 

[birchesgreen]

A pound, nothing less.

 

[Jamiescott1]

He thinks he is some sort of messiah

 

[AM9]

He thinks he is some sort of messiah

Compared to the politicians he opposes, he is!

 

[birchesgreen]

People who's aim to help others often get criticised in this way, nobody is perfect but any flaws get highlighted and blown up (see also Jack Monroe), curious isn't it?

 

[westv]

I wouldn't bend down for less than £50

 

[DarloRich]

He thinks he is some sort of messiah

His ebullient personality grates a little but his advice is clear and concise and is useful to people especially those finding times tough.

 

[zero]

Depends what I am doing, not in a rush then I will pick up anything. Otherwise it depends on just how much of a rush I am in. Occasionally I make it to a long-distance train with seconds to spare, in which case I would only have stopped to pick up enough to buy a new ticket.

Highest amount I've ever picked up was an unregistered Oyster with £20, or in actual cash then a 10 Swiss franc note (in Switzerland).

This was over a decade ago but walking around Brighton on a summer Saturday morning from around 4am to 5am, I picked up a large number of coins, mostly bigger ones which came to around £10.

Not seen anything over 2p since lockdowns though.

 

[gg1]

10p for me.

Last time I saw a pound coin on the floor was on a drain cover in Tenby last summer, when I went to pick it up I realised two things:
1 - It was securely glued to said drain cover
2 - I then remembered I was fooled by the same coin on the same drain cover the last time I was in Tenby 6 years prior

 

[birchesgreen]

There was a 50p superglued to the pavement near me for ages, someone finally got it off though

 

[D6968]

I wouldn't bend down for less than £50

I did find a £50 note during a run to take grain to the allotment once, useful contribution to my trip to the Bluebell a week or so later.

 

[eastwestdivide]

There’s a Michelle Shocked song, Street Corner Ambassador, with the line “If you find my money on the street you let it be / Consider it my joint account with one who really needs it”

 

[nlogax]

I fell for the superglued coin trick once, never again. The best sort of money to find is your own.. a forgotten random tenner in a winter coat pocket for instance. Much more likely than finding one out in the wild!

 

[birchesgreen]

Once i was walking across a field on a windy day and a five pound note came fluttering across my path. There was no one else around so it must have been there for some time.

 

[Typhoon]

His ebullient personality grates a little but his advice is clear and concise and is useful to people especially those finding times tough.

Agree. I don't watch his programmes. but they are not aimed at me. For a great many people, 'financial advice' on television or radio has meant 'reach for the off-switch'. By making it glitzy. some of them have given it time - and benefited as a result. I was encouraged when a relative said to me that he had saved money in a particular place because Martin Lewis recommended it. Not just put money in some High Street savings account earning 0.00001% but you got a free pen.
It has also encouraged others to take up the 'consumer' baton.

I know he has done well out of it but I have no problem with that.

Original post - anything. I can find a good use for it. In the days when pavements were physically swept, it might have been picked up by the road sweeper; now it is essentially lost money so it might just as well be paid on. Not so nowadays but what used to look like a penny I might find would be an (old) pound.

 

[Pinza-C55]

I went into the toilets of a local pub a few years ago and there was a pound coin in the urinal. When I went there an hour later it had gone.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

I'd pick up a 1/2P if they still had them...

 

[PeterY]

If I find any low value coins, I do tend to pick them up (I got that habit from my father) but they go into the jar, I save up coins, for the charity shop I volunteer for. It all helps.

 

[duncanp]

When I was a university, I found a £5 note lying on the floor.

Instead of handing it in, me and a friend went to the local pub.

The price of a pint was 60p, so we had 4 pints each and were left with 20p change.

To do that today, you would need to find at least £35.

 

[Strat-tastic]

I believe this comes under the offense of theft by finding

Also, to cover his back, I believe Martin Lewis's scenario was picking up your own money you'd dropped.

 

[dk1]

I always think it’s somebody having a wind up so usually ignore.

 

[zero]

I'd pick up a 1/2P if they still had them...

The copper in it is worth more than 0.5p. We still see quite a few of them and they get sold to the scrapyard with other copper coins.... Not sure if strictly legal but they don't ask questions about coins... I hope they do ask questions if offered copper cables though

 

[Baxenden Bank]

I'll pick anything up unless it is lying in something particularly nasty looking. Pickings are very slim now that so many people have gone over to non-cash payment.

1. I was walking behind a family in Tenby, the young male threw a penny to the floor, his father remonstrated with him why, it was already in my hand!
   
2. I found a £20 note halfway down a mountain in the Lake District (no clues will be given when or where), no point trying to find an owner, it was spent in a pub that same day.
   
3. Most recently I found a £5 note in the road drain outside my house (private parking area). I had cleaned out the drain, spread the muck in some shrubs to one side and left it. A few weeks later I was doing some gardening and spotted the muck covered new plastic fiver. Very good those as they wash easily.

Haven't seen / listened to the Martin Lewis show. I used to listen to Money Box (Radio 4) but it became all lightweight, call-ins and sound effecty so I don't bother anymore. When I heard of the new Martin Lewis show I thought 'do we need another'. Perhaps we do.

 

[zero]

1. I was walking behind a family in Tenby, the young male threw a penny to the floor, his father remonstrated with him why, it was already in my hand!

This reminds me of when I was observing the checkout queue in a supermarket in Switzerland, where the 5 rappen / centimes coins are mostly useless. When people received one in change they often just put it back on the counter (even though they kept the other coins) and the cashier promptly swept it into the bin - not even back into the till!

 

[arbeia]

Before the advent of motorways, it was the best part of 10 hours on a coach from the North East to London. 2 comfort stops at least included. Stamford (Lincolnshire) was one of them I believe. Imagine a small boy going into the toilets and finding a 10/- note on the floor. That was spending money for the week!

 

[Cloud Strife]

I was encouraged when a relative said to me that he had saved money in a particular place because Martin Lewis recommended it.

On the other side, there is a dark side to Martin Lewis. Do you remember (quite a few years ago now!) when Crown Currency Exchange collapsed? The story of the original collapse is here:

Crown Currency Exchange collapses

Thousands of people in the UK face uncertainty over travel money after a currency exchange firm goes into administration.

www.bbc.com

Thousands of people face uncertainty over travel money after an exchange firm went into administration.

Crown Currency Exchange, one of the UK's biggest foreign exchange websites, has collapsed - blaming the downturn in the travel market.

Administrators MCR said that an estimated 13,000 consumers would be directly affected.

Moneysavingexpert.com at the time was very big on Crown Currency Exchange, and on the MSE forum, it was quite heavily pushed by users and admins alike. When they went bust, Martin Lewis was acting like some kind of consumer champion, but in reality, he was responsible for CCE having quite a few customers in the first place.

I've never liked him since that moment. I don't know how the forums are today, but back then, they were also very cult-like. I remember one bloke bragging because he was feeding his family on a quid a day, but it was really the worst possible diet you can imagine. And they were cheering him on!

The price of a pint was 60p, so we had 4 pints each and were left with 20p change.

I did the same with a twenty quid note. I looked around to see if there was any obvious person that might have dropped it (an older person, a disabled person), but there was no-one nearby at all.

So it was off to the student union pub with a mate, and we got through 5 pints each.