Energy firms sitting on £3bn of our credit – how to get it back | Cheapest way to spend abroad
The Martin Lewis Podcast
BBC
4.4 • 929 Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2026
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Martin Lewis brings you everything you need to know about the energy direct debit cycle. Explaining why this is perfect time of year to check your direct debits, how much you should be in credit or debt with your energy provider and what do you do if you’re too much in credit.
Martin explains the cheapest ways to spend abroad and why you should be thinking about it now.
A lovely Tell Us which looks at when your children have impressed you with their financial knowledge.
And Mastermind this week is all about your rights if you buy a faulty item.
If you want to ask Martin a question, you now can! His Question Time podcast lets you ask Martin absolutely anything and everything (within reason!) – so if you’ve always wanted to know his favourite ice cream flavour, if he’s ever pondered the meaning of life, or have a very complicated question about your personal finances, email it to MartinLewisPodcast@bbc.co.uk.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | The system is far from perfect, arguably it's quasi-broken. |
| 0:11.7 | I don't know, he seems to work against the consumer every time. |
| 0:14.5 | But it's not designed to work for the consumer. |
| 0:16.3 | I think that's a mistake in the premise. |
| 0:18.1 | If you might end up spending money that you don't have because you've got this facility, |
| 0:22.4 | then it's not worth it. |
| 0:23.3 | It's a really interesting question. |
| 0:25.6 | Hello, I'm Martin Lewis, and this is the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. |
| 0:30.5 | I do wonder what that's going to be about. |
| 0:32.5 | And this is our big topic episode where each week we lead on one main subject to help you save. |
| 0:37.7 | Usually, most of it comes from my BBC Radio 5 live show with Adrian Childs, |
| 0:41.9 | but there's also bonus money saving tips just for you, lucky, lucky podcast listeners. |
| 0:47.8 | Let's get straight to it. |
| 0:51.8 | I got meals. I got to make |
| 0:55.6 | So I'm going to work for us I'm going to pay I'm doing well We have we got for us this week? |
| 1:12.6 | I'm doing well. Well, we have a potpoury of subjects today. It's a split major, if you like. Two big topics. |
| 1:18.1 | It's a bog off that we're doing. First of all, energy direct debits. This is the perfect time of the year if you're on a monthly direct debit to check. |
| 1:26.6 | If you're in too much credit, energy firms are sitting on three billion pounds of our cash and you can get it back. |
| 1:33.9 | Then what's the cheapest way to spend abroad? We're doing it right now because some of them |
| 1:37.7 | you need to get early and get them in your pocket ready if you're going away this summer. |
| 1:41.7 | We'll be going through lots of people's questions on that and and I'll be giving you the absolutely perfect maximise every penny or every cent or every zolotti of your money. |
... |
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