Should you overpay your mortgage or save – and how to make it work? And no ‘no standing charges’ tariffs
The Martin Lewis Podcast
BBC
4.4 • 929 Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Martin Lewis on whether you should use savings to overpay your mortgage - factoring in your emergency fund, your rates, and whether overpayments come with penalties.
Martin gives his reaction to the Bank of England announcing just before we recorded that interest rates have remained unchanged at 3.75%.
We look at what has happened to Ofgem's no standing charges tariff options promise.
This week’s Tell Us is what money rule do you follow now that you once thought pointless or over the top, and we’re joined by a special guest for that at the end of the pod.
Martin explains why he has written a letter urging the Scottish Government to improve their Power of Attorney system.
And Money Mastermind is on travel rights, but this week, Martin didn’t write the question!
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 what colour his eyes are, what he's planning to do in his eventual retirement, 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. |
| 0:08.0 | They've ended up with a halfway house that no one is that keen on. |
| 0:11.7 | I'm better obbing the monthly payments or paying a big lump off in one go. |
| 0:15.8 | Is it better to use that money and put it into a savings account, |
| 0:19.0 | or is it better to pay off your mortgage? |
| 0:21.8 | The butt is what is the interest rate? |
| 0:26.1 | Hello, I'm Martin Lewis, and this is the cunningly named the Martin Lewis podcast. |
| 0:31.1 | I do wonder what that's going to be about. |
| 0:32.9 | Now, usually much of it comes from my BBC Radio 5 live show with Adrian Childs, |
| 0:36.8 | but there's also |
| 0:37.6 | bonus money saving tips for you lucky, lucky podcast listeners. In today's pod, is it better to use |
| 0:44.0 | your savings to overpay your mortgage? With UK interest rates likely to drop this year, |
| 0:49.3 | savings rates will likely drop too, but many are locked into fixed-rate mortgages. So does that change the |
| 0:55.7 | overpaid question? Answers to that and a lot more coming up. Then, what has happened to |
| 1:01.9 | OffGEM's promise of no standing charge tariff options? We'll discuss. This week's tell us is |
| 1:09.7 | what money rule do you follow now |
| 1:11.6 | that you once thought was pointless or over the top? |
| 1:14.7 | And we're joined by a special guest for that at the end of the pod. |
| 1:18.6 | And this week's Money Mastermind is on travel rights, |
| 1:21.4 | but shock horror, I didn't write it. |
| 1:24.3 | Find out who did later. |
| 1:25.8 | Play the theme tune. |
... |
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