Consumer champion Martin Lewis - best known for his consumer revenge website www.moneysaving expert.com - today talks to The Gazette about how the internet is a great bargain-hunting tool and reveals what he thinks about the credit crunch.

Mr Lewis, 36, a specialised consumer finance journalist, who has lead many high-profile consumer campaigns including a fight against unfair bank charges, launched his website on February 20, 2003.

He had already been working as the "Money Saving Expert", with regular slots on television and radio, and decided to set up the site after the money-saving e-mails he sent to friends, who then forwarded them on, became more and more popular.

As well as his website, which last month had almost five-and-a-half million unique users, Mr Lewis, who is a graduate of the London School of Economics and has a postgraduate degree in Broadcast Journalism from Cardiff University, has his own TV show It Pays to Watch and is a regular contributor to GMTV, News of the World and BBC radio.

Q. How do you feel about being the nation's favourite penny-pincher? A.Well I'm not sure about penny-pinching, I prefer to call it MoneySaving. My aim's to show people how to live their lives the same way but spend less doing it. Yet generally I think it's a great privilege to do something where you can hold your head up and know you're making a difference.

The feedback from things like bank charge and council tax reclaiming and helping people get debt free is constantly uplifting.However, it's now quite difficult to forget my work at any time; being in the public eye has changed my life enormously, and it takes time to get used to people coming up to me in the street asking questions about their money - which, of course, is a very important topic for everybody.

I'll always do my best to answer people's requests, even where there are times when it's really very difficult, and I'm under pressure and rushed. However, occasionally it does go a step too far - I remember relaxing on holiday abroad in the sunshine trying to get away from the stresses and strains and someone did actually approach me to ask me if I had a couple of hours spare to give them a money makeover: I refused politely but privately gave vent to some furious thoughts!

Q. You're known for being a full-time MoneySaving Expert; what do you get up to in your spare time to relax? A. Well, I've just recently learned how to play a passable game of golf; my local course charges just £12 for a round of 18 holes; I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy it but it's great fun and a wonderful day's entertainment. And I love watching athletics, when I was a child I used to quote world records in the same way I now quote credit card rates. I was lucky to go to the UK athletics annual dinner last year, which was pure joy for me.

I also used to regularly indulge in a bit of serious dancing in the good old rock 'n' roll style - but sadly my life has changed and I'm often now way too busy; I haven't been out dancing for six months! These days playing seriously competitive scrabble with my fiancée is a more common evening.

Q. How has your career's success changed your life? A. Well, my life is now very different, but I've always been a workaholic so I'm still on the go all the time. To get the weekly e-mail out, filled with bang-up-to-the-second money-saving info and sent to two-and-a-half million people every week, takes a huge amount of work. Never mind all the TV and radio commitments I have. I still do a regular 70-hour week. The sheer impact of the work often scares me though. Whenever I get e-mails from people saying "I'm not quite sure why I should do it, but as you say so I will," I do shudder a little. The bank charges campaign alone put a huge strain on me, with constant demands to run through all the arguments. Yet that's the job, and I want people to be able to take the right decisions to do the right thing. I try to say the right thing in every case, and so far - being optimistic! - it's working.

Yet all this does mean I now have a team of 20 people and my site is one of the biggest websites in the country - along with my own TV production company, the job has brought its rewards; and there are some issues I talk about that no longer impact me personally.

So while I don't need to budget quite so strictly as before, my MoneySaving ethic never goes away. If I want to buy a cola and see a can for £1.50 I just won't do it, not out of affordability but sheer bad value.

And, of course, I still have the cheapest telephone provider, and the best credit card etc; I've been lucky to be successful but I'm still a money nerd. I'm a great believer that financial success isn't a positive; it doesn't make you happy, but it's a strong 'non-negative'; by that, I mean that being comfortable means you don't have to worry so much.

Q. Do you consider yourself to be a celebrity now? A. No, not at all. Certainly, I'm well-known as I regularly get stopped in the street but people don't stop me and want autographs; they want to ask questions or discuss what they've saved instead. I often think I have a weird 'fame' status. Intriguingly, people who do come up and say 'Hi' often ask me if other people recognise me, and are surprised they do many people seem to consider I'm their little secret. I like it and think it means I'm managing to communicate in a personal way, which is crucial for MoneySaving. However, of course, there are times when it's great fun to be invited to 'An audience with' and to chat to childhood heroes of mine (I personally requested to get Geoff Capes on my show as I loved watching 'strong man' shows as a child), but I don't really tend to have showbiz friends or go to the parties. I prefer to keep my life private and my MoneySaving for the public.

Like most people, I tend to mix with friends from the old days, university pals and family. But there are plenty of famous people I now know to say 'Hi' to!

Q. Do you ever get any negative feedback from companies if you give them a hard time? A. Yes, definitely. Companies are certainly savvy enough now to know not to bother calling me if I'm giving them a tough time.

Mostly, though, it's a case of going after the systemic problems in the industry like payment protection insurance (PPI), bank charges and mortgage exit fees, for example, rather than going after individual banks.

But where it's merited, some companies do get a kicking, and I always do the research so that it's properly justified. Just recently, having ranted on the site and radio about Setantas's appalling cancellation policy, it then went and changed it, a great example of how a dose of heavy media pressure can work very much in consumers' favour. And that's got to be a good thing, because it's also good news for Setanta to improve its brand reputation.

Q. How helpful is the internet for people looking for ways to save money? A. I can't overstate this, it's been a simply incredible tool. We're seeing a revolution in consumerism since the internet was launched onto the world. The power, weight and volume of information on the web has an extraordinary power to help; and if you don't have access, you'll be missing out on so much.

My site alone is now used by over five million people in the UK each month - a huge chunk - and this for a site I set up five years ago with £100.

At heart, you can't easily find the best deals or research them without the web, and many of the top products available to buy can now only be had if you've got access.

For me, this is actually a real concern as many of the people who need help the most don't have the web, and end up having to pay more.

Q.Is the credit crunch as bad as it is made out to be by certain media? A. No. There's an awful lot of media outlets lazily lumping everything together as the credit crunch when, in fact, there are different, separate elements to it all. My tongue-in-cheek description of what's REALLY going on is the Four Horsemen of the Financial Apocalypse.

1. The crunch. It's actually a very specific event describing the lack of credit and cheap credit available to lenders who in turn would normally pass it on to us (and have done so cheaply in the past). And although it's bad, it's eased slightly in the last few months.

2. Economic slowdown. It is slowing but we're not yet in a recession although it looks like we may technically be approaching it; people are feeling less secure and that's affecting overall sentiment. However it's no where near as bad as previous bad times, unemployment is still pretty low and many companies are functioning.

3. House prices. Yes, the house price decline is a nightmare for those who bought during the past two years, but falling prices are going to allow those who couldn't get on the ladder to do so.

4. Inflation. This is the big one that's hurting families, and a lot to do with the price of oil. That's put petrol, travel and gas and electricity up enormously, but also food prices and other goods that need transporting. For me, inflation's the worst nightmare of the lot and the one on which we should be focused.

Q. What can we expect from the new series of It Pays To Watch? A. A more serious tone perhaps than before, reflecting the changes we've seen over the last few months. In the first programme, we've a catch-up on how to beat inflation. After that, though, the range is huge from finding loopholes to how to bag free software to kit out your PC, to boosting your savings to clamping down on credit card costs. We've also loads on credit card reclaiming as well as a new big campaign to add to bank charges and mortgage fee reclaiming, which is heavily under wraps.

  • Martin Lewis' new series of It Pays To Watch is on Wednesdays at 7.30pm on channel Five.