moneysavingexpert.com > Reviews > Independent, Informative advice for saving money

Author's product rating:   

Presentation/navigation of site	Average
Reliablility/speed of site	Excellent
Quality of content	Excellent
Range of products/services offered	Excellent
Competitiveness of charges	Excellent

Advantages:	independent, informative, helps you save money
Disadvantages:	sometimes cluttered feel of the site

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Martin Lewis has been running this site now for a number of years (well Feb 03)and yet amazingly has been able to resist the urge to make big money from selling advertising space on his site. As such this site is quite refreshingly free from unwanted pop up adverts proudly declaring "You are visitor number 1 Million, click here to claim your free prize" before proceeding to infiltrate your computer with every form of spyware known to man!

Getting Down to Business

The site is targeted at saving you money on a range of products from credit cards, phones and utilities, savings and investments, Mortgages, Loans and Banking, Travel and Transport.

I find the advice generally very useful to the extent that whether I'm looking to remortgage or change my phone provider I'll visit the site first to get some independent information about what to look out for.

Site Layout

This is the only major drawback to the site and something that personally I find is it's foremost drawback, the site feels a little too cluttered at times with information attacking you from all corners of the page, to the extent that it has a teenage scrapbook feel to it. Having said this Martin is clearly trying to present the image of an independent specialist and the lack of sleek thematic style provides a refreshing change to the carefully manicured pages of most corporate websites.

The right hand side of the site is dedicated to Martin's ego, with details about who Martin is and a brief mission statement, oh and in case you're in any doubt a picture of his smiling face looms large in the top left hand corner. However we won't hold this against him, after all when you are provided with excellent and sound advice on the range of subjects which are listed on his site, who cares about the ego if Martin can save you a tidy packet.

The topmost left hand side of the site gives information about weekly top tips and allows you to subscribe to his weekly news letter, which is guaranteed spam free. Personally I use this service and find it very informative and I have saved countless pounds from the tips he provides. So don't be afraid to use it.

The lower left hand side of the site is dedicated to a navigation aspect of the site from which you can access specific topics relevant to your needs. There's also a chat forum in which you can discuss the tips he provides and see if anyone else out there can come up with better and more lucrative offers, although bear in mind that these may not be as independent as Martin's!

The middle of the site is dedicated to specific articles which are of significant relevance at the present time, such as how do I change my mortgage now the interest rate has just gone up again!!!!!

Usability

My comments aside about the sometimes cluttered feel of the site, the usability is actually quite good because so much information is contained on the homepage that you can often click straight through to an article that you specifically want to read. The navigation bar on the left hand side is also succinct and adopts a no nonsense approach in which you can find what you want quickly.

Content

In my opinion the content is really excellent. If you want a website that is a one stop shop to saving you money on a variety of major products and services then Moneysavingexpert is hard to beat. The detail in which Martin goes in the articles he creates is amazing and true to his journalist roots he follows a real investigative approach to finding out the best deals or those which are money pits!

What I also like is that the articles are often written in a fashion which is easy to understand for those of us who find it difficult to grasp the complex technical terminology, particularly relating to financial products

My overall experience of this website has been highly positive and in my opinion should be one that everyone keeps in their favourites folder as undoubtedly it will save you some money in the future.