About

About Wallet Watcher

Walletwatcher is money saving advice you can trust and your essential weekly guide to personal finance. Its aim? To save you money and make you richer, by teaching even the most financially inept how get better deals on savings, mortgages, insurance and more.

The weekly podcast

Each week money guru John Rennie presents his 5 minute audio podcast giving you tips and in-depth advice on helping you with your finances. You can get the podcast free each week from the Wallet Watcher page in the iTunes store or by copying this RSS link into your own podcast software.

More about John Rennie

• How long have you been podcasting?
  About six months
• How has your quality/performance changed since your first show?
  Er, I say ‘er’ less! Coming from a print journalism background, I had to learn a different way of speaking - projecting more, using shorter sentences, using the voice better. I’ve become more confident I hope.
• What podcasts do you listen to and which are your favorites?
  As a person running a small business I find http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk is very good - great for getting different perspectives on what we’re doing. I really like http://podcast.ft.com/, which has all the authority of the FT in very digestible chunks. Independent Financial Adviser http://www.informedchoice.ltd.uk/podcast.htm produces really good idiot guides to pensions, ISAs, savings and the like.
• Tell us about your show and who should be listening to it?
  I’d say anyone who wants to manage their money better … which is everyone I guess. People get hung up on buying more stuff, earning more money, but it’s good to remember it’s what you have, not what you earn. There’s not much point earning £100,000 a year and ending up in debt - though I know a lot of people who do just that. My ideal is that people should have a balanced work-leisure life, rather than work themselves to death. And make the money they have work harder for them. I try to shift people from thinking about income to thinking capital - making their money grow. And I want people to think about what money’s ‘about’ for them. I’d hope that people would have a bit of fun listening to the show, and start to understand how to make their money work for them … not the other way round!
• What is your background (especially if relevant to your podcast)?
  I worked as a reporter in local papers, then national papers and magazines, writing about computers, software and personal finance. I also run a company that markets holiday properties and real estate online, mainly in Italy. The web and podcasts are a godsend to journalists, because it gives you a chance to very quickly get something out there without waiting for the next deadline, or running it past a raft of editors. If I see something I think the listeners should hear about, or read about, it can be up on the site in minutes.
• Is there anything else your listeners should know about you and your show?
  Just that I make stupid mistakes with money too! Sometimes I come across tips and think ‘I’ll try that myself’! I reckon I’ve saved myself a few thousand pounds over the course of this year just by following my own advice.