Question Time: Can AI improve my finances? Could clearing our mortgage hurt our credit score? Old paperwork boosted my pension!

**Martin Lewis** (0:00)
AI, like fire, is an incredibly powerful tool, and used right, it can bring light, but used wrong, it can burn. If that is your aim, it is a perfectly valid way to do it, and I'm not worried about it.

**Jan** (0:12)
I am so pleased about the badge. I will wear it with pride.

**Martin Lewis** (0:16)
My answer to this is quite simple. I'm totally with you on Lurell. Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our Question Time episode where you are asquires, our extremely savvy questioners. Get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything. Open brackets, within reason, close brackets. And this week, you ask me, can I use AI to improve my finances? And if so, what's the best and the safest way? We're in our 60s. Is it better to not pay off our remaining small mortgage to help our credit score? Will a bit of fiddling give us section 75 credit card protection on our new windows or are they too expensive? Is it wrong to use American Express at small retailers? Will it cost them too much? We've got a success. Jan says, keeping my old paperwork, as you suggested, boosted my pension. Looking forward to hearing that one. And you asked me what products wouldn't I downshift on if I needed to save. Play the theme tune.
Hello and welcome to this Question Time edition of the podcast. And of course, I am joined by the curator of questions himself.
Sir Dr Matthew Burnham.

**Matt** (1:43)
Esquire?

**Martin Lewis** (1:44)
I stopped and I didn't give you a professor either.

**Matt** (1:46)
Oh, what have I done this time?

**Martin Lewis** (1:47)
There's a conspiracy theory starting to generate about this podcast, Matt.

**Matt** (1:51)
Who's started this conspiracy theory?

**Martin Lewis** (1:53)
Is it you? It is Martin Mitchell, who was also mentioned last week. Now luckily, for me, he is grassing you up, and he's doing it not via Martin Lewis podcast at bbc.co.uk, where people can get in touch with their questions, if they would like to ask us a question and become an Esquire, and maybe even get a badge if they're recorded on, not via that route. He's doing it via my social media, and I feel he's right, because I think you may have censored his message if it had come to you.

**Matt** (2:21)
Absolutely. There's no doubt about it.

**Martin Lewis** (2:23)
This was Martin's message. Now the first bit of it's slightly weird because he's saying it and it's about me, and normally you would read that out and it sounds a little bit odd, but you know what? I don't trust you. So I'm going to have to read his whole message myself.

**Matt** (2:33)
Go on.

**Martin Lewis** (2:34)
Martin Mitchell, who is literally Team Martin, says, Thank you very much for the mention. It's awesome to be mentioned on the podcast. That has made my week. I followed your advice for over a decade, and without your knowledge, I wouldn't have known how to get a mortgage by myself, let alone hopefully fully paid it off almost a decade early in a couple of weeks. We need a round of applause for that, please. Can you add one? Absolutely.
That's the good bit, Matt.
This is where we're going. Right. He then starts to get a bit suspicious. He says, though with the removal of some of Matt's titles, I am concerned he might not let me on to the podcast to earn an ESQ badge in the future. I have my suspicions too.

**Matt** (3:12)
I'm with you, Martin.

**Martin Lewis** (3:14)
He then goes on to say, are you sure Matt and GDPR, Google Docs professional Rosie, weren't plotting to take over the podcast when she was in the Manchester studio? Is that not what it was about? There has been more and more of GDPR since coming from Manchester.
Has there been sorreptitious discussion about getting more and more of Rosie in? Because I noticed not only did you Easter egg her two weeks ago, you, even though I expressly told you to bleep her out, left her in as the Easter egg at the very end of last week's podcast as well.

**Matt** (3:50)
Yeah, I am guilty for that. I did do that. I did leave the end.

**Martin Lewis** (3:54)
Did we or did we not have a discussion about it was going to come out?

**Matt** (3:56)
We may have had a discussion. I think I may have said, actually, to be technical, I think I said I'll try and make it work, and if I can't, then I'll keep it in, or something to do with that effect.