Money expert Martin Lewis is urging anyone who is eligible to open an ‘unbeatable’ savings account which will pay you a free £600 bonus, even if you have already spent your savings.

Martin returned on Tuesday, December 2 with a fresh episode of The Martin Lewis Money Show Live on ITV1 and ITVX in which he gave his viewers an insight into the top savings accounts.

During the episode, a woman called Donna sent in a message to the show about the Help To Save account she had opened based on Martin Lewis’ advice.

She had opened a Help To Save account and been paid a hefty £600 bonus by the government to top up her savings.

The message read: “Thank you Martin, I received my savings of £2,400 and my last bonus of £600 this month. I’ll be putting into a savings account and carry on saving even more after. I’ve now even recommended the Help To Save scheme to friends and family to help them save too.”

Help To Save is a scheme open to those on DWP Universal Credit benefits which aims to help those with low incomes kick off their savings. It pays you a bonus of up to £600 every 24 months and you still get the money even if you withdraw all your savings and spend them on something.

Introduced by the Conservative government in 2018 as a temporary scheme, it was then extended in 2023 until 2025. It has now been made permanent in Rachel Reeves‘ Budget last week.

Martin told his audience: “Look, Help To Save is incredibly important. It’s unbeatable savings. If you are on Universal Credit and you work you can open one of these accounts, even if you move off Universal Credit you can still keep it going.

“The way it works is you can put up to £50 a month in and then after two years, you get a 50% bonus on the highest amount you had in, so imagine you’ve got up to £600 and you had to take it out because you had an emergency, you couldn’t put any more money in, still at the end of two years you get a £300 bonus and then you can do it again.

“And this has now been made permanent in the Budget, it was due to end next year, and in a couple of years’ time, not just those who are working but those on Universal Credit who have parental or kinship or carer’s responsibility will be able to get it too.

“So if you’re on UC and you work right now you should check that out. No other form of savings comes close to beating it.”