Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis has built up a £12.5m property portfolio

Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis really does put his money where his mouth is because he’s built up a £12.5m property portfolio.

Moreover, the TV personality and his wife have given away a huge £20m to charity over the last eight years, while he has also helped the nation to save money with his top tips.  

According to reports from The Sun on Friday, Martin, 48, and his wife Lara, 41, have built themselves a property empire by investing millions in real estate in upmarket towns such as Wilmslow and Knutsford in Cheshire. 

Their firm Osmium Estates Limited is said to have investments and property worth £12,462,726, while it also reportedly has cash deposits of £380,889.

Recent accounts filed to Companies House show that £10million of the company’s portfolio was purchased with borrowed funds, while it was claimed the firm paid £157,307 in tax in 2019.

The publication also reported that last year the company submitted plans to turn offices in posh Wilmslow into 12 apartments, as well as seven two-bedroom homes on land owned nearby. 

MailOnline has contacted Martin’s representatives for comment.

The businessman is now reportedly worth around £128 million. 

He famously set up the Moneysavingexpert.com website for around £100, selling it for £86m less than ten years later in 2012.

Last year, Martin revealed that he kept working after selling his website because he felt ‘responsibility to give back’ and thought ‘luck’ was a big part of his success. 

Speaking on the podcast Full Disclosure with James O’Brien , Martin explained that the website was already making ‘millions a year’ and he was simply tired of the pressures that come with being a boss, insisting that wealth is ‘not what drives him’. 

He explained that he’s often quizzed on how his life changed after becoming ‘rich overnight’, but says that he has to acknowledge being ‘lucky’ is a large part of his wealth and success.  

‘People say “What happened when you became rich overnight?”,’ said Martin. ‘I didn’t, all I did was crystallise wealth into cash. 

‘The website was already phenomenally successful and making millions of pounds a year. So, if we’re being straight, I was already loaded, it’s not what drives me.’

He explained that selling the website was a ‘de-risking’ strategy, and wanted to escape the ‘pressure’ of running the website and what that amount of money gives you.

Martin set up MoneySavingExpert.com from his living room in 2003 for £100, and the website soon grew to become the UK’s biggest consumer site, with over 15 million monthly users.

The 2012 deal saw Lewis receive £35 million cash upfront in addition to shares in MoneySupermarket.com worth £25 million, as well as £27 million in future payments.

Martin used some of the proceeds to set up a £10 million charity fund which raises currently goes to support the MSE Charity, which gives grants to groups providing education and support to help people learn how to manage their money better. 

One ‘sliding door moment’ Martin recalls is bagging his spot on ITV breakfast show This Morning, days after vowing that he would quit his dream of becoming a money saving expert if he had no success in the next few months. 

After first launching his money saving website in 2003, success was slow and Martin had met with his father Stuart to tell him that if he’d had no luck in three months, he would go back to his job in financial PR. 

‘I worried, said Martin, ‘And I spoke to my dad and my income was drying up, I didn’t have enough to earn a living properly and I said “Dad, I’m giving it three months”.’

The next morning, Martin was asked onto BBC Radio 5 Live to debate economist Evan Davis, and attracted the attention of the then editor of This Morning, who was at home looking after her child who had been sent home from school.