Financial journalist Martin Lewis has explained why he was made to return his OBE, after one of his tweets left his followers confused.
Martin, 50, went to lengths to clarify that once you are awarded a CBE, like he recently was, you are no longer permitted to keep your OBE medal.
Speaking to The Sun, Martin said: “I very kindly received my CBE earlier in the year but I did a tweet that I had to give the OBE back – many people thought I’d just got the CBE but I hadn’t – but I just received a letter from the people in charge of such things saying I had to send the OBE back.
“Apparently once you’re a CBE, you’re no longer an OBE so you’re no longer entitled to the OBE because you’re now a Commander not an Officer. It’s Member, Officer, Commander, Knight so I am Commander not Officer so I had to give it back."
He said that his followers thought he'd only got the CBE, which he hadn't. He did admit to receiving some "lovely and kind" messages from his fans though.
He added: “You have a little medal thing and they want it back and you can’t wear it anymore, so if I’m ever in a military parade, which is very unlikely, I will only be able to wear one of the medals.”
Martin founded the financial website MoneySavingExpert.com and has become famous for sharing his money-saving tips in newspapers and on TV shows. He as appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to consumer rights and to charitable services.
However, at the start of 2022, he was awarded a CBE. The Queen's New Year Honours recognised his services to broadcasting and consumer rights.
He has been offering advice and guidance throughout the cost of living crisis to the public.
Recently, Martin called for banks to give homeowners "safe" mortgage breaks without the risk of damage to their credit score, due to rising interest rates.
In The Times, Martin said: "We need to do some thinking now and put together a package of measures now before disaster strikes, so we do not have to throw money at it after that.
"We know that there is a strong chance we are going to have much higher interest rates in the spring, so the industry and the Government needs to plan now.
"We need market intervention. We need to look at mandating that mortgage plans can be made more flexible without it impacting people's credit ratings."
He also administered advice on how to calculate the running costs of each household appliance, in line with the soaring energy costs.
Taking to Twitter, Martin instructed his followers to first find the appliance's wattage.
He wrote: "You should know that 1000W is a Kilowatt (kW), and you pay roughly 34p per kW per hour. So 100W (a tenth of a kW) appliance on for two hours is 3.4p an hour x 2 = 6.8p."
