TV review: My Money & Me

Foam, as those of us who have watched rather too many episodes of Masterchef know, is posh - a fizzy last-minute addition to a plate for a culinary reason I can't quite fathom, other than it's fashionable.

Styrofoam, on the other hand, isn't posh and never usually mentioned as a cake ingredient but here it is in the new personal finance series My Money & Me (RTÉ One, Wednesday) and it's a top money-saving tip. Apparently, canny couples who want the flash of a multi-tiered wedding cake but without the cost get their cake-maker to ice a Styrofoam tier and, Bob's your uncle, no one will ever guess (unless, of course, a tired and emotional Uncle Bob tries to take a bite out of it at the end of night).

The new consumer affairs series isn’t so much concerned with tips, more the bigger picture, so a case study takes up most of the programme. This week, the first of six, it’s the personal finances of young Dublin couple Lorna and Keith. They’re deep in negative equity on their 100 per cent mortgaged, boom-time purchase of a Roscommon house. It’s rented out now as a job offer brought them back to Dublin.

It’s a story that will resonate with many viewers but theirs is a problem no half-hour programme, with its standard personal finance advice of “keep a note of everything you spend” could possibly solve. Spreadsheets aren’t exactly TV gold, so the show takes the police procedural approach: very serious presenters Kathriona Devereux and Sinead Ryan write notes and pin photos – the house in Roscommon, the couple – on one of those giant clear notice boards you see in CSI, which is a bit subliminally judgy for a personal finance programme.

More interesting is the science bit, with an item where Dr Pete Lunn, a behavioural economist, explains with a simple experiment how consumers can easily be codded into spending more than intended if the shop manages to plant an “anchor” price point in their heads. It’s eerily easy to fool the public.