Great news! Your employer has partnered with Partners& to provide you with a range of useful financial wellbeing tools. This site aims to support you through the cost-of-living crisis and beyond by providing useful videos, written content, tips, and weblinks on a regular basis.
A good starting place are the videos entitled “The Four Steps to Financial Health”, which explain many of the basic concepts of budgeting, spending, managing debt, and saving, however, feel free to start wherever suits your level of understanding or needs best. We hope you find this site useful.Financial wellbeing survey
To help Partners& and your employer provide the support you need, we have created a short financial wellbeing survey. Please note that this is completely confidential and we will not ask for, or obtain, any personal details. This will enable us to deliver content that is tailored to the areas you would like more support or information on.
Four steps to financial health
approx. 20mins
approx. 20mins
approx. 18mins
approx. 11mins
approx. 20mins
approx. 20mins
approx. 18mins
approx. 11mins
Trivial Spending Calculator
You will be amazed at how small daily spending adds up. So use the simplified calculator below to curb your small spending habits and effectively give yourself a pay rise in the process!
Watch out for scammers :
Which? have a useful page that provides updates on all the latest scams. Please take a moment to have a look and be mindful of anything you feel is suspicious.
Help for Households
The UK and devolved governments have set up dedicated sites drawing together all the various elements of state support for households. This includes financial support around household costs, childcare, transport, income, and energy bills.
Please follow the links below for your geographical region:
Debt Consolidation: Yes or No?
If you are in debt – and particularly if you are seeking to repay several different loans at once – then it is often very tempting to combine all those debts into (as the television and media adverts so often tell us) “one easy-to-repay monthly amount”.
But debt consolidation isn’t the right choice for everyone, and for some people there may well be better ways of dealing with your repayment worries.
This is why the debt charity StepChange has constructed an easy-to-use “Debt Consolidation Loan Calculator”.
To be clear, this calculator is not designed to find you a suitable replacement loan. Instead, the calculator asks a series of simple questions to guide you to towards the best solution to your household debt worries.
These pages also include links to explain the difference between debt consolidation and debt management, and some important warnings about adverts claiming that their debt solution is “government endorsed”.
Expert guidance, videos, and (even) fun tools too!
One of the aims of the Partners& Financial Wellbeing Hub is to signpost you to wherever there are useful items or tools available to help people with their financial wellbeing. After all, the more support you can source, the more likely you will find an option that helps you and your family manage their money better!
We would therefore encourage you to take look at the following sites.
Please note: We cannot guarantee that these sites will not include sales messages, but at the time of posting they appear to have been developed purely to help people manage their money.
Leading pension provider Scottish Widows has come up with this rather fun tool to see whether your pension savings are on track. Simply follow the QR code on your phone, enable the camera, and the app will “guesstimate” your age from your appearance, and tell you how much the average saver of the same age has in pension savings!
Leading insurer and pension provider Royal London – working in conjunction with national charity Turn2us – has developed this useful (and downloadable) guide to state benefits. The guide includes everything from council tax support to state pensions (and all points in between), and the webpage includes a “state benefits checker” (scroll down to find this) which will suggest benefits that you may be overlooking. Well worth a visit.
Martin Lewis is rightly acknowledged as a (perhaps “the”) guru of money saving – and this simple tool helps turn relatively small savings (starting at just 1p per day) into a meaningful sum of more than £660 in just a year! You can begin saving at any time, although birthdays, anniversaries, and new year often provide a natural starting point, and the page even suggests ways you can adapt the challenge if needed. Good fun, and highly recommended.
One of the biggest names in the UK insurance world is Aviva, and they have recently updated and centralised all their financial wellbeing support videos covering a vast range of important themes. Well worth scrolling through the various videos for ideas and support options.
Articles
The articles and video content below provide insights and top tips from Partners& and our specialist ecosystem partners.
More support for mortgage holders
Priority v non-priority debts
School holidays: Low-cost activities
Where to find the help you need?
What’s going on with my mortgage costs?
Websites to save you money (archived)
Tax and my pension – 5 top tips
The top 5 ways to improve your later life income
Your pension checklist: 6 things you need to know about preparing for retirement
Should I invest in Cryptocurrencies?
Cryptocurrencies (often shortened to Crypto) is a catch-all term for a wide and constantly evolving range of digital investments/ assets (including the most widely known, Bitcoin).
As with all asset classes, any potential for high returns should always be weighed against the possible risks associated with the investment. These concerns are perhaps heightened when it comes to Crypto investments, not least because of its perceived (and sometimes actual) associations with criminals or organised crime.
Despite such concerns, a recent House of Commons report suggests that around 10% of the UK adult population has now, or has had, some Crypto investments. As such, we thought it would be useful to provide links to some objective – and credible – sources for those considering Crypto as an investment option to help you understand the terminology, risks, and potential returns.
It’s very much your personal decision, but we would encourage anyone considering Crypto not to invest more than they can comfortably afford to lose. For more information on other savings and investment options, please see the fourth video in our series, “The Four Steps to Financial Health” featured elsewhere on the Financial Wellbeing Hub.
moneysavingexpert.com: www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2021/01/martin-lewis-answers-whether-you-should-buy-bitcoin/
BBC News Website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63963079
Videos
Video
Household energy costs
approx. 5 mins
Video
5 point plan to understand your pension
approx. 8 mins
Video
Tips to avoid financial stress
approx. 2mins
Video
Borrowing costs in 2023
approx. 5mins
Video
Common mortgage questions with DNA Financial Solutions
DNA Financial Solutions or DNA are trading styles of DNA Financial Solutions Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Financial Services Register Number: 926435.
YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON A MORTGAGE OR ANY OTHER DEBT SECURED ON IT
Video
The Spring Budget and Your Pension
approx. 2 mins
Video
The Spring Budget Explained: Changes in Allowances
approx. 2 mins
Video
Household energy costs
approx. 5 mins
Video
5 point plan to understand your pension
approx. 8 mins
Video
Tips to avoid financial stress
approx. 2mins
Video
Borrowing costs in 2023
approx. 5mins
Video
Common mortgage questions with DNA Financial Solutions
DNA Financial Solutions or DNA are trading styles of DNA Financial Solutions Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Financial Services Register Number: 926435.
YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON A MORTGAGE OR ANY OTHER DEBT SECURED ON IT
Video
The Spring Budget and Your Pension
approx. 2 mins
Video
The Spring Budget Explained: Changes in Allowances
approx. 2 minsThis month’s news round-up
A selection of topical and important money stories for you to consider
Your personal inflation calculator!
Inflation is different for every household, which is why The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has recently created and made available a “personal” inflation calculator.
This calculator allows you to track your household inflation rate against the headline national average figures and also compares your spending to other – similar income – households.
It is hoped that this tool will enable you to identify areas where cost savings could perhaps be made.
This month’s websites to save you money
This month we are featuring three websites to help you control – and even reduce – your regular spending.
HM Government Childcare Choices Website: Childcare Choices | 30 Hours Childcare, Tax-Free Childcare and More | Help with Costs | GOV.UK
