Top Tips to Boost Your Financial Wellbeing

Finances are a concern across Britain and recent research from Smart Energy GB has found that the biggest drain on your income at the moment are energy bills, groceries and car expenses. So I'm here to help boost your financial wellbeing and give you some practical tips to ease your money worries.

Tip 1:

This is going to be the most important one. It's to have an intentional budget. Now what do I mean by that? It's having a detailed list of everything you have coming into your account but more importantly, everything you have going out.

Now the simple way of doing this, you can create three pots. In pot one, you have your essentials, your gas, your electric, all things you absolutely have to pay for. In pot two, you have things like non-essentials. There will be things like your streaming services or your subscriptions. But importantly, you need to create a third pot, and I'm going to circle back to that one shortly, because it's going to tie into something else we're going to talk about.

Tip 2:

Don't be afraid to talk and ask for help if you're struggling. I think by doing so, you'll feel less alone and you actually feel a lot better for doing so. But it's not just about friends and family. If you're worried about paying an energy bill, it's really important that you speak to your supplier. They're on hand to let you know what support is available. For example, getting a smart meter installed to make sure that your bills are accurate and you can see exactly what you're spending on energy. And once you know exactly how much you're spending, it's easy to find ways to reduce it.

Tip 3:

Slowly build a savings pot. Now this will sound like common sense, but I referenced a third pot earlier. This is how you would do it. By putting small amounts of money and it could be a pound, it could be five pounds a month. But in doing so, what you'll find is that you become less reliant on things like credit cards and overdrafts. And just in doing that will give you a lot of peace of mind and sense of security.

Tip 4:

Be proactive with your finances. And what I mean by that is try to plan ahead. We've all got things that we enjoy doing. Going on holidays, nights out, eating out maybe, but by planning ahead and accounting for that in your finances means not only do you have something to look forward to, but you also alleviate the financial pressure that you might feel otherwise.

Money worries can be really stressful, but the important thing is to focus on the things that you can control. Talk about them. Share your problems because you'll be amazed at how better it can make you feel. And more importantly, if you need help, please ask.

For more tips, visit smartenergygb.org.