In a previous study carried out by CIPHR, it was found that financial worries are the joint main cause of stress in the UK. Also, this year’s Quids in!* ‘Cost of Living Survey’ highlighted that financial anxiety is impacting many of us – 40.6% feel scared, worried, or sad about money, and one in five (22%) say this stress has made them physically ill.
With this in mind, and ahead of Debt Awareness Week (starts 24th March) and Stress Awareness Month (April), PayCaptain – a cloud-based payroll software solution – and its partner MoneyHelper share tips for those struggling with financial stress and debt.
Simon Bocca, founder of PayCaptain, commented: ”Financial stress is often found in the workplace and can affect both employees and employers. Employees may experience increased absenteeism and presenteeism, resulting in reduced productivity and effectiveness. This issue is common and carries substantial costs for employers in the UK, not only in terms of lost productivity but also due to the impact on employee’s wellbeing and job satisfaction.
PayCaptain’s Simon Bocca
Victoria Copeland, Partnerships Manager at MoneyHelper added: “Poor mental health – including feeling depressed, stressed, anxious or experiencing mania – can affect the way you deal with and manage money. For example, you might find it harder to make budgeting and spending decisions. To make yourself feel better, you might spend money you don’t have on things for other people or that you don’t need and then regret it later.
“The symptoms of a mental illness might cause you to behave impulsively like spending a lot of money all in one go. Or you might feel anxious or stressed about talking on the phone, going to the bank or opening your bills. Plus, any of these problems can be made worse if your income goes down, for example, if you have to stop work or take time off work because you’re unwell.
MoneyHelper’s Victoria Copeland
Copeland added: “If you’re in debt and experiencing poor mental health, to avoid your situation getting worse, there are three things you can do: 1) Ask a trusted person to look after your post, such as a relative, friend or a support worker. 2) Don’t ignore the companies and people you owe money to, or it’s likely they’ll continue to chase you rather than giving you time to sort things out. 3) If you’ve bought something and then decide you can’t afford it or don’t want it, cancel or return items and get your money back. Find out more about your consumer rights”.
10 ways to help you get your finances back on track:
- Create a budget to help you manage your money- this is vital in helping you understand your next move- more and more people are finding themselves in negative budgets after essential costs have increased which is very difficult to navigate. If this is you see point 11 for support.
- Keep your bank cards out of easy reach – and avoid linking your phone or Smartwatch to your bank account, to encourage spending mindfully
- Remove shopping apps from your phone – so shopping becomes intentional and purposeful, and instead of a replacement for doom scrolling social media
- Use free online tools to block specific sites for as long as you want – such as BlockSiteOpens
- Learn the best way to use your credit card – spending within your means, paying balances on time, and only using credit strategically to support your financial goals.
- Ask your creditor for help – there are various ways they can do this. They might agree to temporarily freeze your card l, reduce the amount of money you can take out of cash machines each day or switch off cash withdrawals
- Tell potential lenders that you don’t want them to lend to you – you can do this by adding a ‘note’ to your credit file. Reference agencies ExperianOpens and TransUnionOpens offer this service
- Remove the auto-filled information from your browser for online shopping sites – this will help avoid impulse spending. Google ‘how to clear your cookies’ to find out how to do this
- Consider putting money aside each payday so you do not get caught out by unexpected bills
- Download the free Mental Health and Money Toolkit to help you understand, manage and improve your mental and financial health – or for those between the age of 45-65, the Money Midlife MOT tool can help you assess your current financial situation and plan for the future towards retirement
- Get support- the past 5 years have been tough on the majority of people. There is a lot of support out there to help you. If you are struggling to keep up with bills then Citizens Advice Bureau can help you unravel your finances and find a path forward, this includes invoking ‘breathing space’ so that your debt repayments can be paused whilst they are working with you. StepChange can help with debt related support and more specialised organisations such as Gam Care exist to support those with specific gambling related challenges.
PayCaptain contains functionality to help employees manage their money better and build financial resilience. These include a benefits entitlement checker, payment splitting, money planning tools, interest bearing savings, personalised financial guidance, and access to on demand pay in the form of Emergency Cash.
Bocca shared: “PayCaptain’s Emergency Cash is where an employee is able to access a proportion of their accrued earnings ahead of pay day at no cost. This can help ease the burden of a financial shortfall, help employees to avoid using high cost credit and ensure employees can meet their short-term financial obligations. Various forms of on-demand pay have grown in availability over the past few years and can be a lifeline.
Bocca concluded: “When employees are struggling with financial stress, there is a huge impact on both employee and employer. There is a costly financial implication to businesses in both absenteeism and presenteeism, which can be addressed by offering solutions and support to employees to improve their financial well-being. With reduced absenteeism and an increase in morale, company-wide communication and productivity, financial wellness really is a must have employee benefit – not only for the health of the employee, but also for the health of the business”.
As well as MoneyHelper, other organisations to help those struggling with debt include:
- Money and Pensions Service
- Stepchange
- The National Debtline
- GamCare
- Surviving Economic Abuse
