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Cost of Living Support

The cost of living crisis is placing additional burdens on everyone. Below are some financial wellbeing resources including local support and initiatives that colleagues may find useful and may be able to access.

 

Training - Available on URLearn

To improve our Financial Wellbeing, we all need a balance of the core building blocks of understanding money and our mindset towards it.

Led by qualified and experienced Certified Money Coaches, this course includes two foundation sessions to help understand our relationship with money; strategies and tactics to improve our habits; and then provides practical knowledge on the key elements of managing your everyday finances such as budgeting, managing debt, and where to get support if you are struggling.

***Both these sessions are delivered online via Microsoft Teams and all participants will be able to join and ask questions completely anonymously***

Foundation in Financial Wellbeing - 26th January 2023, Time - 10:00 – 11:00

As an introduction, we address the fact that it is difficult to talk about money and share the definition of financial wellbeing, how it contributes to financial resilience and ask participants to consider why it is beneficial to give financial wellbeing their attention.  We also explain that financial wellbeing can be achieved by working on goals, mindset, and financial habits. Working on one area alone will not create long lasting, transformational change.

Foundation in Personal Financial Planning - 1st March 2023, Time - 10:00 – 11:30

In this session, key areas we are focusing on are personal budgeting, taxation, borrowing, mortgages, and savings.  Throughout the presentation we explain in detail about tax codes, mention about credit cards, loans, and credit score, with regards to mortgages we focus on 1st time buyers, mortgages and moving house, and we also focus on personal savings allow and we give ideas to delegates about savings.

General Support links:

MoneySavingExpert - Household Bills

Which? - Best ways to save money

Thames Water, Water Help Scheme

The Money Charity - Financial Wellbeing + Financial Education 

CiC - Mental health and cost of living pressures

CiC - EAP -Legal Financial Services

CiC - Money Pressures and Mental Health WO

CiC- Making time to save Information sheet

Mercer - Financial tool kit

Education Support: Guides, articles and videos on finances for teachers and education staff

Education Support: financial support to teachers & education staff

Staff Forum discussion notes - Cost of Living suport

Local Council Support pages:

Please find below a list of the nearby council support pages which offer local support including help with energy bills, food and essentials (food banks), managing money, benefits available, council tax support, and support with your mental health and wellbeing:

Reading Borough Council

Bracknell Forrest Council

Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead

Wokingham Borough Council

West Berkshire Council

Slough Council

 

Government Support page:

Cost of living support 

Gov website - Money Helper

Gov website - Help for Households

 

Local support pages:

Citizens Advice Wokingham, cost of living support - Cost of Living support – Citizens Advice Wokingham.

Citizen Advice Reading - Citizens Advice Reading (rcab.org.uk), have a free service open to everyone in the community.