We’re sharing some free financial wellbeing resources to support you through this period of economic uncertainty, including EAPs and how to access them

The cost of living is on the rise and financial hardship is placing a burden on our mental wellbeing. Managing finances can cause stress for many people; trying to balance the cost of energy bills, rent or mortgage repayments, whilst many are having to decide between heating and eating.

Recent announcements are all the more confusing, worrying and, quite frankly, tiring. However you’re feeling right now, know that you are not alone. Below, we examine the benefits of EAPs - including what they are and how you can access them - as well as some additional support systems and free financial wellbeing resources.

What are EAPs?

Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) are a type of employee benefit that many employers offer their staff. In an effort to minimise lower levels of productivity, EAPs are designed to help staff with personal problems that could impact their performance, physical and mental health, and wellbeing.

Generally, EAPs provide services such as face-to-face, online or telephone counselling and expert support for employees and their immediate families. The service is provided for little to no cost and is confidential.

While EAP schemes used to be predominantly for issues such as alcohol or substance misuse and family problems, they now often cover a broad range including legal problems, wellness advice, stress management and financial concerns, which makes them a useful resource during the cost of living crisis.

According to People Management, almost all businesses nowadays have an Employee Assistance Programme in place, but only an average of 5% of employees are utilising them.

Whilst EAPs provide a number of benefits to companies, including reduced absenteeism and higher productivity, their key benefit lies in the ability to promote wellness and help employees through personal challenges.

How can EAPs help during the cost of living crisis?

The Reward and Employee Benefits Association (REBA) outlines four ways in which EAPs can support people during the current cost of living crisis.

1. Providing financial information and support

EAPs are available 24/7 and are there to provide unbiased advice and support for those struggling with finances. They can be especially useful in our society where we still struggle to have open and honest conversations about money, particularly with our employers. Having access to an EAP means individuals are able to find the support they need in confidence.

2. Offering financial help

Whilst some companies are offering bonuses to their staff to help them through the toughest period of the crisis, many businesses are also affected by the economic downturn. EAPs often offer employees benefits such as discounts and vouchers for retailers and groceries, which can go some way to supporting those struggling to feed their families.

3. Access to mental health services

As financial stress has been known to increase anxiety and Read more

When things go wrong, it can be tempting to throw in the towel. But before you do that, consider the ways you can turn mistakes into valuable lessons

We’re all familiar with the stomach-sinking feelings that come with the realisation that we’ve got something wrong. It could be at work, in our relationships, or out and about in the world – and big or small, these things can stick with us.

Neurologically speaking, there’s a lot going on in our brains when we put a foot wrong. In a 2018 study, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology traced how mistakes set off a chain reaction of brain activity and, rapidly, the brain lights up with the kind of activity that deeply encodes information.

But while the face-palming, cringing, and frustrating feelings that accompany mistakes aren’t generally pleasant, there are positives to our missteps.

“Mistakes can add huge value to our lives, and everyone has made at least one mistake in their lifetime,” says life coach Adam Craft. “Mistakes are our opportunity to grow and to gain knowledge. Many people say that they wouldn’t have been where they were in life without making mistakes. The all-important part, though, is learning from them, and understanding how to extract the positives from something that many view as a negative.”

It’s true that we need to reframe the way we feel about mistakes. In fact, a study published in the journal Memory in 2018 found that ‘near-miss’ mistakes can help a person learn faster than if they were to make no errors at all. And another study, published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, found that making deliberate mistakes – such as writing down the wrong answer to a question and then correcting it – can help improve our memory.

All that said, whether it comes from perfectionism or people-pleasing tendencies, many of us struggle in the face of our mistakes. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Have you gone wrong somewhere down the line? Follow this roadmap to turning mistakes into lessons.

Acknowledge and accept

“Sounds easy right?” Adam says. “You may feel guilty when you make a mistake, but that guilt will be a lot stronger if you don’t properly take responsibility for it. Acknowledging this to others (including yourself) will ease that guilt, helping you to start learning from your mistakes.”

For some of us, this first step might be going against our instincts. In the moment, we might look to start explaining away the mistake by diving into the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of its origin. We might point to a series of events, or another person, that could take the fall for us. And though this might offer us some instant relief, it might not necessarily help us move forward.

This is also an important point if you find yourself constantly returning to, and ruminating on, a mistake you made in the past. There’s nothing you can do now, so once you’ve accepted that, what should you do next?

Reframe

As Adam says, mistakes don’t have to feel negative &

Following a bereavement, you can become overwhelmed with difficult emotions. Addressing them head-on can be the key to working through them

Losing someone is never easy. Death doesn’t wait until everything is resolved; it strikes when people are in the middle of living, or still trying to work through unresolved emotions. Even long-term illnesses don’t give people time to truly prepare for grief. This often leaves us with guilt, but there are ways to work through this.

Facing the guilt

If you lose someone, it’s common to run through your last moments with them, past conversations, and everything you did or could have done. Your own words can come back to haunt you, or you may wonder if you should have been there more often. These feelings can be overwhelming, so trying to avoid them is a natural reaction. If you suppress them, or find other ways to ignore them, they will have to resurface eventually. So, finding ways to face your guilt and address it is best for your long-term mental health.

Exploring therapy

Therapy is a good first step in dealing with grief and other emotions related to your loss. Instead of having the thoughts circling in your head, it helps to get these out, if only to hear yourself say them. The things we feel guilty about after a loved one’s death don’t always make sense outside of our own minds. Expressing this can help you realise that the guilt is unfounded.

In group therapy, you can hear others who, despite having different experiences, have the same emotions around death and grief. If hearing your own regrets spoken out loud doesn’t help you take a step back, hearing others talk about guilt might help you realise that we all have regrets.

Finding resources to help

If you don’t feel confident enough to go to therapy, or you need extra help, there are resources you can use. Your doctor should be top of your list, as they can offer advice, prescribe temporary medication if necessary, and tell you about other options you have.

You can also find websites, podcasts, and books written about grief, from professionals or those who have experienced it themselves. These can help you realise you aren’t alone in how you feel. While hearing vastly different stories across all these platforms, you’ll notice the common feeling of guilt. Some websites have chat functions, or social media pages, where you can share experiences with other recently bereaved people. If you find yourself telling others they have nothing to feel guilty about, try applying this same kindness and understanding to yourself.

Accepting the past

Accepting the past isn’t easy, but accepting it can’t be changed, is one step towards moving on. Then you need to think about everything you did right, the happy times you shared, and the bigger picture. Taking a step back can help you see things more clearly. This takes time, because, during the first stages of grief, emotions can be overwhelming, with many conflicting feelings all vying for your attention. Separating these and trying to work through them is almost impossible during the early stages of the grieving process.

Forgiving yourself

This is the final step, because it takes time an

Have you ever found yourself slipping into bad spending habits online, that you just can’t get out of? You could be experiencing financial quicksand

Money. It’s one of those taboo subjects that many of us feel uncomfortable talking about. According to one 2020 survey from the Money and Pensions Service, 29 million UK adults don’t feel comfortable talking about money, despite 48% worrying about their finances recently.

With concerns around growing inflation, and the impact of rising costs on households, there’s never been a more important time to better understand our finances – and to feel able to ask for help.

What is financial quicksand?

Popularised by Citizens Advice, the term financial quicksand is used to refer to the slippery slope of online spending. Companies influence us to make spending decisions in both deliberate and subtle ways. By introducing risky or longer-term spending commitments to us when we’re already checking out online, it can lead to financial commitments we aren’t fully considering. And by the time we realise? We’re already in too deep, spending more than we can really afford.

Financial quicksand can include different kinds of spending, such as:

By Now, Pay Later (BNPL) schemes

When you click to delay payments, or split one cost into smaller, monthly payments, you are entering into a BNPL contract. Many people find themselves agreeing to these without fully understanding what they are signing up for (e.g. the total amount of payments, interest rates, or even late fees).

More and more online retailers are offering BNPL options once you’re already trying to pay – making those ‘six easy payments’ sound much more enticing (and often just one click away).

Research undertaken by Citizens Advice reveals that one in four people regret using BNPL schemes, two in five struggle to meet repayments, and one in three miss or make late payments. Worryingly, two in five of us who have used BNPL didn’t realise it until after the sign-up process.

Online gambling

Apps are often easy to access, taking minutes to create an account. For those who experience gambling addiction or want to limit their spending, protections (maximum spending limits, forced breaks) can be difficult to access, or may have a delay in being applied.

Closing accounts can be tricky, whereas money can be deposited with just a single click. Many apps even accept Apple and Google Pay, meaning you don’t need to enter your card details at all. This can make tracking your spending much harder, meaning you’re more likely to fall into gambling debt.

Subscriptions services

Often offering free trials with just a couple of clicks, cancelling subscriptions can be extremely hard. You may need to directly call a customer service line, but finding the number isn’t easy through the website’s FAQs or menu, and only has limited availability. Or perhaps they have a complex chat system that requires you to jump through hoops with buggy chatbots sending you round in circles.

Many subscriptions turn into automatic payments unless you click to cancel in time, and some companies avoid using the word

With the cost of living weighing heavily on our minds, columnist Grace Victory explores the pressures on parents, and her personal tips for budgeting when you have a growing brood

I think it’s fair to say that most of us are feeling financially insecure at the moment. Whether you are literally just getting through each month, a student nurse trying to make ends meet, or a mother trying to go back to work but nursery fees are stopping you, the rising cost of living is affecting us all.

I grew up poor. I grew up knowing about payday loans and child benefits, and I understood from a very early age that if I wanted something from life I needed to go out into the world and grab it, because nothing was going to be handed to me.

We lived in a flat on a council estate, then a council house, and at 18, after finishing college, I chose to get a job instead of furthering my education. I knew I needed money, and that I would need to contribute to my family home in some way, so I said no to university or a professional musical theatre school (which was very much a dream of mine). And while I don’t regret my decision at all, I do often wonder if I would’ve made that choice if me and my family had financial freedom.

I don’t ever remember going without, but I do remember my mum budgeting, saving from January to afford the next Christmas, and her never ever buying anything for herself. I believe my mum sacrificed a lot in order for me and my sister to be clothed and fed, and I will forever be grateful for that. I know all types of family dynamics struggle, but single mothers do not have it easy in any capacity, so I respect those going at it alone.

I started making money from social media in 2015 and, since then, every year that goes by I make more and more in profit. It’s no secret that influencers, content creators, and YouTubers, get paid a substantial amount from ads, paid partnerships, or affiliate links – I am no different. But I often struggle with knowing where I am in my identity, because I grew up with very little, and now I have so much.

And it’s not just about having the money to buy things, it’s about the opportunities, convenience, and mental relief that comes when your bank account is abundant. It’s the lack of worry or anxiety that I’m grateful for, because at the start of my career I struggled to pay my rent, and the stress levels I felt were enough to make me vomit. I’d see people online flying business class to Bali while I was sinking further into debt.

I’m very proud to say that I have £0 in debt now, which is bloody amazing, and I’ve made a life for myself and my children that looks different to the life I had as a kid. But I’m also becoming increasingly aware of our ever-changing world and the fact that money just doesn’t seem to go as far as it used to – or as far as it bloody should.

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