Welcome to our first 'FinWELL Update!'

A few people have suggested we share our latest news and updates in a bit more detail so here we are!

This is a chance to keep you updated with our most recent content and goings on within the FinWELL team so feel free to subscribe and stay in touch.

So where to start?!

It seems as though we've already come so far but probably best to start at the beginning and explain why we created FinWELL in the first place and then cover the common question "What is Financial Wellbeing?"

Feel free to watch the videos below and read about what financial wellbeing isn't, the links to mental wellbeing and the impact poor financial wellbeing can have.

We'd love to know what you think so please do comment with your views and get in touch if you have any specific questions, ideas or opportunities.

What's Next?

Next up we'll be looking at challenges around the 'Rising Cost of Living' and what potential resources and solutions are available for you and your teams.  

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Introduction to FinWELL

What is Financial Wellbeing?

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In our workshops we like to start by making it clear what financial wellbeing isn't such as things like:

• The amount of money you earn
• The amount of money you have (or don't have) in your bank account
• The holidays you go on
• The cars you drive
• What your social media feeds might portray

You'll see a few explanations of what financial wellbeing actually is and we feel it's something that is very personal to you.

If you work with the FinWELL team or follow our content, you'll learn that we see financial wellbeing as our attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and habits around money. This actually stems back to childhood as it's interesting to know that our relationship with money is actually ingrained in us by the age of seven!

Many factors impact our relationship with money up until this point including things such as:

• If money is hard to come by or plentiful in our childhood
• If and how money is spoken about within the household
• If we are given access to money to learn it's value through things like pocket money and the concept of effort and reward
• If our parents or guardians are savers or spenders
• The relationship with money that our closest family members have 

We can also then break down financial wellbeing into four key elements:

• Relationship with Money
• Ability To Cover the Cost of Living
• Financial Resilience 
• Future Plans

Relationship With Money

As mentioned, our relationship with money goes back to our childhood and be talked about around key components such as general knowledge, understanding and confidence with a range of money matters.  The positive here is that however healthy or unhealthy our relationship might be, we believe that it can be improved over time.

Our favorite quote at FinWELL is, "The one thing more important than our ability to earn money is our attitude towards it".

Ability To Cover the Cost of Living

This is fairly straight forward with many people living pay cheque to pay cheque and struggling with 'too much month left at the end of the money'.

This can affect people struggling on low income but also those who may have a higher income but still find it a challenge to budget effectively or track spending habits and behaviors.

The current 'Rising Cost of Living' is obviously having a negative impact with the cost of most things going up due to various factors such as the fall-out from the pandemic, rising interest rates and inflation without equal increases in our pay.

This poses huge issues for employers who we are now encouraged to see placing paramount importance on financial wellbeing and focusing on various ways to tackle the situation. 

Financial Resilience 

This really comes down to our ability to suffer unexpected bills or costs.

It's about having sufficient 'emergency funds' in place built up over time so that we do not need to access other savings or investments or even potentially go into debt.

It's generally thought that having between 3-6 months times our committed outgoings is a good starting point and possibly kept separate from other savings to avoid the temptation of 'dipping in' unnecessarily.  

Future Plans

This is perhaps where most people may fall down as many of us were not taught basic money management in school let alone things like pensions, investments, annual allowances and long-term compound growth.

It is possibly for this reason along with a general fear of losing money that many of us do not have a clear idea how much we will need in later life let alone plans in place to generate this income.


How Do We Help?

FinWELL offers a range of services for employers and individuals and our aim is to improve financial wellbeing empowering healthier relationships with money through the very best in financial education, guidance and advice.

Education can include accessing our content or an employer branded financial wellbeing microsite for your teams.  It can also involve interactive group workshops online or in person covering a range of topics and themes.

Guidance involves giving people the chance to have the human interaction required to ask questions, be signposted to relevant resources and information or be encouraged to establish a plan of action and empowered to take the next step.

Advice could mean being signposted to specialist professionals covering a range of areas from debt management to wills, pensions, investment and tax planning.


We hope you've found this first update useful and insightful.

Feel free to comment, let us know what you think and if you'd like to explore ideas and opportunities for your company then....

....we're ready when you are! 

​🐷

  The FinWELL Team

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