Do these first
In roughly this order. Each one shrinks the problem before the next.
Work out your actual runway this week
Accessible savings and any severance, divided by your minimum viable monthly outgoings — not current spending, minimum. Sometimes the number is better than the dread suggested and sometimes it is worse. Either way a known number can be planned around and an unknown one cannot, and if it is short, that is information you need this week rather than in six.
Contact creditors before you miss a payment, not after
Hardship protocols — payment deferrals, interest freezes, reduced minimums — are far more accessible to customers who declare difficulty proactively.
Speak to your mortgage lender early
FCA rules require lenders to consider tailored support such as reduced payments, a term extension or a temporary switch to interest-only. There is no automatic payment holiday, so do not wait expecting one.
Get free debt advice
MoneyHelper (0800 011 3797) and StepChange are free, government-backed or charity-run, and used by people at every income level. Going early is the whole trick.
If the money runs out this month
An order of operations for the situation nobody wants to be in. Each step buys time for the next.
Rank the bills by consequence, not by size
Rent or mortgage, council tax, energy, and anything secured against your home come first — these are the ones with the serious consequences. Credit cards, overdrafts and buy-now-pay-later come last, whatever the letters say. This ordering is what a debt adviser will do with you, and doing it yourself first saves an appointment.
Ring the priority creditors before the date, not after
Hardship teams have options they can only offer to people who get in touch in advance — reduced payments, breathing space, payment plans. After a missed payment the conversation is materially harder.
Ask about the Breathing Space scheme
In England and Wales, Debt Respite (“Breathing Space”) gives 60 days of legal protection from most creditor action and interest, accessed through a debt adviser such as StepChange or Citizens Advice. Most people have never heard of it.
Check for a hardship fund or grant
Turn2us searches charitable grants by circumstance and occupation, and there is more money sitting in these funds than most people expect. Energy suppliers also run their own hardship schemes.
Food banks are not the last resort they feel like
You usually need a voucher, which Citizens Advice and many GP surgeries can issue. Asking early is easier than asking late, and it frees money for the bills with real consequences.
Understand what is happening
The deeper explanation, and what the evidence does and does not support.
In practice
Information reduces financial anxiety; reassurance does not
Being told it will be fine does very little. Knowing your exact runway, your minimum viable monthly figure and what you are entitled to produces anxiety calibrated to the real situation instead of to the feared worst case. That is a considerable downgrade in suffering for an afternoon's work.
In practice
The fear changes character when other people depend on you
With dependants, the fear is often not mainly about yourself. It is about the effect on people who did not choose this, and that is a heavier load. It deserves to be named rather than managed silently.
In practice
There is no general six-month mortgage payment holiday
The blanket COVID-era deferrals ended in 2021. What exists now: the Mortgage Charter (signed by lenders covering around 90% of the market) lets borrowers who are up to date switch to interest-only for six months without a new affordability check, and FCA rules require lenders to consider individually tailored forbearance. Support for Mortgage Interest is a repayable government loan for people on qualifying benefits. Ring your lender's mortgage servicing team, not a general helpline.
Try this
Separate the fear into dated, specific items
“The car insurance is due on the 14th and I am £180 short” is a problem with options. “We are going to run out of money” is a mood. Convert the second into the first, on paper, and handle them one at a time.
Read more
The relevant sections of the three long-form guides. Each link opens at the right place.
Get outside help
Organisations that do this properly. Going to them is a good outcome, not a failure of this page.
Free, impartial, government-backed money guidance. The right starting point when you want to understand your options — budgeting, mortgages, pensions, what a debt solution would mean — rather than hand your debts to someone.
0800 011 3797 (Mon–Fri 9am–5pm)
UK
Free advice on benefits, debt, housing and employment, in person, online or by phone. The one to use when the problem spans several of those at once, or when a decision has gone against you and you want help challenging it.
0800 144 8848 (England) · debt 0800 240 4420 (England & Wales)
England — Wales, Scotland & NI have own services
Free debt advice charity that will build you a full plan and can deal with creditors on your behalf. Particularly useful once payments have become genuinely unmanageable rather than merely tight, and the one to ask about Breathing Space.
0800 138 1111
UK
Free, independent debt advice with template letters for negotiating with creditors yourself. Particularly worth considering if you would rather stay in control of the conversations yourself and mainly want to know what to say.
0808 808 4000 · Mon–Fri 9am–8pm, Sat 9.30am–1pm
England, Wales & Scotland
Benefits calculator plus a searchable database of charitable grants — including hardship funds tied to former occupations, trades and professions, which are easy to be eligible for without ever knowing they exist. Turn2us no longer runs a one-to-one advice line, so this is a self-serve tool; for a person to talk to, use Citizens Advice.
Online tools — no phone advice line
UK
Network of food banks providing emergency food parcels. You usually need a voucher, which Citizens Advice and many GP surgeries can issue — and asking early frees money for the bills that carry real consequences.
UK
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About this page. This is an informational wellbeing resource, not clinical, legal or financial advice. Labels show how strong the basis for each statement is — see how we handle evidence. Services marked England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland are not available across the whole UK.