Everyone's talking about money

The Justlife daily drop-in has been running since the Manchester Centre opened back in 2011... but now it has a new twist! Each month service users, staff and volunteers build knowledge, share experience and get 'doing stuff' around a new theme. Our theme for this month is Money Management. This follows on from the excellent training staff received from the Mind Your Money team at One Manchester, increased money worries from our service users and the police working with Justlife to combat loansharking.Equipped with knowledge around debt, ways to maximise income, budgeting advice and information about services across Manchester that offer money management support, we have created activities to get people talking about money management and budgeting. We have made quizzes, shared interesting statistics, compared supermarket prices, had a ‘taste the difference’ game and challenged service users to complete the spending diary provided by Mind Your Money.Some thoughts from our service users and staff:“It has been good to start talking about money and debt in the drop-in and hear that I’m not alone in getting into debt and losing control of my money.”“It was interesting to do the supermarket comparision, I’ve taken a copy of the quiz with the different supermarkets so that I can compare prices when I go shopping and think about where I can get the best deal.”“Before I did the training I wasn’t very aware about money management but now I have learnt the simple ways in which I can save money and how to pass the information I have learnt on to others.” At the Justlife Manchester centre we run drop-in sessions 4 mornings a week. The drop-in provides a great and accessible opportunity for vulnerable people in the community to meet new people in a safe and friendly environment, seek some support and now learn something new!