Inside Lincs - City edition (December 2022)

Welcome to our Christmas edition of Inside Lincs magazine. Where has the year gone? There's lots going on this month, including: Christmas Recipes, His & Her Christmas Gifts, Xmas horoscopes and much more! if you want to treat your family and friends over Christmas we have some great Christmas gift ideas for all the family, see pages 6 & 7 for more details.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you, our readers who support our local businesses who advertise their services in our magazines, without which we wouldn't exist! Thank you for your support during 2022, and

we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy, and peaceful New Year.

Talking about the new Year, we have some new & exiting editorial content to bring you… so watch this space! Please remember to support your local business, use them or lose them!!

When it comes to advertising your business choose "Inside lincs magazines"

Our Promise - If you can find a better, or cheaper advertising package for your business please let us know and we guarantee to beat it.

Until next month Nigel & Sherri

Jasmine Birtles Offers You Her Top Tips to Survive the Winter

Finance Expert Joins Forces With Community Money Advice to Offer You Help This Winter.

Finance Expert and founder of MoneyMagpie.com, Jasmine Birtles, who is also patron of debt charity Community Money Advice (CMA), has teamed up with the charity to offer ten tips to streamline your finances and build financial resilience.

With a staggering 91 per cent of people reporting they are feeling the pressure of the cost-of-living crisis and millions of people turning to a second job to help with bills. Jasmine and Martin Bethell of the CMA are looking for as many ways as possible to help people.

“Many of the money troubles people are facing right now are not their fault” says Jasmine,”but there are some things we can all do to make a tough situation a little more bearable. There are also definitely ways we can make extra cash on the side to help pay bills and make sure we have at least a few little luxuries that make life better.”

Here are the top tips that Jasmine and the CMA have put together to help those struggling:

Streamline your utilities bills - make sure you are getting the best deals across the board. Jasmine says “often mobile phones can really rack up our outgoings, so look into getting second accounts on one contract or just out the contract entirely if you already have a phone and get a SIM-only deal.

Stop using your credit cards – credit card repayments can spiral and when the cost-of-living increases these can seem unmanageable. First thing to do is speak to your credit card provider and try and negotiate a repayment plan. If, however you are using your card towards your cost of living, then urgently speak to somebody from a debt charity – places such as CMA, StepChange and Turn2Us will be able to help.

Check Your Eligibility for Income Support and Benefits

– A huge amount of people don’t realise that they are eligible for some sort of benefit. Whether it’s a carer’s allowance, a PIP payment or

even Universal Credit (UC), you could be entitled to more than you’re getting. Always check to see if you are eligible for help.

Have you got the right tax code? - Check online or call HMRC to be sure you’re not paying too much tax. It has been suggested this year that millions of people are in the wrong tax bracket, if this is so then you could free up hundreds of pounds that you didn’t know you were owed. Try the tax code checker here https://taxscouts.com/calculator/tax-code-checker/

Increase Income – There are literally hundreds of ways to make a bit of cash on the side to supplement your income and many are really fun. Whether it’s de-cluttering and selling the stuff online, baking to sell, ironing for others, dog walking or even using cashback sites, people are finding new ways to make some money and we have a lots more on MoneyMagpie.com to help.

Cut Back – The last thing we all feel like doing when the world is scary is cut back on those feelgood things. However, it is sadly a necessity here and there. Jasmine reminds us that, “millions of us have subscription services we don’t even use. Therefore, just go through your bills and really fine tune your outgoings. But at the same time look for ways to get things for free: what can you share with neighbours and friends? Join some mystery shopping agencies to get free food and entertainment. Search the Internet for free days out, free events and free entertainment because it is out there.”

Time When You Shop for Groceries and Make the Most of offers and discounts Find out when your local supermarkets get their yellow stickers out and this can make a huge difference to your bill. Also, check out the food waste apps such as Olio, UK Harvest and Too Good to Go – as these can save an absolute fortune and really help combat food waste in the process.

Power Efficiency If you have a smart meter you can check which of your appliances are using the most energy and make sure you use them less. Even if you don’t have a smart meter, there are now apps that can help you monitor your energy use like Nous.co and Hugo. Using the microwave and air fryer more and the oven less, for example, will make a significant difference to your bills.

Both Jasmine and Marc want to impress that however hard the economy crisis is hitting you that help is out there.