Income Optimisation and Reducing Expenditure

If you are struggling to manage your finances or have debt problems then it is important to firstly understand the scale of your money troubles by completing a household budget detailing when expenditure falls and when your income comes into your bank account. Through the course of the recession most households have had to make cut backs and become more thrifty, but there is a point where you find there are no more obvious economies to be made.

Atlantic Financial Management offers all clients the opportunity to maximise their income and reduce essential household expenditure wherever feasible. We regard this as a best practice and essential to accelerate the rate at which you become debt free or get your finances back under control. We have trained staff to assess whether you are eligible for unclaimed benefits and our sister company MoneySave Financial Solutions can review whether you are getting good value for money from critical insurances and from your energy provider.

You may alternatively need a new current account to avoid further bank charges. We offer this facility to new clients with no credit checks and no hidden charges. We can deliver most of our MoneySave solutions over the phone and changing bank account and energy provider can be undertaken instantly.

Confused by benefits and tax credits?

Many of our clients are known to under claim their entitlements through lack of knowledge. The top five are:

• When a client becomes 25, some benefits will increase, for example Job Seekers Allowance (JSA), but some will become available for the first time. For example, Working Tax Credits where there are no children and the claimant works 30 hours or more a week.
  
  
• Pension Credit is available normally from 60 (but is slowly increasing to 65). Changes in the age may result in older people not claiming Pension Credit. This is new from April 2010.
  
  
• Men cannot claim their State Pension until 65, so if they are in single households, they often do not apply for Pension Credit until 65, but are eligible well before this. An award of Pension Credit may open up other benefits as well.
  
  
• Owner occupiers often do not claim their Council Tax Benefit as they have no contact with the Local Authority that administers this benefit.
  
  
• The Sure Start Maternity Grant (SSMG) can be claimed before or after the child is born (within time limits). If the SSMG is applied for before the family has any children, a client may not be eligible. Once Tax Credits are in payment they may be as long as they receive more than the family element (including the baby element addition). Hence they will need to appeal or apply after the birth.
  
  

The entitlement check service helps us support our clients to understand and claim the correct benefit and tax credit entitlement, maximising their income in the process.