More and more middle-income, elderly and young people are getting into financial problems due to high energy bills and more expensive groceries. Some victims run out of savings and even have no money left to buy food and drink. That says manager Frederieke Kokol of Geldfit, an initiative of the Dutch Schuldhulproute.
Via Geldfit, people can get advice online and by telephone on how to deal with their financial problems. In the past year, more than 1.2 million people have had the Geldfit website visited – no less than three times as many as in 2021.
“It concerns, for example, two-income households with a house, old age pensioners and young people who cannot pay their energy bills. They run out of savings and at some point no longer know how to do their shopping,” says Kokol. “Everyday life is so expensive that even with a strict budget there is not much left to cut on the expenditure side.”
According to Kokol, there is still a lot of shame and stress among people who have financial worries. “It happens that they do not have a network to fall back on, such as friends or family. Moreover, they often do not know where to turn.”
Via Geldfit, for example, people are advised to agree on a payment arrangement or gain insight into their situation via online tools. This helped about 85 percent. The rest were referred via the website to energy coaches, debt help buddies or municipal debt help.
