With the cost of living soaring, unclaimed benefits could be helping us stay afloat

A massive £15bn of benefits is going unclaimed in the UK every year.

As the cost of living crisis gets even more severe, it’s essential we claim everything we’re entitled to.

It’s thought there are lots of reasons for the unclaimed benefits, but one of the most common is people not knowing what they can receive.

People often mistakenly believe that they can’t claim if they’re working. Or the rules may have changed to include someone in their situation.

With inflation now above 10 per cent, getting the correct benefits could be the difference between us keeping our heads above water and sinking.

At Quids in! we now have a benefits calculator on our website. 

It only takes a few minutes to check what we can claim. But we should have info on things like income, savings, pension and other benefits for ourselves and our partner to hand before we start.

Another reason for people not claiming the benefits they’re due is because they’re not confident about getting online.

Universal Credit is mostly an online benefit, and Healthy Start vouchers have moved to a prepaid card that we apply for online. But fewer than half of the families who can claim these vouchers are doing so.

So being online isn’t just about checking Facebook. It’s vital for keeping our finances healthy too.

We’ll get better deals on our household bills, and it’s easier to check our bank balance.

For people who struggle with online content, the Quids in! website also has an easy-read feature. This means it can read the text aloud to us, or translate it into our first language. It can also increase the size of the text or add a rule or mask to the screen to help us out if we find reading tricky.

There’s plenty of advice on there too about getting online, or becoming more confident.