Cash Pointers is a service for young people living in social housing funded for four years by the Big Lottery Fund.

Cash Pointers' Toolkit

Cash Pointers is a project that ran for 5 years helping young people learn about financial capability.  We know that having some stability with money can be a lynch pin to accessing other opportunities in their lives and having a safe and secure home. 

The learning from the project has resulted in a helpful Cash Pointers Toolkit.  It is an essentials guide that any support worker can use with young person.

To download the toolkit for free please click here.

What was Cash Pointers?

Our Cash Pointers team offered one-to-one and group sessions on a wide range of topics relating to finances and managing money.
 

It's a well known fact that young people in social and supported housing are the most likely people to struggle with their money.

Firstly - they generally don't have a lot of it so making ends meet is hard.

Secondly a lot young people have never had any advice or training about how to budget or where to go for help.
 
Cash Pointers is open to all young people aged 16-25 in social housing in Bristol and the surrounding area. We're here to improve financial confidence and provide access to appropriate and safe products and services. Although the project is aimed at young people in social housing, we can work with young people in other circumstances, such as care leavers or those vulnerably housed. 

We work with other organisations who work with young people - like Places for People, Knightstone, Bristol City Council and with organisations who know about money like Talking Money and the Citizens Advice Bureau.
We also have links with training and youth organisations like the Prince's Trust and Bristol Youth Links.

Together we have loads of experience and resources to help people learn how to manage their money. It's a skill that stays with you for the rest of your life.

“The service has been a lifesaving help to us. Our Cash Pointers mentor has helped motivate us and give us the confidence that we can manage and we now know what help we can access” Young person Aug 2015

We also know that most young people would prefer to talk to another young person about their money issues so we have trained some young people as Money Mentors. They are young people who have lived in social housing or still are. People who have lived off low incomes with real stories and advice.
 

What's all this got to do with 1625 Independent People?

Well, it's like this. If you're not good with money and you don't pay your rent or service charges, you get evicted. We're in the business of preventing homelessness so we're going to do whatever we can to avoid that!
We're not a letting agency, we're here to help young people manage their housing. If that means helping them learn how to manage their money - that's what we'll do.