CAP Money

Total UK personal debt at the end of July 2010 stood at £1,456 billion.

The average household debt in the UK is (excluding mortgages) £8,628. Including mortgages it is £57,810.

The average consumer borrowing via credit cards, motor and retail finance deals, overdrafts and unsecured personal loans has risen to £4,447 per average UK adult.

The average owed by every UK adult is £29,929 (including mortgages) which works out at 126% of average earnings.

(Credit Action Statistics)

Whether we like it or not, money is important - it affects almost every aspect of our lives and as these statistics show, how we spend our money today can have a drastic impact on how we live our lives tomorrow. With this amount of personal and household debt many people are looking at house repossession, bankruptcy and bailiffs - issues that CAP deal with every day, on behalf of their clients.

However, a few years ago CAP realised that there must be more they can do to stop people becoming clients, to prevent people from getting into the amount of serious debts CAP daily deal with.

So CAP Money came to be. A simple money management and financial planning course run through local churches, one night a week for three weeks - there are now more than 700 churches trained to run the course and more than 10,000 people this year will have attended and "graduated" from a CAP Money course.

The CAP Money system is tried and tested, works irrespective of income or financial know-how and is based on three basic principles:

1. Building and living on a budget
2. CAP Money system of 3 accounts - one for cash, one for regular payments and one for saving.
3. Living from week to week using cash, not card.

Regardless of how much or how little money we have, all of us can struggle to manage it and have the right attitude towards it. Being in control of our money can be a very simple process (such as the above), and when we are in control of our money, rather than our money controlling us we find that not only is our life fuller but our money can be used as a tool for good so much more easily!

One of the local churches in Bradford was running it this October so I decided that I should probably go along to one of these courses and see for myself what all the fuss was about! Anyways, it was suprisingly easy, suprisingly fun and even though I didn't have particularily poor money management skills, it really helped me to be in even more control of my finances.

They go through our budgets with us personally, give us a few hints and tips to make it easier and show us extra ways we can save money. The CAP Money coaches were brilliant - very reassuring and so eager to help us with everything. The simple but effective methods of having three seperate accounts and then only using cash is really helpful as it makes sticking to a budget so much easier.

This is something I'm realising that a lot of people my age haven't had a chance to learn about - money management, budgeting or financial planning aren't necessarily in every school or university curriculum so I feel very lucky to be able to do the course!

One of the most exciting things from doing the CAP Money was that I realised I can save a lot more than I am at the moment (I thought only getting paid £80 a week would make that difficult but CAP Money has shown otherwise!) and I can also afford to give away much more than I am at the moment - how exciting to realise that I can become not only a channel of God's love and peace on earth but also of his money and resources!