Free money guidance: MoneyHelper, Citizens Advice and money coaching

If you are worried about money, whether that is debt, bills, benefits or pensions, there are free services across the UK that can help, and none of them will charge you a fee. MoneyHelper offers free, impartial money and pension guidance backed by government¹. Citizens Advice offers free advice on debt and other money problems². National Debtline provides free, confidential and independent debt advice³, Age UK runs an advice line for older people⁴, and Turn2us can check your benefits entitlement and search over 1,600 charitable grants for you⁵.

These services exist because the government brought its money and pension guidance together. The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) replaced the three existing providers of government-sponsored financial guidance: the Money Advice Service, the Pensions Advisory Service and Pension Wise⁶. MaPS is an arm's length body of the government⁷, and its consumer service, MoneyHelper, is free to use and impartial, which means it does not sell products or take commission.

Guidance or advice: what free services can and cannot do for you

The free services described on this page give guidance rather than regulated financial advice, and the difference matters. Guidance means someone explains your options, how products work and what the rules are, so you can decide for yourself. Regulated financial advice means a qualified adviser recommends a specific product or course of action, which carries legal duties and usually a fee. If you want to understand that distinction in more depth, see advice or guidance and paying for a financial adviser.

The Money and Pensions Service provides free and impartial debt advice, money guidance and pension guidance to members of the public⁶. It does not sell products, and its guidance covers everyday topics such as savings¹² and the Lifetime ISA, including the implications for benefit eligibility⁷. MoneyHelper also offers a range of budgeting tools and calculators¹³, which can help you build a budget or work out what to do with any surplus income.

What free guidance cannot do is recommend a specific product, provider or investment. It also cannot take over your finances for you. National Debtline, for example, provides free sample letters you can use to contact creditors in writing¹⁴, but you send them yourself. And there are limits on enforcement: MoneyHelper does not have statutory powers and can only affect a resolution through persuasion and conciliation¹⁵.

The official advice is consistent: always get free, independent help before you pay a commercial service¹⁶. There are many organisations offering free and independent advice on dealing with debt, including Advice NI in Northern Ireland¹⁷, and your local council may also offer free advice¹⁸.

MoneyHelper: free, government-backed money and pension guidance

MoneyHelper is the government-backed consumer service for money and pensions. It offers free, impartial money and pension guidance, backed by government¹, and its support and guidance are free¹⁹. It can help you find a way forward if you are worried about money and finding it difficult to know where to start².

MoneyHelper is available through several channels:

• Website: moneyhelper.org.uk, with tools, guides and calculators¹³
• Phone: 0800 138 7777 is given as the MoneyHelper helpline¹, and 0800 011 3797 is also published as the number for free help and guidance on money and pensions⁸. The documents differ on which is the main line, so try either if one is busy.
• WhatsApp: +44 (0)7701 342744, with replies between Monday and Friday, 9am to 5pm, except bank holidays²⁰
• Webchat: Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, closed at weekends and on bank holidays²⁰

UK calls are free and may be recorded to improve the service²⁰. If English or Welsh is not your first language, MoneyHelper can find an interpreter to help²⁰.

On pensions, MoneyHelper provides free and impartial money and pensions guidance²¹, including help to get retirement guidance²⁰. It also has a role in complaints: if you have a dispute with a pension scheme, the scheme's internal dispute resolution process must be exhausted first, and only then can you go to MoneyHelper or the Pensions Ombudsman to try to resolve the complaint¹⁵. Beyond individual help, the Money and Pensions Service leads the development and delivery of pension dashboards and will provide a non-commercial dashboard service²².

MoneyHelper's guidance is funded through the Money and Pensions Service, an arm's length body of government⁷, which is why it costs nothing to use and why it will never charge anyone for its services¹¹.

Citizens Advice: over 500 centres across the UK

Citizens Advice offers free advice on debt and other money problems², and it is one of the most wide-ranging free services because it covers money alongside rights, housing, benefits and consumer issues. It also offers a free service including help with gambling problems²³. If you have a complaint about a trader, Citizens Advice can refer your complaint to local Trading Standards Officers who may investigate on your behalf, and it shares complaint information nationally with enforcement authorities including Trading Standards, the Competitions and Markets Authority and regulators, so that action can be taken⁹.

The Citizens Advice helpline in England and Wales operates Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm⁹. The documents give different numbers for the helpline, 0800 240 4420 and 03454 04 05 06, so check the Citizens Advice website for the current line before calling. In Scotland, the equivalent phone service also runs from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday²⁴, and you can get free in-person advice at your local Citizen's Advice Bureau or on the phone through the Money Talk Team³.

In Wales, Citizens Advice Cymru offers free, confidential advice and information on a range of issues including money and benefits²⁵, and Advicelink Cymru offers free and confidential advice on a range of subjects²⁵. For more detail on the Welsh services, see money help in Wales, and for Scotland see money help in Scotland.

Citizens Advice tends to suit problems that mix money with something else: a benefit dispute, a housing issue behind rent arrears, a consumer complaint, or pressure from a lender. For pure debt advice, National Debtline is the specialist service.

Free debt advice from National Debtline

National Debtline provides free, confidential and independent debt advice³. It is free to use, always¹⁰, and it has been helping people in the UK with debt for over 30 years¹⁰. It is an independent registered charity, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority¹⁰, and your details will never be shared¹⁰.

You can contact National Debtline in three ways: by phone, by online webchat, or through its My Money Steps tool¹⁰. As well as advice, it provides free sample letters you can use to contact creditors in writing¹⁴, which is useful for asking for breathing space, disputing a debt or proposing an informal arrangement. You can get free and independent advice about informal arrangements, and whether they are the best way to deal with your debt problem, from organisations like Advice NI²⁶.

National Debtline's guidance also covers your rights with creditors. For example, its guides explain what debt collectors can and cannot do, including whether they can come to your house and take your belongings¹⁴. If you are worried about someone else's debts rather than your own, National Debtline also has information for people worried about someone¹⁰.

Free debt advice matters because the alternatives can be expensive. The official guidance is to always get free, independent help before you pay a commercial service¹⁶, and the Financial Conduct Authority has published help for consumers in persistent credit card debt, pointing people towards free debt advice²⁷. If you are weighing up what to do with debts alongside any savings, see emergency fund or paying off debt first, and the wider debt guide covers the formal solutions.

Help for older people from the Age UK Advice Line

Age UK provides money and pension information for older people, including a specialist advice line⁴. It also has specialist advisers at over 120 local Age UKs⁴, so as well as the national line there are people who can help face to face in many areas.

One practical feature of the Age UK Advice Line is language support: Age UK works with Wordskii to offer free interpreted calls⁴, so a caller who does not speak English as a first language can still use the service through an interpreter.

Age UK's money guidance for older people tends to cover the issues that come with retirement and later life: pension income, benefits entitlement in later years, and dealing with bills on a fixed income. Its pension guidance sits alongside MoneyHelper's, which provides free and impartial money and pensions guidance²¹. For the wider picture on pensions, see the pensions guide.

Older people are also a common target of scams and fake advisers, which is covered in the final section of this page, and the same rules apply: legitimate organisations will never ask you to pay fees in advance to release money, recover funds, or secure a loan¹¹.

Benefits checks and charitable grants through Turn2us

Many households miss out on money they are entitled to because they do not know what exists. Turn2us addresses this in two ways. You can do a free personalised benefits check with Turn2us in less than 10 minutes⁵, and Turn2us can search over 1,600 charitable grants for you⁵. Charitable grants are sums given by charities to people in particular circumstances, and many go unclaimed simply because nobody knows to ask.

A benefits check is worth doing whenever your circumstances change: a new baby, reduced hours, illness, disability or a change in household income. Government guidance on financial help for disabled people is one example of support that people often do not realise exists²⁸.

Alongside Turn2us, other free services can help with specific money pressures:

• In Scotland, the Scottish Welfare Fund page signposts more help with money problems³, and guidance exists for council tax you cannot pay situations through official sources²⁴
• In Wales, the Discretionary Assistance Fund welcomes calls and correspondence in Welsh²⁹
• Free childcare support exists for working parents, including Tax-Free Childcare³⁰, and official guides on free childcare for working parents are also available in Welsh³¹

For the full picture of what you might be entitled to, see the benefits guide, and for help with everyday costs, cutting household bills.

Which free service fits your problem

With several free services, the practical question is where to start. The honest answer is that it matters less than starting somewhere: each service will point you to the right place if you begin with the wrong one. But each has a natural home.

For general money questions, budgeting, savings and pensions, MoneyHelper is the government-backed starting point¹. For debt, National Debtline is the specialist³, with Citizens Advice covering debt that is tangled up with housing or benefits². For older people, the Age UK Advice Line⁴. For benefits and grants, Turn2us⁵.

For complaints about a financial firm, the route is different. The Financial Ombudsman Service is free and easy to use³², and it handles complaints involving the cost of living² and complaints that involve gambling-related harm²³. It is a free service, it will never ask you for money, and it does not pay compensation directly to consumers³³. The consumer protection guide explains when and how to complain.

If you are unsure where a problem fits, MoneyHelper describes itself as a service that can help you find a way forward if you are worried about money and finding it difficult to know where to start².

Help in Welsh, other languages and accessible formats

Language and format should not be a barrier to free help, and the main services have made provision for this. MoneyHelper offers a bilingual service via a variety of channels, with tools and helplines in English and Welsh³⁴. A selection of its guides is available in English and Welsh, and in print, braille or audio format, for free³⁵. If English or Welsh is not your first language, MoneyHelper can find an interpreter to help²⁰.

Beyond MoneyHelper, the pattern repeats across government and charity services:

• Age UK offers free interpreted calls through Wordskii⁴
• The Discretionary Assistance Fund in Wales welcomes calls and correspondence in Welsh²⁹
• Official guides on financial help for disabled people²⁸, responding to a court claim for money³⁶, making a court claim for money³⁷, free childcare for working parents³¹ and Tax-Free Childcare³⁰ are all also available in Welsh
• MoneyHelper's guide to basic bank accounts is available in English and Welsh³⁸

In Wales specifically, Citizens Advice Cymru and Advicelink Cymru both offer free, confidential advice²⁵. For a fuller picture of the Welsh services, see money help in Wales.

Scams and fake advisers: free services never cold-call

The free services on this page share one rule that protects you: none of them will ever contact you out of the blue. MoneyHelper states it plainly:

MoneyHelper¹¹

The Money and Pensions Service has never, and will never, turn up to your home or contact you out of the blue via phone, WhatsApp, email or text¹¹. If someone claiming to be from MoneyHelper or another free service contacts you first, it is not them.

The same is true of the official complaint and compensation bodies. The Financial Ombudsman Service never cold-calls customers, or emails or phones people out of the blue to ask for personal information³⁹. It is a free service, so it will never ask you for money, and it does not pay compensation directly to consumers³³. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) is free to customers and will never ask you to send it money⁴⁰; its service is completely free of charge when you come to it direct, and it will never ask you to make any sort of payment⁴¹. FSCS will never ask customers for money or fees to make a claim for compensation⁴².

The general rule, in MoneyHelper's own words, is that:

MoneyHelper¹¹

If you think you have been targeted, MoneyHelper has a Financial Crimes and Scams Unit you can call on 0800 015 4402¹¹, and its guides cover the types of scam in detail¹¹. The scams and fraud guide explains the wider picture, including how to check a firm on the Financial Conduct Authority's register before dealing with it. If you have already paid a fake adviser, contact your bank immediately and report it to Action Fraud; the FSCS and the ombudsman are free to use, so anyone charging to get you there is not doing it for you⁴⁰.