Frances Cook

But I think it's one of those things where unfortunately it's a bit like when you're dealing with stress or when you're having a health problem and they say, go for a walk and drink more water and get more sleep.

And you say, those are too simple to work.

And then you do it and it does help at least a little bit.

So I think it's about bringing it back in on those financial foundations and saying, okay, what can I control?

What can I do at this point?

And even if it's small, some of those little changes can help at this point, even for just getting that sense of control back.

Well, I think certainly at this point when they flagged that unemployment is likely to peak at the end of this year, and that's a little bit of a best case scenario.

First of all, one of your biggest investments is your job.

People always ask me what's the first investment and they're expecting things like shares.

It's actually usually your earning power.

So if you've still got a job at the moment, then really looking after that, making sure you make yourself useful at work, maybe looking for some free courses to upskill.

That can be a really good investment at a time like this to really keep that earning power as safe as you can.

And then I think it's things like they've pointed out house prices are probably going to stay pretty flat.

Inflation going up, that means interest rates going up.

So get rid of any debt that you can right now before it gets more expensive because it quite likely will.

And don't be expecting things like house prices to boom up and give you a bit of that sugar rush financially.

And I think hope fatigue is also a real danger at this point, because when you hit that point where you've been going for a long time, as we said, you know, you've been trudging through and being told just around the corner.

And it's like chasing the rainbow just keeps getting further away.

So there is that real danger of you just say stuff it and you stop trying or you make mistakes.

rushed decisions to try and feel in control.