Natasha McCabe

Im going to live on Job Seekers Allowance for 1 week, from 20th January. I can draw £67.50 for one week. I wont count my housing, utilities or commuting costs, but this amount must cover all my discretionary spending, such as food, private mileage, sports, drink, entertaining, cinema and other leisure activities.

The serious message is that it is very hard indeed to live on this amount, let alone save to start your own business, to get off benefits.

Why not join the challenge? You will almost certainly learn some lasting lessons about living on a little less, and you should become a little healthier too!

Any contribution, even the smallest amount, can help make a difference. Below you can find more information on Fredericks Foundation:

Fredericks Foundation is a charity that helps disadvantaged people to set up, or expand their own business as a means to achieve financial independence while rebuilding their confidence and self-esteem, and to contribute to their... more

Im going to live on Job Seekers Allowance for 1 week, from 20th January. I can draw £67.50 for one week. I wont count my housing, utilities or commuting costs, but this amount must cover all my discretionary spending, such as food, private mileage, sports, drink, entertaining, cinema and other leisure activities.

The serious message is that it is very hard indeed to live on this amount, let alone save to start your own business, to get off benefits.

Why not join the challenge? You will almost certainly learn some lasting lessons about living on a little less, and you should become a little healthier too!

Any contribution, even the smallest amount, can help make a difference. Below you can find more information on Fredericks Foundation:

Fredericks Foundation is a charity that helps disadvantaged people to set up, or expand their own business as a means to achieve financial independence while rebuilding their confidence and self-esteem, and to contribute to their communities. We provide a comprehensive range of business support and micro-loan funding for start-ups and small businesses, which are unable to raise loans from traditional sources.

As a result of the economic downturn, as well as helping the long-term unemployed, Fredericks Foundation has branched out to assist existing companies. Fredericks is run as a lean, effective organisation with low costs and high productivity. 94% of our income go directly towards our work. Our excellent professional team means that we have achieved approximately 75% loan pay back over 10 years, all of which are in turn recycled as new loans. In this way, money invested in Fredericks can be used repeatedly, thereby having a far greater impact than a one-time only grant. Thus we have achieved sustainability in our loan capital.

We estimate that we save the country at least £3.6m over a 3-year period for every 100 people we enable to come off benefits. We have helped financed over 900 businesses over the past 10 years