Citizens Advice Suffolk warns young people are unlikely to ask for financial help
They say one in five young adults seeking its advice need help with debt
Citizens Advice in Suffolk says it's not surprised young people feel uncomfortable talking about their finances.
The charity, which supported 66,000 under 25s last year alone, says one in five (20%) young adults seeking its advice need help with debt.
They also found that 90% under 25's feel uncomfortable discussing finance, and that the number of young people needing help with managing money has "doubled since 2019".
Citizens Advice warns many young people are feeling "particularly squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis as they face a triple whammy of soaring living costs, rising private rents and high inflation."
The charity says it's facing huge pressures receiving higher demand of people calling and walking in for a face to face discussion regarding their finances.
Despite this, Chiara Saunders, who works for the charity in Suffolk, says they're not seeing many young people coming to the service for help - with the majority of people they see being over 40.
Chiara says she "wasn't surprised" by the findings, explaining "it's difficult" to talk debt and finances, especially when, at this age, "you're all at different points in your life."
Not only this but people have "different support" availale to them, some may have family in which they can fall back on, whilst others wont.
She went on to say what will also impact people's abilities to talk about finance is "how they've been brought up" and how they've been told to "look after their money."
Chiara also suggested our parental figures can influence our views on finances for better or worse.
However, despite the potential "awkwardness" of a conversation around money, she encourages people to talk about it and share their knowledge and advice, as young people are "facing a lot of pressure, it is expensive (to live at the moment)."
She also explained how young people may find themselves in financial difficulties due to not fully understanding the full extent of what they've agreed to.
An example she gave was the interest on a credit card or the large fine you can receive if you don't have a TV licence.
Because of this, Chiara wants there to be more education around finances from a younger age: "It's something that would benefit enormously from being taught in schools."
As well as this, she wants the younger generation to take their finances seriously from early on, to prevent difficulties later in life: "I will say that now I'm now in my 60s, I wish I'd paid a bit more attention and it's really important that that people do that early."