Our offices will be closing on Thursday 22nd December at 4pm for Christmas and we will be reopening again on Tuesday 3rd January 2023 at 10am.

Find out what discounts and offers are available from businesses to help with the cost of living.

Groceries

Asda

Children aged 16 and under can get a hot or cold meal for £1 at any time of day in Asda cafés across the UK, 7 days a week, with no minimum adult spend. Asda are extending this offer to the end of 2022.

Iceland

Iceland are offering a number of cost saving initiative’s, including weekly discounts, product deals and frozen prices which are available in store, including £1 price freezes across 100s of lines for 2022, a weekly discount offering over 60s 10% off on Tuesdays & most recently The Iceland Food club, a partnership launch with Fair For You, to help families manage rising costs. There is also more to come in Autumn and into Christmas! Find out more here: www.iceland.co.uk/doing-it-right

Sainsbury’s

Sainsbury’s have introduced budget-friendly meal ideas to feed a family of four for less than £5. The recipes are available on the Recipe Scrapbook at Sainsburys.co.uk.

Retail

M&S

M&S have frozen schoolwear prices across the UK, keeping 2022 prices at the same level as 2021. Their range of schoolwear clothing includes a 3 pack of Pure Cotton School Polo Shirts from £7 and a 2 pack of Pure Cotton School Jumpers from £11.

Shoe Zone

Shoe Zone is promoting a range of offers including £5 off when you join their email club, savings on selected styles, clearance deals and 2 for £12 multi-buy offers. Find out more here

Stone Refurb

Stone Refurb sell refurbished laptops, desktops, monitors and tablets that they collect from public and private sector businesses who no longer require them, and data wipe and refurbish in house. 
Customers can save £20 on a specific range of laptops and desktops from their Laptops for Home page by adding code HFH20at the basket page. All devices come with a 1 year warranty for peace of mind.
https://www.stonerefurb.co.uk/laptops/home-laptops (£6.95 to deliver to NI)

Scholastic

Scholastic are offering parents and carers an extra 20% off our pricing on a huge range of children’s books when you buy through our School Book Clubs during September. For every order over £10, Scholastic will also donate an additional 20% of the total order value to your local school in free Rewards for them to spend on books for their libraries and classrooms.

www.scholastic.co.uk/helpforhouseholds

Primark

Primark has committed to protect the prices on more than a thousand essential kids’ items. The commitment will mean that families can pick up some of its most popular essential items for the same price – underwear (from £3.50 for a 10-pack of briefs), sweatshirts (from £4.00), dresses (from £4.50) and jeans (from £6.00).

Amazon

Amazon is offering 7 different waysthat people can save money, including free delivery to pick up locations, affordable refurbished products, plus essential back to school offers.

Harper Collins

HarperCollins UK is offering 30% off one order per customer on its website. HarperCollins publishes incredible authors including Bernard Cornwell, Hilary Mantel, Alice Oseman, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, David Walliams, Jonathan Franzen, Holly Jackson and Adele Parks. It is also home to bestselling series The Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire (filmed as Game of Thrones), Divergent, The Chronicles of Narnia and Virgin River as well as legendary characters Miss Marple, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Mr Men & Little Miss.

To redeem click of the following link, add products to your basket and the discount will be applied automatically. Offer ends 30/11/2022. https://harpercollins.co.uk/discount/HOUSEHOLDS30

Utilities

Octopus

Octopus Energy recently doubled its OctoAssist Fund, for customers struggling with their bills, to over £5 million.

Voxi

Vodafone offers VOXI for Now which is the only mobile social tariff to help those experiencing financial hardship stay connected. The £10 per month plan supports anyone claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance, Universal Credit or Employment and Support Allowance, and includes unlimited 5G data, as well as unlimited calls and texts. There is no contract or credit check and customers can pause or cancel anytime.

Virgin Media O2

Essential Broadband is Virgin Media O2’s broadband social tariff for customers in receipt of Universal Credit. The tariff provides 15Mbps at a fixed price of £12.50/month on a 30 day rolling contract. The company waives early termination fees for customers who move to Essential Broadband from other tariffs. Further details can be found here

Our Pop-up shops are now open across Mid and East Antrim. Pictured below are Michele Campbell Operations Director MEACAS, Mayor of Mid and East Antrim, Ald Noel Williams and Jackie Patton Head of Community Planning and Development Mid and East Antrim.

To date, a total of 1,916 items have been collected by 474 families with an estimated total saving of £16,762.

The uniforms are free to collect throughout August 2022 across three locations from 10am – 4pm Monday to Friday (closed for lunch 1-1:30). Shops below:

Ballymena – Tower Centre

Carrickfergus – De Courcy Centre

Larne – Main Street

We have had reports of people receiving calls from a Larne number beginning with 02828 8983 claiming to be from Citizens Advice stating that if they don’t pay up some money their housing claim will be stopped.

This is not us!

If you receive any similar calls you can report it to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or visit there website for other contact details https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/contact-us.

Our offices are now closed for the July holidays. We will be reopening on Monday 18th July at 10am

Mid and East Antrim Borough Council are once again running our very successful School Uniform Scheme, which is being delivered in partnership with Mid and East Antrim Community Advice Services (MEACAS) and supported by Volunteer Now.

This scheme was initially piloted across the borough in July 2019 and has been providing good quality pre-worn school uniforms ever since. This has been a lifeline for many families particularly during lockdown when charity shops were closed. Last year, families were able to telephone MEACAS and arrange to collect uniform items safely (subject to availability).

Our Poverty Action Group took this initiative forward as the rising costs of school uniforms is a source of emotional and financial stress for many low income families. In some cases, families have described having to choose between eating and getting their children kitted out for school. This has also pushed some families into debt.

The true economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has yet to be seen, but with the Government’s furlough scheme ending a rise in unemployment is expected later this year.

It can cost families up to £250 per child to buy school uniform ready for the new academic year. This places additional stress on families. In these tough times with budgets already stretched, it could be ‘make or break’ for some of the households of the 30k schoolchildren in our borough. Deputy Mayor of Mid and East Antrim Councillor Beth Adger said, “This is such a great initiative that has so many positive outcomes. Council is working hard to tackle poverty, particularly in the wake of multiple job losses over the last two years, due to the pandemic and due to the more recent issue of increase in living costs, particularly in respect to energy”.

Not only does it make good financial sense, it also strengthens communities and makes good ecological sense. School closures have been commonplace in fighting the battle against the pandemic, so whilst many uniforms may be outgrown, they will have had little wear so should be perfectly good to be used by another child. On average, each household bins more than 25kg of textiles a year. So rather than adding to the landfill mountains please play your part in helping us to sustain our beautiful environment.

Please note that at the end of this six week donation period, all uniforms will be safely sorted in line with all Government restrictions and then in late July we will announce details of where families can collect items of school uniform FREE OF CHARGE.

There is no qualifying criteria or referral process. People can go along and drop off uniforms, however if they have nothing to donate, they can still pick up anything that they need (subject to availability) throughout August. Beneficiaries will be asked to complete a very short questionnaire, which will be anonymous. This will allow us to measure impact.