If your partner tightly controls your money, or spends it selfishly and recklessly, you might be experiencing financial abuse.

Economic or financial abuse includes:

• Making you account for every penny you spend
• Making you ask for money when you need it
• Limiting you to an allowance
• Not letting you have a bank account
• Keeping you in the dark about family finances
• Denying you and the children basic things you need (like food, clothes, heating or bus fares)
• Spending money you don’t have on going out, alcohol, drugs, gambling or luxuries
• Stopping you from getting or keeping a job
• Making you work long hours to support their spending
• Stealing from you
• Taking your money and blaming you for it
• Running up debts in your name fraudulently (without you knowing)
• Making you take out loans under duress (against your will)

If you can’t make ends meet, life is a daily struggle. You might lie awake worrying about how to pay bills or how you’ll feed the kids. You might feel unable to leave your partner because they control all the money and you have nothing. Or you might feel crippled by debts and unable to move on with your life.

It is very common for people experiencing domestic abuse to have less control over their finances and to be left with debts when the relationship ends. Sheffield specialist projects working with domestic abuse survivors find that their clients often have:

• Rent arrears from previous tenancies and current tenancies.
• High interest credit lending (from shops and door stop lenders)
• Less income than they should because they aren’t claiming all the benefits they are entitled to

If you think you are being affected by economic abuse, read the latest guidance on surviving economic abuse (April 2021). 

Get free financial advice

In Sheffield there are several Neighbourhood Advice Centres offering free debt advice (details below). Advice Centres can help people prioritise which bills should be paid first (such as rent/mortgage, gas, electric, water, council tax and CCJs) and can negotiate repayments with credit companies.

More detailed advice around finances – guides

You Can Afford to Leave
A financial guide for women and children experiencing domestic violencefrom Refuge

Dealing with Debt
Sheffield Debt Support Unit debt advice

Neighbourhood Advice Centres in Sheffield with Debt Advice Workers

Location	Address	Drop in day / time
Bawtry Road Advice Centre	120-126 Bawtry Road, S9 1UE	Thursday 9.30am – 1pm
Chapel Street	5 Chapel Street, Woodhouse, S13 7JL	Thursday 9.30 – 4pm
Darnall Primary Care Centre	290 Main Road, S9 4QH	Wednesday 9.30 – 11.30
Duke Street	207 Duke Street, S2 5QP	Friday 9.30 – 4pm
Firvale Centre	Earl Marshall Road, S4 8LA	Tuesday 9 – 1pm
Hanover Medical Centre	100 William Street, S10 2EB	Wednesday 1.30 – 3.30
Learning Zone, Parson Cross	320 Wordsworth Avenue, S5 8NL	Wednesday 10 – 1pm
London Road	416 – 418 London Road, S2 4ND	Monday 9.30 – 4pm
Manor Library	Ridgeway Road, S12 2SS	Thursday 10 – 1pm
Spital Hill	28 – 30 Spital Hill, S4 7LG	Tuesday 9.30 – 4pm
Stocksbridge Library	Manchester Road, S36 1DH	Thursday 10 – 1pm
Stubbin Lane	9 Stubbin Lane, S5 6QG	Wednesday 9.30 – 4pm
Totley Rise Methodist Church	Grove Road, S17 4DJ	Tuesday 10 – 12noon
Advice Line	03444 113 111	Mon – Fri, 10am – 4pm