Meet the People - Part 7

My name is Steve and I was a director of a home improvements company and I was suddenly made redundant in my fifties.  My wife is disabled and cannot work and we went from a high salary and company car to benefits overnight.

We had financial commitments which matched my earnings and I had to get some advice on how to sort things out and move forward as I had no idea how long I was going to be out of work for or how much my next job was going to pay.

My friend suggested that I go to Citizens Advice for help and I was very sceptical that a free service staffed by volunteers would be any good but did not have much choice. From the outset they were fantastic and I could not have been more wrong about the level of professionalism and support.

As I had a redundancy package they helped me to negotiate with creditors so that my wife was not having sleepless nights imagining that we were going to lose our home or that the bailiffs were going to come knocking.

Fast forward a few years and I am now retired and I was so impressed with the CAB service that I decided that I would like to volunteer for them.

When I started they told me that training was involved. This came as a big shock to me as I am an outgoing man with experience from the University of Life! Thinking about it though you have to have training to maintain the high standards of advice that we offer.

I have met some wonderful people and made some good friends as a volunteer as well as learning a huge amount whilst helping other people. I would recommend it to anyone who has a few hours a week to help out.