How do you get through the crisis? And your neighbor? Participate in ‘the Stentor Money Meter’ | Region

“We have always done our best to live debt-free, but this way you will naturally go into debt. We have our backs against the wall.”

“We belonged to the middle class, but we are sliding down the ladder.”

,,We are already putting on an extra sweater, but will we have to sit in the living room in our winter coat? That heater will have to come on at some point.”

Three quotes from different people from one story by reporter Paolo Laconi. Poverty is spreading rapidly. Most of our country is concerned with this question: “How expensive will everyday life become, how do we get through the winter?”

Everything is historically high: inflation, energy bills, cost of living. And then autumn has yet to begin, let alone winter. The problem does not only exist in the old working-class neighborhoods and among the traditionally most vulnerable groups in our society. Research shows that the group with a net monthly income of 1,600 to 2,500 euros is severely affected. These people often do not qualify for any allowance whatsoever and are now forced to spend more than they receive.

There is a threat of a larger group of ‘working poor’ emerging. As the 18th century British writer Samuel Johnson wrote, ‘Poverty is a great enemy of human happiness’. People who have experienced it often say that the feeling of having little to nothing never completely leaves you.

Of course we pay attention to the rituals surrounding the deceased Queen Elizabeth and we follow the developments of the war in Ukraine, but this – the crisis of the household stock exchange – is on everyone’s mind. Also with us. This is the journalistic topic of the moment.

Bee the Stentor we don’t have the illusion that we can solve it, but we do want to help. We do this by consistently charting the problem and by giving tips & tricks on how to handle your money. At the beginning of next week, around Prinsjesdag, we will launch ‘de Stentor Geldmeter’ on our site and in our app, specially developed for us and our colleague newspaper titles in the rest of the country and Flanders. It is a so-called digital tool, with questions that are easy to fill in, with which you can compare your data with that of others and learn lessons from it.

What situation am I in? Am I single, together or do I have a family? Working or retired? What do I spend on what? How expensive has my life actually become? And, important: where is the start of a solution, how do I save money? Under the heading ‘the Stentor Geldmeter’ we will bundle all messages, stories and practical examples on this theme – online and in the newspaper. We will of course handle your private data with great care, but it does give us a representative insight into the domestic stock exchange in our country.

So from this week on, keep an eye out for ‘the Stentor Geldmeter’ on our site, in our app, on socials – and also take a look at destentor.nl/geldmeter. We can’t make the situation more fun, probably not easier either, but we can try to help each other a little.