Deb, that sense of unfairness across generations, does that resonate with you from callers that you speak to in your work?

I think that what we need to look at is that behind every debt, and I'm talking about all debts, there's a human.

And at the moment, at an individual level, people are finding it really hard.

And I guess the advice that we're asking people to do is to try to stop, breathe, don't panic or make reactive decisions and One of the worst things that some people do is that they take out more debt to try and cover the existing debt that they have.

And what this can do is lead to a debt spiral, which is a bit of a chase and a bit of relying on debt to pay for more debt.

And this is when we can see things really deteriorate quickly.

So what we recommend is that people are reaching out to their creditors, their lenders, the telecommunication companies, all the people you have bills with, and get in contact.

Deb, what kind of advice, starting point do you have with clients who call in? Is it similar to what Amy says, doing a bit of an audit of expenses? What else do you do?

What should I do first?

So that's a very common situation and it's exactly the type of issue that financial counsellors can help with and deal with every day.

If you're trying to do it on your own though, the first step would be to work out the gap.

So how much you short, how much do you need to cover the essentials such as housing, food, utility, transport? And it's not about perfection.

It's about just understanding what that gap is in the first place and what you need to be able to narrow that gap.

Now, if you're in this situation, I can assure you, you've probably already gone through and thought, what subscriptions can I cancel? What other luxuries do I have that I don't actually need? So the answer isn't always about cutting things out.

What we sometimes see is that people might cut out really essential things like going to the doctor or prescriptions.

How do I start getting my finances back under control?

How do you even work out, I guess, which one to start targeting to start paying off first?

This can be a really, really challenging question, actually.

There's not one size fits all approach.

And often the debt that's causing the most stress isn't necessarily the debt which should be prioritized first.

And the other thing to note is that priorities depend on a number of different individual circumstances.

And that can be things like your values.

That can play a really strong part in what's an important debt and what's not.

I think that kind of piece that you were just talking about in terms of hardship assistance debt, that really kind of segues us on nicely to my next question, which is for people, I guess, who feel like they've got no spare cash, where can they realistically find extra money to put towards their debt? Do they have any options in that respect?