Dubai: If you are in a financial mess here’s help.

Starting September 22, cashy.me, a financial platform, will hold a week-long programme aimed at empowering residents to spend wisely and save money.

“The UAE Saves Week will largely be driven online and is open to everyone,” said Nima Abu Wardeh, the brain behind cashy.me. “Everyone talks of financial literacy, but few know what financial empowerment is. We see many seemingly intelligent people in control of their lives who are very poor with money. They know what they should be doing, but somehow don’t get down to doing it. So I wanted to do something that would not scare them away. “The aim is to help them identify byte-size, manageable and do-able goals and work towards them with small behaviourial changes.”

She said personal debts in the UAE are a whopping 108 per cent higher than personal incomes.

cashy.me has come up with a specific theme for each day in the week to guarantee the beginning of a turnaround.

The ‘Savings Sunday’ goal post entails saving a day’s wage. “Saving money is a habit. So let’s encourage each other to put aside just one day’s wage first day of the week.”

The ‘Pack Your Lunch Monday’ is about recognising that just Dh50 a week on store-bought lunches means Dh2,600 a year wasted on grab-and-go meals that most people don’t even enjoy, forget their ill-effects on health. “Pack your lunch every Monday and see how much you can save,” said Nima.

Tuesdays are about going green. “Small changes to save energy on ‘Green Tuesday’ can lead to big savings in your bank balance and the environment. Switching off the lights when you’re not home or doing recycling make you realize how your footprint might be costing you more than you think,” said Nima.

Similarly, the ‘Wise Up Wednesday’ is about making time to understand something you’ve been trying to put off like a bank letter, a credit card charge or a contract. Not reading between the lines could cost you time and money. As Nima said, Thursday is to “get out of debt”. So on Good Thursday one must reduce an outgoing, use only cash and think of ways to clear a loan. ‘Frugal Friday’ is time to have fun with family and friends — but by being frugal. Finally ‘Stick With It Saturday’ is about sticking with the goals set through the week.

Nima said each of these themes has a specific call to action and residents will be encouraged to share their pledges and successes in an online galley.