New cost of living payments worth up to £1,350 for millions of people next year

The UK Government has announced that households across Great Britain that are eligible for the £200 Alternative Fuel Payment will start to receive the financial support “as soon as possible” after February 1, 2023. The one-off payment is aimed at helping ease the cost of soaring energy bills this winter.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) recently announced that 11.6million Winter Fuel Payments and Pensioner Cost of Living Payments - support worth a total of £4.6billion - have been made to older people across the UK, including 973,604 living in Scotland.

An Ayrshire rock band has won The Weekender Awards 2022 'Music Video of the Year'.

Starting off the new year strong! Jennifer Lopez, Anne Hathaway and more stars rang in 2023 with a bang.

Thousands of revellers returned from all over the world to welcome in New Year at Scotland’s biggest street party. Over 40,000 people flooded into Edinburgh for the world-famous Hogmanay for the first time in three years.

Queen founding member and guitarist Brian May received a knighthood as part of the UK’s New Year Honours List, the annual compendium of awards handed out by at the end of each year by the reigning monarch.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) recently confirmed that Tax Credit payments will be changing for all benefit claimants in the new financial year which runs from April 6, 2023 to April 5, 2024. The annual rates and threshold increase will come into effect from April for everyone receiving Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits payments.

A think-tank has warned that families are facing a "groundhog year" as further squeezes on living standards look set to continue into 2023. The Resolution Foundation said that while there are signs inflation will ease and interest rates peak lower than feared, family finances face a repeat of 2022's cost of living challenges.

The Scottish Government is working towards delivering a new benefit that will start to replace Carer’s Allowance by the end of next year, with a full national rollout planned for Spring 2024, according to a new progress report on the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018.

New analysis suggests that a German-style national drive to reduce UK energy use by turning off lights and lowering heating temperatures could save households £400 and save the Treasury £9 billion. The Social Market Foundation (SMF), a cross-party think-tank, is calling on the UK Government to follow Germany’s lead and launch an information campaign that provides practical tips on reducing household energy demand.

The ongoing cost of living crisis has made 2022 a challenging year for millions of households across Scotland. Soaring energy bills along with higher food and fuel prices brought about by record-breaking inflation means budgets are continually being pushed to breaking point.

The UK Government has launched a dedicated website aimed at helping households save money on their energy bills. A new advertising campaign has also started airing on TV screens nationwide as part of the ‘It All Adds Up’ £18 million awareness initiative.

Kate Hudson and Jamie Lee Curtis are the latest Hollywood actors to weigh in on the topic of the “nepo baby,” a topic rekindled this month by a New York magazine cover story (and much more devoted to the topic) about the phenomena of the children of famous actors who follow in their parents’ footsteps.

As Ghislaine Maxwell spends her third miserable Christmas in jail, this image of her husband with his new girlfriend will be a bitter reminder of the life she once had. As he rebuilds his life without his sex trafficker wife, Scott Borgerson, 47, is dating Kris McGinn, a 50-year-old journalist from Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, where he still lives in the £5.8million seafront mansion he once shared with Maxwell.

Motorists have seen several changes throughout 2022, and will be seeing more as we head into 2023.