White goods grant for cookers, fridges and washing machines

If you’re struggling and living without essential household items like a cooker, washing machine, or fridge and freezer, there are white good grants and support available to get free white goods.

Over two million households are living without an essential household appliance – like a cooker, fridge or washing machine – according to Turn2us.

Whether it’s not owning a kitchen appliance at all, or the machine is broken or faulty, it’s not right that so many are living in appliance poverty.

This is affecting more people than you may think. Your first thought may turn to people who are on very low incomes or benefits, but 1 in 7 people with incomes on or below £35,000 live without at least one essential kitchen appliance.

What help is there for household items?

Thankfully, there are several different options available, so you don’t need to turn to high-interest credit to get a cooker, fridge freezer, or washing machine.

Here are some ways to find grants or get them for far cheaper.

There are also grants for furniture and carpets that you can apply for.

White goods grants for cookers and other appliances

Many charities give grants to families or individuals, and the grant does not need to be paid back.

You can search in a minute to find charities either locally or nationally that may be able to offer you a grant for a cooker, washing machine, or fridge freezer. Plus, you can filter specific to your job (or previous career), your religion, or whether you have any health issues.

Each charity comes with its own set of qualifying rules, so it may be worth searching for you (as well as your partner, if you have one).

The charity may be able to help if you’re experiencing financial hardship, are in debt, if you’re on a low income or have no savings, or if you’ve had a change in circumstances such as a bereavement or job loss.

On top of buying new appliances, any of the charities can also offer grants to help with rent, utility bills, clothing, costs of studying/exam fees, respite care, travel costs to get back into work, and more. 

Have a look at the Turn2us grant search to find what support is available for you.

Greggs Hardship fund

Greggs (yes, the people with the sausage rolls) offer a hardship fund to help people when they are struggling in life or have a low income.

So far, they have given away over £3 million to families in poverty.

You can get help with grants for equipment for new babies, when a child starts school, as well as supplying essential household appliances like cookers and fridge/freezers.

However, the grants are only available to people in the North East of England (the Counties of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham, and Teesside).

Families with disabled children

If you are raising a disabled or seriously ill child who receives certain benefits like income support, jobseeker’s allowance or pension credit, you can apply for a grant with the charity Family Fund.

They have arrangements directly with suppliers (like AO and Argos), who will give you credit to buy a new kitchen appliance like a washing machine or fridge freezer.

Family Fund also offers grants for holidays, computers, sensory toys and equipment, clothing, and days out.

You need to have evidence of entitlement to certain benefits, including:

• Universal Credit
• Child Tax Credits
• Working Tax Credit
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Income Related Employment Support Allowance
• Income Support
• Housing Benefit
• Pension Credit

Employment and Support Allowance

Let’s Talk Energy Fund

If you’ve got an inefficient kitchen appliance, or you don’t have one at all, you can apply for a new one. You will need to receive certain means-tested benefits and have a low income.

You may also be able to get energy debt written off or get a boiler repair or replacement.

Local Welfare Assistance Schemes

If you’re a customer of npower, they have a grant to pay for the replacement of broken and old cookers, fridges, fridge-freezers.

They also have grants that can pay people who are struggling to pay their energy bills.

E.ON Next Energy Fund for low income

E.ON Next provides grants to its current customers. You can get help with replacing white goods like cookers, fridges, fridge freezers.

They want to help as many people as possible. Money in the grant pot is limited, so people with the greatest need are prioritised.

Existing customers of E.ON (including Sainsbury Energy) can apply to their grant fund for help to pay their current or final E.ON energy bill.

British Gas white good grant

There is a British Gas white good grant available to customers and non-customers of the company.

You may be able to get a grant to help with the repair or replacement of boilers and cover the costs for energy-efficient appliances. There are eligibility criteria you need to meet and you have to show you have a low income and hardship, with proof from a social worker or health visitor where you live. In England, you can also apply if you have a disability or illness.

The grant program was first set up to support electricity and gas bills and arrears. Seeing that more help was needed, the grants also pay towards funeral expenses and debt relief such as bankruptcy deposits.

Support from your local council – Local Welfare Assistance Schemes

Local Welfare Assistance Schemes (LWAs) is a possible way for you might be able to get help from your local council.

The trouble is times are tough for everyone, and I know that many local councils are also cutting their services. Some areas may offer more than others.

You can check your local council website for Scotland, England and Wales or use the Local Welfare Provision Search Tool on the End Furniture Poverty website.

Each local council runs its scheme differently with different qualifying eligibility criteria. Usually, these schemes are for people who are living on low wages or receive a means-tested benefit and have no access to savings.

The local council assistance scheme will usually give vouchers (not cash) to use for household items, like a cooker, fridge, as well as for food, gas, and electric costs, clothing, and other household items.

Financial hardship

The Household Support Fund could also be a possibility of a pot of money your local council might be able to support you.

Housing associations

If you live in a housing association property, you might be able to get help directly from them rather than going through your local council.

Turn2us has found that 67% of housing associations offer assistance with purchasing essential household goods, and 88% of them help tenants to apply for charitable grants.

On top of that, some local housing associations run their own grant for white goods programs that help people cover the cost of new white goods or get referrals to local furniture projects.

Just contact your local housing association and ask if they offer any support.

Cheap washing machine hire

Two housing associations, including London and Quadrant Housing Trust, have been running a low-cost rental scheme for tenants with AO.

The rental scheme enables you to get a Candy A+++ energy rating machine for £2 a week, and the price includes insurance, repairs, and replacements, and can be cancelled at any time if you no longer want the machine.

After five years, customers can replace the machine with a new one and send the old one back to AO for refurbishment or be recycled.

While you do have to fork out money, it’s far cheaper than high-cost lending, and there are no credit checks.

Low-cost rental

The retailer is still testing the scheme, but (when I spoke to them in September 2019) they had already rented out more than 700 washers, cookers, and fridge freezers across England and Scotland.

John Roberts, AO CEO, said, “The difference [the rental service] makes to people’s lives is incredible.

“There are 5.4 million homes in social housing. Take L&Q, which has about 100,000 homes in London where the average household income is £14,000.

“When those people are spending £10 a week on ‘rent-to-own washers and fridge freezers, they can’t afford it. People can pay £2 per week instead of £10 per week – if it breaks, we will come and repair it or replace it at our cost, which is an AO guarantee.”

However, as it’s a pilot, I don’t know how long it will continue.

Get your white goods for free

Search on Freecycle or local Facebook community groups to see if you can get an appliance for free.

You may think it’s a long shot, but with more of a focus on being good to the environment, people are setting up groups to pass on unwanted goods, so they don’t end up at the rubbish dump.

It’s great as anyone is in with a shot of getting essential household items, not just those on low incomes. The only issue with this is you may need to have your own transport to get the appliance home, and you’ll need to have it installed yourself.

Find out how to fix issues you’re suddendly wondering why is my electric bill so high.

Not free, but a much cheaper option

While the following ideas aren’t free, they are cheaper than getting a credit card, payday loan, or dipping into your overdraft. Rather than grants, you will need to pay back the money with these ideas.

If other options above don’t work for you, hopefully, these will be useful.

Try budgeting loans

If you’re on certain benefits like Universal Credit or Income Support, you can apply for a budgeting loan to help pay for appliances.

The minimum loan amount you can get is £100, and you will need to pack back the money via your benefits.

While it’s not a free option, it will mean you can shop around for the best price for an appliance, and you won’t need to pay any interest on the amount you borrow.

Budgeting loans could also be used to pay for furniture, moving costs, clothing, maternity expenses, and funeral costs.

If you’re claiming Universal Credit, you would need to apply for a Budgeting Advance instead.

Re-use Network

It’s not a free option, but it’s cheaper than buying an item brand new.

Re-use Network take donated furniture, restore it, then sell it at discounted prices.

Use the search within the Re-use Network to find when your local service is based.

Borrow cheaper from a credit union

While it’s borrowing, it’s a cheaper kind of borrowing, which is why we’ve put it right at the end as an option.

Credit Unions are community-run and offer savings accounts and affordable loans. The cheap credit union loan might be able to help buy essential household items, or whatever it is you need.

:: This has hopefully given you a lot of options to get free grants for essential items like cookers and fridges.

Living without

We’ve been in a private rental for years, having moved 8 times in the last 10 years, and being served notice to move on at pretty much every place we’ve lived.

Every rental was different in terms of what unfurnished meant.

One place had no white goods at all, so we had to get a washer, cooker, and fridge.

That was fine until we needed to move, but the next place came with all kitchen appliances. Not having room to store them or the ongoing cash to put them into storage (for an unknown amount of time), we sold them on.

However, just 7 months later, we moved again. This time, the flat had a cooker and washing machine but no fridge.

We managed to salvage a sorry-looking fridge freezer for free; otherwise, we would have used a credit card to get a new one as we had a low income and no savings and were struggling to pay off debts.

The cost of living without white goods

Appliances like a cooker, fridge, or washers are costly to buy upfront, and even a repair can set you back a fair bit.

No cooker cost

Turn2us has highlighted in their Living Without Campaign that if you have to eat microwave-ready meals as you don’t have a cooker, it means you spend an extra £42 a week on your food shop (as a family of 4).

No fridge freezer cost

Without a fridge or freezer, you have nowhere to store food, so need to buy things daily, and you can’t bulk buy to get discounts or look for cheaper food to save for another time.

This means an average weekly family shop would cost an extra £26.26 a week. If you’re already on a low income, that’s a lot of extra money to find.

No washer cost

If you’ve not got a washing machine, this will usually mean washing by hand (a launderette will get too expensive over time, and you’d pay an extra £1,000 over a year).

It costs around £4 to run a medium cycle in the launderette, but costs just 15p to wash your clothes in your own washer at home.

And the other costs

But, on top of actual money, there is also a physical impact of not being able to eat fresher food, or having to wash clothes by hand, particularly if someone has a disability or is ill.

Then, there’s an emotional impact where people feel unhappy, have low life satisfaction, feel low self-worth, and feel anxious. It has a huge impact on mental health.

Just imagine how you’d feel having to go to work in clothes that you couldn’t wash properly.

And there are more extra costs

Realising it’s hard to live without essential appliances and the increased weekly cost of living without, people try anything to get a new appliance – but again, this comes at an extra cost.

Turn2us surveyed its users and found that many are having to use high-interest credit or expensive rent-to-own companies to get new appliances. (This is not the only option…see below).

If you had savings and could buy a fridge from a normal shop, it’d cost you £250-£400. However, with a rent-to-own retailer, you’ll be paying around £1,000!

It’s not the only way people are getting new appliances with:

• 33% of people using a credit card
• 7% using a store card
• 5% of people have used their overdraft, and
• 1% of people have used a payday loan.

While it won’t help you out of a hole immediately, it’s one reason to save an emergency fund, even if it’s just a few quid at a time.