A Belfast family thanked generous strangers who helped them purchase electric after finding themselves struggling with the cost of living.
Andrew Baum and his partner Christine said they have been finding different ways of helping to afford their everyday essentials due to rising costs.
They have found themselves raffling off or selling some of the things they own, like a guitar or Nintendo SNES in order to make sure they cover the bills and look after the four children in their home.
Read more: Cost of living crisis 'will lead to child deaths' as families struggle to heat their homes
Speaking to Belfast Live, Andrew said that this year he has noticed how their money does not stretch as far as it once did and how families with young children in particular will be significantly impacted by the rising costs.
He said: "Over the past few months we have really noticed just how expensive things have got for us running our home and have had to really think about what we are doing in order to make sure that our money goes as far as it possibly can.
"When using certain things around the house, like the dryer, you can see the money fall off of the metre and we have had to almost cut out using things like that.
"Where once we could top up £5 of electricity and it would last us the week, we are now seeing it last only a couple of days and this is during the summer months where we haven't had to use the heating. In the winter months when we are going to need it for the children, I don't know what we are going to do.
"Even when you are doing the shopping you see just how much prices are rising in the stores, especially with everyday essentials. Things like loaves of bread have really gone up in price and with having four children in our house, items like that are a must for us every single day.
"We have been doing other things in order to try and get some extra money in like raffling or selling some of the things we have at home, but that is not something we can continue doing."
During the week, the family were very short on electricity and knew it would be over a week before they had the money available to get more.
As a result Christine issued an appeal to kind strangers online for help and was blown away by the response she got, with people donating and helping the family top up £60, which will last them for a number of weeks, plus a food shop for her children.
She said that she was blown away by the kindness she received and was glad that she could sleep soundly and take her children to school without the fear of running out of electricity.
Andrew, who is originally from America, said that the rising energy costs and profits from private providers reminded him of previous crisis that he has lived through.
He said: "I grew up in America in the 70s when there was the oil embargo and a lot of people suffered shortages. I also see a lot of similarities with what is happening here today with energy costs and what happened with Enron in California and I think that something needs to be done urgently to fix this system and ensure that people are able to survive.
"Electricity and heating are vital for people to survive and it just cannot be cut out of people's lives. It would be like telling someone to shut off their circulatory system and expecting them to continue living."
READ NEXT:
- NI voters' personal details sold off for thousands of pounds to politicians and businesses
- Belfast City Council was advised not to use term 'Bloody Friday'
- Councillor who switched from Greens to SDLP asked Alliance about joining weeks earlier
- Two ex-MLAs still paid for senior Stormont roles while Assembly not functioning
For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here. To sign up to our FREE newsletters, see here.
