Brits are going through the worst standard of living since records began 30 years ago, experts say.
The country is currently being rocked by a host of soaring prices that will leave families £2,000 a year worse off.
Today The Mirror reported that the average home will pay a record extra £693 in energy costs due to a rise in a price cap set by regulator Ofgem.
A quarter of all British households are expected to be plunged into fuel poverty by the increase in these bills.
If that were not enough, the cost of other goods is going up too.
Annual food bills are going up by around £180 as the cost of living crisis continues to squeeze households.
Council tax bills will increase by around £100 in April because of the spiralling cost of social care.
Workers will pay higher National Insurance bills from April, when the tax is due to rise by 1.25 percentage points - an extra £255.40 a year for someone earning £30,000.
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Fuel prices have cooled off slightly from record highs hit last year - but still stand at 145.7p a litre for petrol and 149.6p for diesel.
Car insurance prices are rising too - with some drivers paying £100 a year more than last year.
Even train fares are going up in March by 3.8%, the biggest rise in a decade.
Inflation is currently 5.4% and could rise to more than 7% in the next few months - meaning many other items, like toys and clothes, are also rising in price.
Millions of people will get £350 of help with rising energy bills and council tax, Rishi Sunak announced earlier today - though Labour MPs attacked the measures as "puny".
The Chancellor said people living in bands A to D would get a £150 discount on their council tax in April as part of measures to help families facing a cost of living crisis.
There will also be a £200 rebate off energy bills in October - but this will need to be repaid over five years
Today the Bank of England raised interest rates from 0.25% to 0.5% to control soaring inflation.
But the Bank also said that post-tax disposable income will fall by 2% this year, the biggest drop since it started tracking this in 1990.
The previous biggest drop was 1.3%, in 2011.
The Bank also thinks inflation will hit highs of 7.25% in the next few months.
The whole point of the rise in interest rate today is to bring inflation back under control, to a Bank target of 2%.
Rising base rate means it's more expensive to borrow, so consumers and businesses save instead - meaning spending drops and inflation does too.
A Bank of England statement said: " People are facing a larger than usual increase in the cost of living. That includes higher petrol prices and utility bills. This means they will have less to spend on other things.
"But we still expect the UK economy to grow over the next few years."
The Bank thinks that after this spring inflation will fall - but it won't be anywhere near the 2% target for another two years.
The Bank said: " We expect inflation to rise further to around 7% in the spring.
"After that, we expect inflation to fall. One reason for that is that we think the impact of higher oil and gas prices will fade.
"We also don't think that the demand for goods will continue to rise as fast."
The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee this afternoon voted in favour of increasing the base rate to 0.5%.
Five members of the committee wanted a rise to 0.5% - but the remaining four wanted it to be 0.75%.
Today's decision is the second time in more than three years that the central bank has hiked the interest rate, which has been at a record low for much of the pandemic period.
The Bank last raised interest rate in December 2021 , when the level reached 0.25%.
The last time base rate was more than 0.5% was back in March 2020, when the Bank cut it from 0.75% down to 0.25%.
Why do central bank interest rates go up?
Central banks, like the Bank of England, have tools to help them shape the country's economy.
One of these is base rate, a kind of super interest rate which all other financial firms tend to pay attention to.
Raising or lowering this rate helps control the growth of the economy, and therefore inflation.
Inflation erodes the spending power of money, and the theory is that raising base rate brings this under control by making it more expensive to borrow.
