A couple crippled by the impact of the economic crisis claim they have been forced to sell their wedding rings just to pay their bills.
Jonathon Mahon, 55, was self employed until he had to stop working to become a full time carer for his wife, who suffers with a number of debilitating conditions.
As a result, Jonathan says he has been forced to claim benefits 'for the first time in his life' and sell irreplaceable valuables just to cover their bills - which could be set to rise again as the energy price cap rise looms and inflations creeps towards 5 per cent.
The pair who live in a one bedroom flat in Sefton, Merseyside, can only afford to have the heating on four hours a day and are forced to go to the local foodbank to eat, as Jonathan told the Liverpool Echo that their benefit payments don't even cover their household outgoings.
He said: “Last year, we had to sell our wedding rings. We were at a stage where we had to look at what we could sell so we could do something.
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“The government will say it's down to a lack of budgeting and that people are being feckless.
“I'm not being feckless. The people I know in this position are not being feckless.
“You don't go trudging up to a foodbank for the fun of it. It's soul destroying.”
Unable to work for the last six years, Mr Mahon and his wife are reliant on ESA (employment and support allowance) payments.
But the electricity bill “swallows everything” in order to run two medical machines and it's only expected to get worse.
The energy price cap rise, set to be introduced in April, could see his energy bills rise by a further 50 per cent
Mr Mahon says that it is the generosity of family members and the local community that ensures they can meet the cost of living each month.
Jonathan said: “It would be nice to have it warm all of the time, but we can't.”
He added: “We've never been this financially dead in the water before.
“This is the first time I've ever been on benefits in my life.
“In a way, it can't get any worse, where you're already spending 100% of your weekly income on utilities.
“[But the energy price cap is] another wave of the tsunami. We're going to be obliterated.
“It feels like we're in a canoe without a paddle and someone is now going to put holes in that canoe.
“It's impossible. I'm not waving, I'm not drowning, I'm not sure what I'm doing at the moment.”
Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation finds households on low incomes will be spending on average 18% of their income, after housing costs, on energy bills after April.
For single adult households on low incomes this rises to 54%.
Mr Mahon is one of millions who will be affected when changes are made to the energy price cap.
The cap sets the maximum tariff energy companies can charge customers and is expected to climb due to increasing wholesale gas prices.
But even before the rising costs, many were already battling precarious situations.
The £20 Universal Credit uplift recently ended in November and other benefits such as PIP are not set to rise to meet escalating costs.
Middle to lower income families will also feel the strains with wages not rising.
