Carol used to make a Sunday dinner for the whole family, but when she looked at her meter and saw one meal had cost her £7, she had to stop.
“Politicians don't have to worry about feeding their kids and the prices. They could have a full cooked meal and not think of the price whereas families on my estate struggle,” she says.
The grandmother, from Tameside, has been struggling to make ends meet and worries things will only get harder this winter as the cost of living crisis starts to bite.
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She often looks after her granddaughters, whose parent has ‘very poor mental health’ and is regularly hospitalised.
“They have to stay with me so that they don’t end up in care,” she says.
The Prime Minister is currently considering a benefits rise in line with earnings , rather than soaring inflation - which would essentially represent a real-terms cut. It's a move her former leadership rival, Penny Mordaunt, opposes. But at least one Cabinet member, the Home Secretary, wants to cut welfare spending.
Suella Braverman this week told a Tory conference fringe event there is a ‘Benefits Street culture’ in the UK and ‘far too many people’ are ‘fit to work’ but choose to claim welfare instead.
Save the Children say that’s not true. They are campaigning for the government to raise benefits in line with inflation, scrap the benefits cap and pay £10 extra per child into the child element of Universal Credit.
The charity has handed out 797 grants to families in Greater Manchester since April 2020 - initially to negate the effects of the pandemic and since then to help those struggling with the cost of living crisis. The charity also supports a Pantry Store run by the Smallshaw Hurst Community Action Group, in Cedar Park, which works with locals to reduce food poverty and waste.
Unlike Food Banks, the Pantry allows members to pay £3 a week for a shop that includes fresh, frozen and ambient food. It also helps with low-cost home activities for young children, recipe ideas and nutrition advice. Attendance numbers have almost doubled in just a few weeks.
Some of the pantry members have shared entries from their diaries with the Manchester Evening News to illustrate what life is like currently for low-income families. Names have been changed to protect identities.
Carol, a grandmother from Tameside
Not only am I struggling with gas and electric, it’s the bedroom tax that is crippling me. Everything is expensive and I need to pay £30 in bedroom tax a fortnight.
People say move to a smaller house but I look after my granddaughters as their parent has very poor mental health and can be hospitalised on a regular basis so they have to stay with me so that they don’t end up in care.
My granddaughters are having to spend more time at their dad’s as I can’t afford to have them all the time, my benefits won’t stretch as food has gone up in price and I can’t top up their school food card as it’s in their mum’s name and I don’t have spare cash to give them.
If [their] Mum is in hospital for longer than 28 days her benefits are stopped and she has to reapply once she is out but her rent etc still needs to be paid on her property which I have to cover somehow.
Taxis are more expensive because of the increase of fuel so I can’t use them as much and get to the cheaper shops in Ashton town centre.
I am on a pay as you go meter for my electric and gas and I’m paying double, I can’t use my cooker and the hob. It's horrendous. I used to do family dinners on a Sunday and it was £7 for just that one meal on the meter so I had to stop, and I'm finding I'm spending an extra £23 a week on my own shop. I've got to buy glucose and lactic free products so things cost me more. Politicians don't have to worry about feeding their kids and the prices. They could have a full cooked meal and not think of the price where as families on my estate struggle.
I've got emphysema and I use a nebuliser, and I need it three times a day. In the winter it's bad and I don't stop coughing but I won't be using it as much as before because I'm scared of my electric. God knows what's happening to people on oxygen.
Louise, living with her partner and children aged 10, 7, 3 and two
So in the last few weeks there's been seven times in total I've had to ask my mum to lend me money for gas or electric because my money doesn't stretch enough to top it up when I need to.
I've got so much washing piled up now because I can only afford to run the washing machine every few days compared to the every day I used to! With six of us in a house - two being toddlers and potty training - we get through A LOT of clothes so not being able to put the washer on regularly is a massive stress.
There's been a couple of nights I've not slept worrying about not being able to afford something as simple as milk the next day and trying to work out how to get the money together for it! We go through six pints a day due to having two little ones still drinking milk and I've had to try cut theirs down too or not allow them to have cereal for breakfast anymore because something as simple as milk has gone up from £1.50 for 6 pints to £1.99 and I don't always have even £2 spare. Can't buy in bulk because it doesn't last long I'm already buying 18 pints at a time when I do my shopping.
My mum’s done two weekly shops for me and I had food vouchers from school to cover the other week because my Universal Credit only leaves us enough to get one proper weekly food shop a month. Because there is six of us but we only get Universal Credit for two of the kids. Without the local community food pantry where you can get cheaper food, and my mum, there'd be days me and my partner wouldn't even get one meal a day so the kids could eat. But my fridge is also old and I'm constantly stressed if that breaks or I can't afford electricity then the food we have will go off anyway and we'd have no way to replace it.
My kids are struggling with simple things like shoes because I can't afford to keep replacing when they get a bit tight or start getting holes in. Meaning my oldest is wearing second hand shoes a size too big for school at the minute which breaks my heart! The cost of living rising and benefits not matching that rise is really affecting us, it effects my mental health so much because I feel like I'm failing my children.
Their dad works but with his wage and the Universal Credit we get it just isn't enough and I've looked into working part time myself but due to the cost of childcare I'd be working to pay for that and wouldn't see any benefit in terms of having extra money to actually live.
Laura, a recently single mum of three
I've recently had a change in circumstances and had to claim Universal Credit instead of Tax Credits. My last Tax Credits payment were two months ago. I didn't want to get an advance payment so I've used the savings I had to cover until I got my first payment. I've had my first Universal Credit payment today but it's not right they have only awarded half of my rent allowance, despite messaging twice and ringing them but they haven't sorted it in time. As a result I'm going to have to either ask my landlord if I can pay my rent in two halves or pay my full rent and use a credit card for shopping until I get the rest of the payment. Hopefully it'll be sorted for next month.
So I’m still not sorted with Universal Credit. They are giving me additional payments on Monday but it's still not right. I've had to renew my car insurance this week I normally pay it in full but have had to do it by instalments this year so my monthly outings will increase by £30 a month. I've also had to return to the office this week so my monthly fuel costs will increase. We managed a day out this month for Jacob’s* birthday which again meant an increase in fuel costs. We normally spend around £50 a month on fuel we've spent around £90 this month.
Luckily Milly’s* not got football on a Saturday morning for a while now so we won't have to trek all the way to Stockport every week so that should help.
...
So finally I have sorted Universal Credit for this month (hopefully will be right from now on). I'd already paid all of my rent and decided to use credit for shopping until I'd received the right payment. I've been given the £150 council tax rebate this week, which I've used some to pay a bit off my gas and electric as my bill this morning was more than my direct debit. The bill was £120 and I pay £85 direct debit and I want to avoid increasing if I can. I need this weather to improve so I can dry washing outside. I've also used it to pay off the Tax Credits over payment I've had after changing to Universal Credit. The rest has been used for some of Evie’s* presents and the rest I've bought on credit card. Thankfully there no more birthday's for a while now.
...
This week I forgot that I had a dentist appointment so I hadn't budget for the £23.80 that it cost for a check-up. As we are nearly at the end of the month and because I usually budget my shopping for the month, as some weeks I spend more than others, my total monthly spend has been about £30 to £40 more than what it normally is. Also as we've had a few birthday's this month I've used my credit card (usually only used for emergencies) more than normal so will need to budget payments for that over the next few months to pay that off as well.
...
My Universal Credit statement is now right for the month but I won't get it for a few more days. This week is the first week of school holiday and my kids need to be doing something all the time. I had planned for the girls to be at a sports class on Monday through to Wednesday so had a bit of a panic as to what we could do for free or cheap when that was cancelled. Tuesday we went swimming as the girls have lessons and they don't pay for general swimming so only have to pay for me, then we went to the library in the afternoon so didn't spend much. We've stayed at home and made our own Jubilee decorations for the rest of the week and luckily the weather has been a bit better so the kids have been out in the garden. The kids being off school has increased this week's shopping costs by £10 to £15.
What the government says
A Government spokesperson said: “We recognise people are struggling with rising prices which is why we are protecting millions of the most vulnerable families with at least £1,200 of direct payments and saving households an average of £1,000 a year through our new Energy Price Guarantee.
“Through our £37bn support package we are saving the typical employee over £330 a year through a tax cut, allowing people on Universal Credit to keep £1,000 more of what they earn, while all households will receive £400 towards energy costs.”
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