When Beth thinks back to her pre-pandemic life, it feels almost unrecognisable. Between dinner parties, cinema trips, Sunday brunches and takeaways at friends’ houses, the 28-year-old NHS nurse from the east Midlands usually had a calendar brimming with plans. That changed starkly with Covid-19 but, just as restrictions eased up, the cost of living crisis began to bite. Beth’s finances have been so squeezed, she sees friends only once or twice a month.
Partly, this is down to the extra shifts Beth has taken to cover her rocketing energy bills and the £530-a-month mortgage on her one-bedroom flat, where she lives alone. But even when she isn’t working, she is often forced to turn down invitations, as socialising becomes increasingly unaffordable.
