A single mum has racked up £10,000 in debt as a result of the cost of living crisis which is affecting families across the UK.
June Butterworth, 44, had to switch from her job as a carer, a job she had been in her whole working life, to a cleaner working reduced hours at a care home to look after her unwell elderly mother.
June, from Lancashire, has accumulated the mass debt and has taken out payday loans for necessities as her bills skyrocket, Lancs Live reports.
Her debt for gas and electric escalated to more than £1,000 causing her to cancel a direct debit with the company and use pay as you go instead.
For a mother of two, the sudden hike in the cost of living hit like a bombshell.
“When I heard the news that the cost of living was rising I was shocked,” said June.
“It is a nightmare to keep on top of. How are people supposed to survive? I can’t stop crying because you work all your life...it’s hard.
"The future is looking like bankruptcy and I didn’t think this could happen to me. Even though you go to a debt company you can still end up bankrupt. It can happen to anyone.”
The largest chunk of debt June owes is council tax and consequently she has been threatened with court costs, and debt letters are littering her home.
After she split up with her partner she had to take time off work to look after her two young sons, now 26 and 22. Her family helped her with childcare to prevent debts she owed from mounting.
June works 32 and a half hours a week and earns £1,250 before tax each month, and gets a £100 Universal Credit allowance, but after tax and funding necessities she finds she has no spare change left over.
She pays £445 a month on rent and over £100 a week on grocery shopping to feed herself and her sons – as well as gas and electricity and water bills. Even when she worked over 40 hours a week she was still struggling to pay bills on time.
Her youngest son works part-time, but her eldest has been unemployed since his place of work told him that the company could no longer afford to keep employees under the government’s Kickstart Scheme because the minimum wage had risen.
She has been forced to make sacrifices with her social life to keep on top of mounting debts, and has cut back on taxi sharing and buying clothes.
Each month she pays Christians Against Poverty (CAP), a debt centre she has been with for a year, £195 to pay back her debts and says she was told by them that it would take approximately two and a half years to clear them.
However, because her wages do not match the recent rise of the cost of living, it will take her at least three years to pay them off.
Christians Against Poverty (CAP) Rossendale Debt Centre provides a free, home-based debt counselling service for those in unmanageable debt within the BB4 and OL13 postcodes. To contact CAP call 0800 328 0006.
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