There’s nothing more I can do to save energy – we’re already frugal because we’re already poor. We already don’t leave lights on. We don’t leave devices on or plugged in. I’ll always put on a jumper instead of turning up the heating. When it gets to real winter, we have the thermostat set at about 13. We use hot-water bottles, blankets, jumpers, big socks. I don’t cook meals or have the oven on much – I’ll microwave noodles instead. My dad eats mainly cereal, as well as tinned soups, pasta – poor people’s food. I already only wash my hair once a week. I can’t go out any less. I can’t drink less, I barely ever drink now anyway. There’s nothing more I can give up at this point. I can’t live any less.
Right now my dad gets through about £15 a week of electricity. He doesn’t have any gas. His electricity is basically the kettle, the immersion heater and the telly. When winter comes, he’ll be using space heaters to keep warm. The insulation in his flat is terrible. When his neighbours use their washing machine, things fall off the shelves – the whole place is basically made of cardboard and bogies so it’s hard to keep it warm. If we’re looking at bills doubling or tripling this winter – £250 or £300 seems possible – I don’t know how he would pay it. The first thing he’d scrimp on is food – and he cannot lose any more weight. The next step would be for him to move in with me.
My rent is also going up from £300 a month to £350. Bills are included in that, but it doesn’t begin to cover my landlord’s rise in energy bills, so I don’t know what he’ll do in the long term. Last year the quarterly bills for March to May were £380 for gas and £517 for electricity. This year it was £717 and £916.
It’s a niggling worry that never goes away – although in some ways it’s just a more intense version of what life is always like when you’re poor. Every month you don’t know if you’re going to make it to the next payday. On one level it’s novel that, for once, everyone is in the same boat.
But then there’s the rage. So much talk, all these figures that have been bandied about and possible refunds and rebates and loans. All the time, the uncertainties pile up. We have a zombie government and two possible leaders who will never have to live with this. They have never been poor. They’ve never even been poor students. They’ve never even played at being poor! Liz Truss is the favourite and her biggest promise is to cut taxes? That makes me livid! Read the room. Half the country is worrying about keeping warm in winter. The NHS is on its knees. We’re lacking coppers. Railway workers are on strike. And she’s talking about helping the richest people stay rich?
There has been extra financial help in small random bursts. Dad and I both got an automatic payment into our account which will probably pay for a month’s electricity, then we’re back to square one. Then I got a letter from the council inviting me to go to the post office with ID and I was handed £150 in cash – it was like the 80s! I think that was a one-off welfare assistance scheme.
All that is much better than nothing, but it’s the lack of security, the lack of policy that’s hard to live with. You never know what’s coming or what’s not coming, and when both possible future leaders make vague promises about “help being available for those that need it”, you want facts, details, an action plan.
In the meantime, one thing I can’t stand is any advice from MPs or “experts” on how to save money. I don’t want to be told how to cook or what I should buy for 30p, or ways to keep warm, or the best tricks to save electricity. Why do they think they can be poor better than I can? I’ve done it for a lifetime.
As told to Anna Moore. Siobhan is in her 30s and lives in the Midlands. Names have been changed
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