“The money is running out faster, but the bills are still piling up. Every time I go to the store, the prices are higher.”
It’s a struggle that many people in the country are familiar with. And while winters bring higher energy bills, summers are tough too.
With the kids home for the holidays, it costs more to feed the family. For Ruth, this means no more money for ‘nice things’.
The 44-year-old from Wythenshawe struggles to make ends meet all year round. But the summer holidays will see her family’s finances plummet by £60 a week, as her two teenage children living at home are unable to claim the lunchtime grants they receive while at university.
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The former kitchen helper, who cares for her wheelchair-bound husband, was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia – a chronic condition that can leave her terrified on a ‘bad day’. Despite this, she spends hours wandering the shops looking for bargains.
“We have to go to 10 different stores to find the best bargains to make your money work,” she explains. “With our mobility, it’s hard. My husband has an electric wheelchair, but we don’t have a car, so it’s hard when you’re having a bad day.
“Money goes down if you only go to one store. I try to spread the money. I’ve had to put things back at the cash register many times.”
The mother of three looks for bulk buys and discounted items at supermarkets, while occasionally using food banks. When her Universal Credit comes in, she tries to put as much food in the freezer as possible and stock the cupboards for the rest of the month.
Ruth also receives a carer’s allowance, having given up her job to care for her husband, a former cleaner who suffered spinal injuries after a fall at work about 10 years ago. At first, the family was able to get by and could save enough to go away for a few days.
But since the cost of living crisis hit a few years ago, it has become harder to put food on the table, especially during school holidays.
“Most of the time we knew we would have food in by the end of the week,” Ruth says. “But that’s no longer a guarantee.”
Thanks to debt relief charity Christians Against Poverty (CAP), Ruth now receives Personal Independence Payment (PIP) – a disability benefit she didn’t know she was entitled to until she used the charity’s free benefits calculator, which helps people work out whether they’re claiming all they can. It means she no longer has to turn off the heating when she’s cold in winter, she says.
But the extra money isn’t enough, so Ruth and her husband still sometimes skip meals to save money — even though he has to take his medication with food. “It makes me really tired and sluggish, but I keep going, maybe I’ve gotten used to it,” Ruth explains.
“There are no fun things to do,” she says of the summer vacation. “Sometimes the food isn’t even enough. It just makes life very isolated and limited. I don’t go out, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink.
“I don’t know how long I can keep this up. It’s not good for your mental health. You get tired of saying no to everything. You just get stuck in a rut.”
Ruth knows she is not alone. She has been volunteering at her local food bank and recently helped organise a ‘Big Feed’ event in the area, providing free lunches and dinners to those in need, with her family also able to partake of the food provided.
“It’s been going on for a long time and it’s affecting a lot of people,” she says. “It’s all around us.”
According to CAP, the financial pressures of trying to survive on chronically low incomes are causing some people to consider suicide. The charity’s frontline teams report that more clients than ever are struggling with long-term illness, poor mental health and living in unsuitable or unsafe homes, with 59 per cent now reporting mental health problems, up from 43 per cent in 2021.
This is stretching CAP’s frontline teams to the limit, the charity says, as more clients urgently need more support. To address this, CAP is launching an emergency fundraising campaign so they can expand their services and help more people escape poverty.
CEO Stewart McCulloch said: “Poverty is at critical levels and it is devastating to see how many people are in desperate need of help. Our incredible frontline teams are doing everything they can, but they are being pushed to the limit.
“More clients than ever have complex needs, with almost half saying they had considered suicide or even tried to get out of debt before coming to CAP. Addressing these complex needs takes more time and support, so it breaks my heart that we were unable to help over 4,000 people last year due to a lack of resources or simply because we didn’t have a debt support centre nearby.
“We did everything we could, last year we provided help and support to over 8,300 people and their families. Despite the economic challenges that limited our resources, we still managed to help 18 percent more people become debt-free than in 2022.
“I know poverty can seem endless, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Everyone in this country should be able to live a full life, not just get by.
“Getting the right help and support is the first step that has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of people, enabling them to thrive, not just survive. Our emergency appeal will help us double the number of appointments for people who need help and dramatically increase the number of local church partners we work with, ensuring that every part of the UK is within reach of a church delivering our debt advice services.”
If you would like to support CAP’s appeal, you can do so online at capuk.org/urgent.