I actually feel better since walking into 2025 with everything it's still going to be a little hard till April when our wages goes up by pennies.

As the year has started, heart is racing wondering what will be. Hopefully for the best even in the vacuum.

It is a very cold day today. You're just in indoors watching some movies.

Well the dreaded Christmas has crept up on us! It seems to come faster each year. I’m having the daily fight with myself about what the kids will be able to tell their friends after the holiday because if I prioritise gifts we won’t be able to eat so while all their friends are chatting about

ALL the amazing top of the line electronics/clothes/games and outings they have had over the Christmas Holidays I wonder what my kids think and feel and it breaks me. NOBODY CHOOSES TO LIVE IN POVERTY!

As Christmas fast approaches, all I want is for my kids to have a lovely Christmas and be happy. My youngest was excited as he went on a school trip to the panto. This is something I couldn’t afford on my income, so I’m grateful he got to go. Our tree will go up next week. But for now I’m budgeting every penny and allocating money for certain things. I have just got my youngest his advent calendar which was reduced slightly…. I couldn’t afford it before the 1st however he gets to eat 5 chocolates today from it to catch up.

It’s sad as he comes home telling me his friends have choc advents and their trees up and they’re elf on the shelf have done this and that. He is so patient.

My friend and I have all agreed that money is tight so we won’t be buying each other presents. We will instead look around our house see if there’s something we no longer use and pass it on. For me some books I have read that I bought in charity shops. Friend with kids we will catch up over the school holidays and go to parks for play dates.

I recently got some vouchers from Tesco as I have been saving my points all year. This will come in handy for Christmas foods for the children and myself.

Gift wise for my children. My 9 year old has asked for a few things so I’ll need to wait until my universal credits come through to see what I can afford. My older child has asked for money to go shopping for clothes in the new year. I hope I can manage. I’m also sitting on a huge electricity bill that’s still to be paid along with childcare cost etc

still attending my local food banks and try and freeze as much as possible. Food banks and olio app have hugely helped me.

It won’t be a lavish Xmas by any stretch but as long as I’m with my boys I’ll be happy.

Somehow I’ll make it work ! But just now I’m not feeling very festive.

Things a bit difficult at the moment. I'm a full time unpaid carer who receives Carers Allowance but recently gone back to work for a couple of days and finding it hard juggling everything

Well I'm fed up doing big food shop monthly and every week it's costing way too much on top that pay taxis to school and my son struggles toileting and he's 10 and goes through pants and pull ups like no tomoz x

The most important thing at this moment is the heating as the weather is so cold and you can't keep it on for too long. Nappies and food are way too expensive so we are trying to cut and only get what is most important for myself and my son

I feel a lot like I've just stepped off a precipice and into a place I have no idea how to navigate.

I am managing so much in terms of voluntary and some paid work, and what it means is very soon I will have to become self employed. I feel a lot like this situation is so wrenching because I want to have a better life but the tax office want me to declare after just £1000 earnings, which will take months to reach at my current rate of earning. If I say to the DWP I am self employed, I start the rapid countdown to removal of support and to decision making around my income, which isn't realistic.

I feel so much like I can't keep living the way I am but the door to success is so firmly closed by these rules that are so precarious and difficult to understand. I feel trapped.

The temperature hear has dropped considerably now, But still I am unable to afford the cost of heating my home in order to keep myself and my daughter warm. When is this new government going to admit that something like the cost of heating is essential, giving families a fair amount in order to cover to cost's during the winter months. This is seriously affecting peoples health and puts a lot more pressure on the NHS with admissions that could be avoided.

With Christmas coming, I've been doing my Xmas shopping for my 5 year old daughter all on the cheap. I've got brilliant bargains from temu with their 'cashback' offers which has meant that she will get a full sack of presents. But it's making me think about ethically about the carbon footprint I'm leaving by having all of these super cheap deliveries and why these items are so cheap. Being on a low income is forcing some of us to make purchases that we probably shouldn't be making...

So many people have no safety net.

I’ve always worked before, had savings, been smart about paying off debt – then when my daughter was 9 months old I got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I went back to work when she was 1, but it became a spiral of events – my employers wouldn’t put in any adjustments, they just fired me. I wasn’t strong enough then to understand that was against the law.

Surviving on one salary, the mortgage takes up so much of our income. I had an emergency credit card for rainy days which for years I never had to use – now it’s maxed out, just from keeping us afloat over those years. They’ve been really understanding, frozen the debt and the interest, I’m paying it off each month, which will take me 10 years. I am ruthless with my budget but it just isn't enough and it's wearing me down.

So when our heating stopped working – and it turned out all the pipes were rotten under the floorboards – it was going to be between 4 and 5 thousand. We just didn’t have it.

My husband has diabetes and I’ve got arthritis – but we just couldn’t put the heating on. For a whole year. I was wearing my husband’s coat in the house, and going outside to warm up, walking round the block knowing that moving would warm me up, escaping the four walls and the reality of it.

We had one little electric heater that we’d put on for a few hours when my daughter came home from school. She’s just a kid, she should be able to be warm when she’s playing. It was so inefficient it cost more than heating the whole house on gas, so having no heating didn’t even save us money. Our clothes took 4 days to dry and they dried hard and smelling of damp

We stopped inviting people round – we loved having people round. My little girl was saying Mum can I invite my friends round – It’s hard to say ‘no darling – your dad’s ashamed he can’t keep his child warm’. She used to bring friends home from school and we could feed four or five kids beans on toast for less than £3. Now the cost of everything has doubled or tripled.

My mum helped us in the end. My sister found out, it was her who said to my mum – “she’s got so much blooming pride she’s sitting with no heating on” – I cried when my mum offered to help us out – I didn’t want to ask – we’ve all been raised penny pinching, knowing if we want something we have to work for it and get it ourselves. So I didn’t want to ask – but I’m so glad she did. Every time I have a nice hot shower I think thank God, many blessing on my mother’s hands, because she facilitated that.

Life shouldn’t have to be a battle. The silent dignity of mums who just get on with it, when you’ve got £4 in your purse til next Wednesday. Kids shouldn’t have to think my life is smaller or my chances are smaller, their ambition or curiosity is constrained - their childhood constrained by worries about surviving. I actually can't believe I managed to put up with no heating for a year, but then again shame, stigma, resignation are powerful things,