‘It’s 100% unfair that healthy food is so much more expensive than unhealthy food. I desperately don’t want to buy the processed stuff for my family, and I shop around from Lidl to Asda and Morrisons for essentials, but when it’s a choice between going hungry and buying something cheap but unhealthy, then I have to feed my family stuff I know is bad for them. That hurts.
…
‘A few years ago, Tony worked all day on the building site then all night in a warehouse to keep us afloat, but the work just isn’t there any more. It’s not just the lack of work: it’s terrifying how fast the cost of living is going up. I haven’t done a weekly shop for five months because even though I know that shopping ‘as and when’ is more expensive, the idea of handing over £100 in one go is just too terrifying for me.
…
‘It shouldn’t be like this: we have both always worked and I feel really strongly that work should be rewarded. I don’t want to rely on the state. I’d like nothing better than to do a nursing degree. Tony wants to do a plumbing course. But we’re blocked from bettering ourselves because we’re working, so would have to pay for the tuition fees ourselves, which of course we can’t do. If we gave up our jobs, we’d get the courses for free but we want to work.’