I’m not ashamed to admit that it brought a tear to our eyes when our 10-year-old daughter offered to give us her pocket money that she’d carefully saved up to help with the family bills this Christmas.
She’s such a generous child. Of course, we didn’t accept, but it really brought home how much our daily financial struggle is affecting the kids.
The cost-of-living crisis is weighing heavily on everybody’s minds I’m sure, but because of long-term health conditions, my wife and I are unable to work, and every day is a real struggle. With Christmas rapidly approaching things can only get worse.
Both of us had worked all our lives, my wife as an area manager for a coffee company and me at a fast-food restaurant and as the owner of a small local theatre company. But now we are forced to live entirely on benefits.
It’s a real battle to eke out the money over the month, but my wife is great at budgeting, and we just about manage. But for how long can we keep doing this with prices going up and up?
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The food and energy bills seem to be rising on almost a daily basis and that is so frightening for us as we have to budget down to the last penny.
Of course, we have no alternative but to try and deal with it, so it means we are having more jacket potatoes and beans rather than more variety and we manage as long as we can with the heating off, which has not been easy on the last few freezing days down here in the southwest.
We try and limit putting the radiators on to an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening, and most of the time that’s ok. But in this weather, wearing an extra jumper is not quite enough.
When it’s so cold outside, it’s probably about 10 to 14 degrees inside the house without the heating on, so we set the thermostat to 18 degrees maximum to keep it as affordable as we can.
If I am honest, this constant struggle has become normalised. We just make do. We don’t think about things we can’t have and stick to the basics. We have a roof over our heads and the kids are not starving. This is the life we have had for so long that you just stop thinking about an alternative.
My 10-year-old and my youngest (who is five) are both aware that we don’t have the same level of wealth as a lot of their pals, but they are great kids, and they just get on with it, despite not having the life that many of their friends have.
Like most people, we all love Christmas, but the only way we can manage it successfully is by planning from January onwards.
My wife starts looking for presents from New Year – searching for sale items, that kind of thing. So the children tend to get lots of little presents rather than something big, because there is absolutely no way we could afford something like that.
We have a plastic tree which is a little bit threadbare now, but once it’s covered with lights and decorations that doesn’t really matter, it still looks a little bit magical.
My wife and I plan all sorts of games, so the children are kept occupied and curious, which we think is so important for their development.
We’ve told them an elf visits every day during December, and sure enough, each day there is a small note next to a tiny door in the skirting board with messages for the children. He gives them fun things to do each day.
Last year, for example, I read that the International Space Station was passing by that night, so the “elf” reported that Santa would be flying over the house and the children later watched in awe as Father Christmas sped across the sky!
Using their imagination costs nothing. We encourage them to read books too. My 10-year-old loves books already and my five-year-old is just starting to read, so they get great pleasure from the written word.
We are also very fortunate that my wife’s parents live nearby and give us a lot of support, particularly at Christmas. They are an enormous help, and we are so grateful that they are close by. If we are being honest, it would be a real struggle without them.
My wife and I try to be philosophical about our situation. When you are living like us you make do. You can either be stressed and bang your head against the wall, or you get on with it.
The contributor has written this piece to support Action for Children’s Secret Santa charity appeal
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