It's just after lunch and Joanne is talking about her nine-year-old son's dismay at her decision to stop buying his favourite cherry bakewells.
"The ones we usually have from Asda are like 95p - we went in this week and they were £1.90 for the same box," she said from her doorstep in Newport where, laptop in hand, she is taking a short break from her job, working from home. "We've had to stop buying them now - it's just too much money!"
It's intended as a joke, but for a single mum like Joanne, who works full time, it's a symptom of the serious worry that's facing millions of households up and down the UK amid ballooning cost-of-living increases.
Recent months have seen rising costs including National Insurance, council tax, fuel prices and supermarket baskets. Gas and electricity bills are set to increase by a whopping £693 - around 54 per cent - in April, with further increases possible in October.
On Wednesday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a raft of measures including a cut to fuel prices, changes to National Insurance thresholds and a promise on income tax. While some have cautiously welcomed them, others have said most people will still pay higher taxes and that the poorest will see little benefit. Benefit rates are due to rise by around 3 per cent from April, but with some experts warning that inflation could hit 8 per cent this spring, many are facing a real-terms loss in income and a growing financial burden.
Read more: What Rishi Sunak's Spring Statement means if you live in Wales
Speaking this week to residents in a part of Newport where residents previously said they would have to borrow money just to afford their heating bills, it's clear the cost-of-living crisis is impacting more than just those on lower incomes.
Single mum Joanne, 38, is one of many with a university degree, a reasonably well paid job and her own home who are nevertheless worried about creeping costs.
"I own my home but they own the heating, so I can't flex to a different provider," she explained. "We're on a fixed rate, we can't move to a better rate. I think in today's climate there probably isn't a better one anyway.
"My electric has gone up probably about £40 a month, incrementally. I've noticed every couple of months I get a new letter saying my direct debit has increased. Food costs as well - my average food has gone from about £70 a week to about £120, and there's only three of us in the house.
"Because I'm a single parent that works, I'm over the threshold for any help so I've still got to pay for my children's school meals and things like that. But obviously I'm still on one wage and I've got to pay my mortgage and everything. I feel I'm in a bit of a bad place with that.
"I think I'm kind of in the worst position. Sometimes I think I'd probably be better off not working at all, because I'd probably get help. It's difficult."
Joanne said she is just about affording her bills at the moment but has little leftover cash for unforeseen events.
"Somebody smashed into my car a couple of weeks ago and drove off," she said, pointing across the driveway to her badly damaged bumper. "That's something I'm going to have to fork out for now. There's just no leftover money every month to pay for the unexpected. That's something I used to have.
"My tumble dryer broke this week, I'm not buying one so I'm going on YouTube to find out how to fix it. My children do after-school activities - dancing, athletics - which are quite expensive, so I'm starting to think I'll have to start cutting out those, which is a shame. They don't have much else to do, [and] I don't want them hanging around the streets."
In September 2021, the average UK energy bill was £95 per month, or £1,138 a year. Now, experts are warning that this could hit £3,000 or £4,000 in October. Joanne said she fears how she will cope with any further cost increases.
"I am worried about it. I've got nobody else to rely on for income - it's literally all on me. It makes me extra stressed in work, because if anything happens to my job, there's no backup.
"I have a good job, work full time, I went to university and got a masters. But it feels like it's still not enough. If I'm on a fair wage, over £30-40,000 a year, and I'm struggling to look after two children, I dread to think how people with a lower income can do that.
"I'm not sure what can be done. Some sort of cap, maybe. It feels like it's spiralling out of control, everything. How supermarkets can get away with increasing everything so significantly, is unbelievable really."
'It's going to be atrocious for people'
62-year-old Keith Bennett lives in Sandpiper Way in Duffryn with his partner. He said his costs have spiralled in recent months and are set to go up even more in April.
"I was paying £17 a week for electric - that's gone up to £27," he said. "It was £940 a year and they've estimated it will be £1,358 in April. My gas has gone up from £152 to £201. Then you've water on top of that.
"My benefits won't cover it. I've just got to try and work it out. My houses aren't warm anyway, they lose the heat very quickly. They were built in 1978. My thermometer is about 13 degrees in the winter - it's like a freeze box.
"There's the council tax rebate but you've got to go online and fill in [answer] questions. One of my friends stated he was on one benefit, and he couldn't get it."
Keith said he's had to drastically cut his spending in recent months and has to get help from his son and daughter at times when he's really stuck.
"It's frightening - I can't afford to eat sometimes. My children put £20 onto my heating and say 'there you go, have a bit more heat'. Or they'll come around and cook me dinner and say things like 'we'll get the meat dad, you just get the vegetables'. That's what it's like.
"My family helps me a lot. My daughter is a nurse and she's struggling. Her husband is too, and they've got their own house and do as much overtime as they can."
"If you sit down with a box of chocolates or a packet of crisps, it's a luxury in a way. You just can't do it now. If it goes up in October, you're talking about millions in poverty. Where's it going to end? What are people going to do - heat their homes? Or starve?
"Crime is going to go up. It's going to be atrocious for people. It's people with young children. It's going to be nice and warm in the summer, but in winter when you've got kids and you can't put the heating on... My son is afraid to put the heating on, and he's working hard."
Keith said this week's announcement by the chancellor would make little difference to older people and those struggling with their energy bills.
"It's not going to make no difference for the pensioners. Sure you can put the threshold up, but the income tax changes aren't until 2024. It might help the richer but on the lower end of the scale it won't help."
He added that figures revealed in January this year that MPs billed the taxpayer almost £30,000 for energy bills for their second homes in the first five months of last year alone were "astonishing."
73-year-old ex-railway worker Dave Clark is enjoying a cuppa in his front garden when he tells us how worried he is about the increases.
"I've just paid £290 for three months' electric, for the same amount that cost me £230 before," he said. "They're saying it's going up again in a week's time to about £400 a year.
"Does it worry me? It does and it doesn't - if you haven't got it you can't pay them. When you get older, it's not nice to go into the debt. They could help with the VAT or something, I think.
"I'm on my own and I've noticed costs going up, and that's not by a penny or two like it always does. A packet of frozen chips is going up by 30 or 40p. It's terrible."
Dave said he "lives day-to-day" and that although he has a "couple of grand in the bank" he recently had to dip into his savings to repair his bathroom. He is worried about having to do so again if his costs keep going up.
"There's no point in having money in the bank if you can't have a shower," he said. "As you get older, you learn to start again. I shouldn't have to be worrying about that. If I should pass away tomorrow, it's the poor old kids stuck with the bills.
"I'm better off than a lot of people. I've got my pension, it's not as if I've got to get up and [work] nine to five. It must be terrible if you can't buy the kids a packet of sweets.
"I don't know what the government can do. They're bailing people out left, right and centre. I don't know what to tell you. I'd be prime minister if I knew that. They should knock a bit of VAT off.
"Something's got to give somewhere. There's going to be crime everywhere. I think when petrol goes up, everything goes up. It's the lorries bringing the food in, the buses, the taxis. They can't run into loss.
"I gave my car away, I don't drive no more. But I think the fuel has a lot to do with it. It's hard for these companies to let go of the profit they're making. I can sit in my dressing gown, go to bed early. We shouldn't have to go back to the Middle Ages."
Another resident who didn't want to be named said her electricity bills skyrocketed after her energy company went bust.
"My electric is £110 now and it was previously £68. That's already ridiculous," she said. "And that's before April. I don't know what it's going to do then.
"Fuel has gone through the sky. My husband and I are on fixed pensions which are only going up around 2%. The rent is going up 2.4% which is not unreasonable, but the shopping has been ridiculous for the last three or four months. Ever since Brexit shopping has gone to hell in a handcart.
"You've got to cut lots and lots of things out. I've got a neighbour on a pre-payment meter for electricity and what used to last her a week is now running out in two days. She's just not coping. [The increases] are not something you can absorb out of a pension."
But she said he has no choice but to use electricity anyway as her husband is recovering from major surgery at home.
"I'm not looking forward to April when everything else goes up. I've warned everybody to take pictures of their meter on March 31 to prove what it was then, so they don't get caught with anything extra. It's not good."
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