A Leeds mum-of-three who depends on a Universal Credit top-up every month to support her family has spoken about “stressful” moments when she's found herself down to her "last tenner".
Paris Cambridge, 29, lives in Seacroft with her husband Sam, 30, and their three children, aged, five, eight and 11. Her eldest Mason is autistic and Sam acts as his carer for which he receives a weekly carer’s allowance.
Paris has spoken about how vital the extra approximately £370 Universal Credit top-up is every month as energy, food and medicine prices rise in the cost of living crisis. She’s currently between work, after quitting her care work job a couple of weeks ago and is starting a new one in another few weeks time.
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Paris said: “Sometimes, I turn around to my husband and say ‘What are we going to do?’
“And he’ll say ‘I don’t know, we’ll find something’ or ‘We’ll sort something’.
“This is normally when we’re down to our last tenner and one of the kids is poorly or we need to get to an appointment, or a bill has come which we weren’t expecting. It makes me think ‘What are we going to do?’
“We don’t have a lot of people around us. It’s just me and him. His family have passed away and my family live down south. It gets a little bit difficult.”
Paris says the top-up will go towards supporting her children, first and foremost, and the bills. Paris said: “As much as the kids come first, so does their home, heating and electric.
“It’s been stressful. There will be times when we need something or one of the kids gets hurt and we've got to take them to A&E, or having the medicines we need. It's the case of making sure we have everything in, like calpol and everything - and prices for that are rising too.”
This comes as thousands of people in the UK are feeling the squeeze of the cost of living crisis, pushing desperate families to the brink. Paris says she and Sam have made frugal changes to their lives, cancelling various subscriptions, opting for cheaper phone contracts and reducing the energy they use just to keep their heads above water.
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