"I try not to put my heating on much, but my windows have draughts coming through, so without the heating it's really cold."
Sophia's story is one that is becoming all too common in Liverpool.
A mum of three kids under 16, she works as a door to door charity fundraiser.
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When the country went into lockdown, her income immediately stopped as she only got paid when signing someone up and was not entitled to furlough payments.
It meant all she and her three children had to survive on was her child tax credit payments. She has barely kept their heads above water.
With restrictions now easing, Sophia is able to work again, but her situation remains unstable and intermittent and she is now facing other challenges in terms of a crushing cost of living crisis.
Sophia said: "My income really varies now as I only get paid if I sign up a customer. Due to covid restrictions, sometimes I can go out to fundraise and other times I cannot.
"Also with everything how it is, people don't always want to open the door to speak with you."
She has been living pretty much solely on the £170 per week she receives from child tax credits.
She said: "From this I have to buy food, pay all my bills and the shortfall in my rent. Once I pay everything I have nothing left.
"I am struggling even more now as my energy bill has gone up from £70 per month to over £200.
"How am I supposed to afford to pay that? I try not to use a lot of heating but my home has draughts coming through the windows, so without the heating on, it's really cold.
"Food has also gone up so much too. You pay more for food and you actually are getting less. Over Christmas, I received help from my children's school, so I was able to buy food supplies to get us through the holidays.
"I am really worried as things will continue to go up and my income is the same. I am not sure how I will cope if my energy bill goes up anymore as I have nothing that I can cut back on”.
For people like Sophia, the brutal cost of living crisis is well underway - and unfortunately things are set to get much worse for many people in this city.
In April, a cap on domestic energy costs in the UK is expected to rise by 50% at the same time as the government implements a major National Insurance tax hike at a time when inflation is also forecast to hit a 30-year high.
The Resolution Foundation think tank is predicting a 'living standards catastrophe', in which the poorest third of households will be spending at least 10 per cent of family budgets on energy bills alone.
In Liverpool, this catastrophe will be arriving after a decade of brutal austerity, which has seen huge cuts to services and safety nets that were previously able to step in and support struggling families.
Next month, the city's council will search to find a further £34 million of budget cuts, which come after a relentless decade which has seen £465m wiped away from its ability to provide services and support for people in the city.
The pandemic has of course compounded the situation for many in Liverpool.
From 2020 to 2021, Liverpool Citizens Advice (LCA) saw a 42% increase in queries for foodbank vouchers, with a total of 1442 voucher requests across 2021 in total.
LCA solved nearly 1700 problems relating to fuel debt and energy bills in 2021.
The organisation says what is being experienced now is likely to be the 'tip of the iceberg' as the lowest income families are set to be squeezed from all sides by high inflation, low benefit levels and soaring energy bills.
Mick Blakely is the Service Delivery Manager for Liverpool Citizens Advice.
He said: "We have been helping a lot of people who suffered employment issues during the pandemic.
"This got worse when the £20 Universal Credit uplift was removed and with the energy crisis we know it will get worse still."
"The energy crisis will affect people on pre-payment metres straight away and we are already seeing people having to choose between eating and heating.
"When you add record inflation and food prices to that, you can see why so many people are in real trouble - it is a perfect storm.
"This is causing people more mental stress and we are seeing people who are more distressed than ever, people are desperate."
Mick said when he first started working with Citizens Advice 20 years ago, food banks didn't exist, adding: "Now we always have to refer people to foodbanks on a daily basis, because so much of that support is gone."
Dan Carden is the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton, ranked as the number one most deprived Parliamentary constituency in the whole country.
He said his constituency case work is up fourfold on previous years as people battle to survive amid competing crises.
He said: "There is a significant rise in the number of people needing help because they cannot afford basic costs of living.
"Every day of the week we get requests for foodbank vouchers.
"There’s more people who can’t pay for electric and gas, and most rely on pay as you go.
"Those in the most desperate need depend on emergency support and discretionary payments from Liverpool’s City Council’s Citizens Support Scheme to survive, because our national social security system is so broken."
He added: "Household debts are piling up. Some people are falling into the hands of loan sharks. With the end of the evictions ban, people in rent debt are threatened with homelessness.
"This perfect storm of economic pressures is fuelling a mental health crisis. More people are talking about suicide.
"We urgently need to transform our social security system to give people real security, but at every turn we are confronted with a culture of denial in Government about the levels of destitution in communities like mine."
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