In Carla Hazlett’s home in Bootle, curtains have been hung above the doors to try and keep in as much heat in as possible - with heating only able to be used for as little as an hour a day.
The 47 year old lives in what she describes as an “old build” with her eight children, three of which she says are disabled. “This is the most challenging period there's ever been,” she tells the ECHO, “you have to freeze to feed your kids.”
Carla is one of around 90 members who are doing a weekly shop at the Indy Pantry on Balliol Road, Bootle. There, people can sign up to the scheme and pay between £3.50 and £5 for a collection of items totalling roughly over £20.
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Laura Harlock, pantry lead at the Independence Initiative, which runs the food programme, says around 40 people a week were using the service over the summer. Now she says these numbers have climbed to 90 a week over the course of the last month.
A wide range of people have braved the below freezing temperatures to pick up essentials for a fraction of the price in supermarkets. Laura believes that over 100 people will start using the service from January onwards, with “more and more new members” joining each week.
For Carla and her family, the pantry provides some breathing room at a time when nearly all expenditure has been cut back in her life. When asked about the number of sacrifices that have so far been made she said: "It's pretty damn hard."
She added: “[The cost of living] has had a great impact on the kids. The kids have seen a difference, [but] I'm trying to keep it so they don't see a difference. I have to shield that away from them.
Like many others across the region, Carla is having to work twice as hard with money that now goes half as far as the result of rampant inflation and soaring energy bills. Tricks like hanging curtains by the door is just one way households like Carla’s are trying to retain heat as the country goes through a bitter freeze.
Asked if there are any areas where she can look to cut costs further, with energy bills predicted to rise again next spring, she said: “There’s nowhere left to cut. It's hacking away at everything. It's not just an individual thing. It's everything. It hacks the whole part of living.
“You have to freeze to feed your kids. All your kids then get sick. The house is hard to maintain and to keep warm."
For fellow pantry member, Lisa Robinson, 49, the situation is slightly different, but she fears what’s still to come if the cost of living worsens. “Everything is skyrocketing", she tells the ECHO, but has so far not seen the worst of the energy price hikes.
Lisa is currently on a fixed rate, but is bracing for when the new rates kick in next year. In full time work as a support worker, with her husband also in work, she says she still relies on the help the pantry offers.
But come next year, she says it’s likely she’ll have to pick up more hours despite already working a full week. Lisa said: “I’ll have to do more on days off, at the moment it's a case of managing. Once the new prices kick in, it will be survival.
“I just don't know what's going to happen.”
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