Hi Uisce, thank you for your question.

My answer is, the cost of living crisis is very far from over. I was at the supermarket a few days ago, my food trolley came to £124.00. Before Covid this would have cost me less than £80.00.

I was shocked at the cost of my shopping which had only gone up in price for the same items, I wasn't even getting more in quantity. Very depressing situation for many people. Especially difficult for families with young children.

Nothing reassures me that this situation is over and there's certainly no evidence of the cost of living crisis being over and behind us. It's very much right in front of me on a daily basis .

I feel this is going to carry on for a long while and that's not a nice feeling at all.

Thank you.

Definitely not!

Food cost has always been a main issue for my family. It is still going up!

There is nothing that is falling much or quick enough. I don’t think this is something that will be over any time soon.

At least another few years and for me personally I don’t think the covid pandemic is fully to blame. I think more than half of it is because of Brexit. Then to be honest greed from big companies, this shows when they give out their reports and show how much profit they earned and would have still earned a profit without upping prices.

Question for MP's

Why were businesses receiving grants of up to £2000 in lockdowns whilst children in single parent families whose ( mostly fathers) are business owners, received nothing?

The DWP workers were taken off caseloads of the Child Maintenance Service to trace non payers of Maintenance, to process Universal Credit.

My ex husband already had savings and investments, lives in a luxury house, top of range car etc... boasted he received 3 payments of £2000 in lockdowns.

The Child Maintenance Service informed me these grants were not to be used in calculating his income in lockdowns.

My daughter had no financial support throughout lockdowns from her father and I had to use foodbanks. As we became homeless due to private landlord selling up the flat, my ex husband thrived, and still does as he takes advantage of tax and child maintenance loopholes.

Before we were on Universal Credit I always planned to home school our children when they turned five. Even when my husband was made redundant and we started UC, I hoped his business would have grown enough for us to be off UC. However, Covid happened, and my husbands business struggled.

Theres is no room to home-school on universal credit. Both parents have to work or be looking for work once the youngest turns 3. In fact my work coach had me preparing for work and pushed me to send my youngest to nursery when he was just 2 years old.

I would have loved to home school. I’m still sad that we haven’t and we can’t. That parenting choice has been denied for me.

Lots of news filled with the Philip Schofield scandal. Yet so many forgot he is friends with the Tories and the Tories need a distraction in the news from the Covid inquiry.

I faced a massive sudden change in my life, the loss of my job. It was completely unexpected, brought about by pandemic restructuring. The change caused me trauma and left me with mental health illness.

The benefits system, Universal Credit application process, only added more stress to my complex situation/circumstances.

The system lacked empathy, compassion, respect and treated me with very little dignity. I was left me feeling like I was a burden, I had brought about the situation of unemployment.

My work history & tax contributions of 30 + years didn't mean anything. I felt a very deep sense of disloyalty and abandonment at my time of need. On top of losing my job, fighting to stay well I had to cope with having to survive financially by turning to my savings.

I switched just after the pandemic set in. I lost my job and was moved from WTC. The 5 week wait is agonising and extremely difficult to see how anyone can justify this as support for the lowest income households.

I ended up with debts because I couldn't afford to keep up with agreed agreements, I ended up paying additional charges and interest. This all further compounded the stress the switch was having on me. I am only catching up with myself now nearly 3 years later and that is going without a lot of things and working full time!!

I did get some discretionary support throughout the 5 weeks but they only allow for food at a set rate per day, even though they go through you entire finances just to award you a basic non repayment. It certainly wouldn't cover the rising cost of cooking and food now.

It is shameful what this government is doing to people, where has equity and equality gone?

Our council has supported us with food vouchers over the pandemic. This year the council will provide supermarket vouchers to those on a low income, over the school holidays, which will amount to £200.

I’ve always thought it would be beneficial if we could receive money or a grant to cover the costs of school uniform.

School uniform is a huge expense over the summer term.

I've had a particularly tough year with low mood. When I say low, I mean no mood - I feel flat, hollow, empty & apathetic all the time, despite being on the top dose of antidepressants. Any joyful, mindful moments are short lived. When I think about it, I don't think I've felt safe since the pandemic "ended". I use inverted comments because people are still being infected as the world returns to so-called normal. It must have ended because the Covid-19 app that pinged you if you'd been in contact with anyone has been discontinued, so we can uninstall it from our phones, right? The irony being is that even when my son was twice ill with Covid it never pinged - not once. Yet for many other people it pinged incessantly & unnecessarily - a so called "pingdemic". What an absolute waste of money for the nation - money that could have gone towards the most vulnerable to help them weather the storm.

I’m so tired. Since COVID my anxiety has been so high and I can’t seem to get myself to go out and do fun things like I used to which is frustrating. Also I really want to go and work and move to a more suitable location but lack of childcare makes it impossible and no one will look after my 3 kids together either. I’m literally so stuck and drowning.

I’m very lucky that I have been able to save. I worked during lockdown so anything I had, I saved. Lucky that I’m able to heat my home at the moment. I went to count my savings during the week and realised I’ve spent more than half of them. Over £1000. I feel sick about this. Feel like I can’t wait until Christmas is over to start trying to save again. Heartbroken that the only time in my life where if my washing machine broke I could buy a new one and I’ve spent it. Not even the thoughts of seeing the joy on the kids faces is taking it away. We still haven’t had our payment in Northern Ireland for the electric and it’s not going to happen until January now, something I had been relying on. BUT I know I’m lucky and there is people out there far worse off than me.

My 2 youngest children were exposed to COVID, at a birthday party 10 days ago. We've been testing the whole family since. As of yesterday, my other half and son, have shown up positive. In addition to the costs of illness, and isolating, we're now nearly out of the old free test kits. No way can we afford to buy more, not for our size of family. Too expensive, to keep ourselves, and others, safe? It shouldn't be like this.