I charge my phone at my child’s playgroup because I can’t afford energy bills – I have £20 a week to feed my kids
A MUM has revealed that she has to charge her phone at her kid's playgroup and skip meals so they can eat amid the cost of living crisis.
Ayesha, a single mum of three from West London, says she has to live off £20-30 per week as inflation soars, forcing her to rely on food banks.
Despite running her own cleaning business, she struggles to make ends meet and is losing clients as they also tighten their belts due to .
Even with the support from her local foodbank, she says she still has to regularly skip meals so her young children can eat.
She told : "Everything is more expensive, especially in terms of buying food, nappies, baby milk, that’s quite expensive.
"I often don’t eat, I had no breakfast this morning. I probably won’t eat until this evening. My kids, I’ll make sure they have they’ve eaten, that’s the most important thing."
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She described North Kensington Community Kitchen as a "lifesaver".
She said: "I had to stop working when I was pregnant and had no money coming in, they [the food bank] delivered food to me, it was incredible.
Ayesha said she's worried about the coming winter months and that she's taking drastic measures to cut costs.
She added: "I use the oven a lot less, on Sunday I’ll cook enough to move food for the Monday and so on, lots of batch cooking and then turning that into purees for my sons.
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"I’m actually trying to stay out of the house and go other places to use their electricity, I go to lots of playgroups as much as I can to get out the house. There I can use their facilities to charge my phone, charge my battery packs, things like that.
"I generally try to stay out of the house. That’s how I save."
A study by the Felix Project charity found that one in 10 low income Londoners had less than three pounds to spend on food per day.
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Felix Project CEO Charlotte Hill said: "We are being told people are donating much less, so the organisations we help are asking us for goods like pasta, rice, tinned food and cereal, to make up the ever-growing shortfall.
"We know there is a problem, you only have to look at the fact The Trussell Trust have launched a campaign because for the first time food banks are giving out more food than is being donated."
