Pensioner eats one meal a day to save money amid soaring energy price rises

Yvonne Bailey, who lives in Witney, receives £1,000 per month from her state pension and pension credit.

Around £200 a month goes on electricity and between £350 to £400 for gas.

Her average monthly shop comes to £300 to £400, leaving her with so little cash she can no longer afford to go out and have a coffee with friends.

Miss Bailey said: “It’s been going for quite some time. I’ve lost nearly two stone now in three months. Just having one hot meal a day and a snack like a piece of fruit. I can’t keep on losing this weight. I don’t want to end up skeletal."

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But she added: "I have to think all the time about how I’m going to pay for fuel. It costs twice as much as it used to. At the moment I’ve got no heating on and it’s not the time of year for that any more.

"It’s still costing me more than it cost for both the gas and electric before."

Miss Bailey, who suffers from painful and debilitating fibromyalgia said: “If I get too cold everything just seizes up.”

The retired receptionist has been making cutbacks such as switching all appliances off at the wall, using a multicooker instead of the oven and sitting under one lamp to cut down costs.

She said: “I don’t know what more I can do. I can't magic money out of the air. I can’t see any way of saving more electricity. Maybe I will only put the heating on for half an hour per day to take the chill off the room. After that it’s going to be blankets and things.”

She added: “I have wonderful friends and they say, come on, we’ll buy you a coffee. But I don’t want to keep doing that, I don’t like it. I haven’t actually seen anyone for two weeks now.”

And Miss Bailey, who volunteers for older persons’ charity Independent Age, says she is dreading winter and worrying about it makes her “feel physically sick”.

She thinks this winter could be as bad as when she grew up in a house without central heating.

“I was born in 1945 and grew up in a two-up two-down with four kids and all we had was a tiny coal fire," she said.

"In the morning in winter we had to scrape ice off the inside of the windows. We had one hot water bottle between us and it really feels like I’ve gone back in time, it’s a nightmare."

The soaring cost of living is forcing many pensioners to cut back on food and heating bills to make ends meet, said Independent Age.

Prime minister Liz Truss has announced the energy price freeze will be set at £2,500 for a typical household from 1 October for two years, a saving of £1,000 from Ofgem’s previously announced price cap of £3,549.

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This is still an increase of around 27 per cent from the current price cap of £1,971.

Morgan Vine, Head of Policy and Influencing at the charity, said: “It will provide some much-needed breathing space, but more needs to be done to support older people during this crisis and beyond.

"The Government needs to drastically improve Pension Credit uptake and commit to maintaining the triple lock. It’s also essential for older people in, and at risk of, poverty that the triple lock and Pension Credit are uprated in line with inflation.” 

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