A Tyneside mother on turning her life around, strict budgeting – and not having enough food for her children’s friends
Photograph: Dan Dennison/Save the Children UK.Photograph: Dan Dennison/Save the Children UK.Sophia*, 28, from Wallsend, North Tyneside, is a mother of two childrenher and her children.
You have to borrow your first six weeks of universal credit, otherwise you get nothing. So they put me on a six-week loan – putting me in debt for my own benefit by about £1,000, which they make me pay back at £40 a month.I got paid! Which is terrifying but a relief. First I get out my bank card, rent account, paper and pen on this special day. I take off the rent, then I divide it by four and that reveals the amount we live on per week.
I’ve signed up to the Bread and Butter Thing, which is a community food organisation. We usually get accepted about once every two weeks as it’s oversubscribed. It’s the first one who texts back who gets a place.When I was a teenager I was sofa-surfing with men who I thought were my role models. It took years of professional help that meant I finally improved myself. I quit drugs and alcohol. Back then, embarrassingly, I was using my body for free or for substances, which I thought was normal.
At the school they are giving out uniforms for free by hanging them up, which is amazing. The rest of the uniform I get from clothing schemes, Poundland and Asda.Today I’m feeling so overwhelmed. My friend came round from the school pickup with her kids, and I wasn’t expecting it.
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