'How will I feed my daughter?': The sacrifices Britons are making to pay spiralling energy bills
Energy costs will hit some more than others but it's clear the financial pain is already hurting - and the worst is yet to come, Rupert Evelyn reports
As energy prices soar, squeezing living standards yet further, parents and small business owners have told of the sacrifices they're having to make to simply "survive".
Working three jobs, closing a 30-year-old family business and being forced to use dwindling compensation money to feed children are just some of the ways people told ITV News they are desperately trying to keep up with spiralling bills.
The eye-watering energy price cap hike comes at a time when inflation is at its highest since the early 1980s, while Britons' wages are lagging behind as they suffer the biggest pay slump since records began.
The devastating choice between heating and eating is already a reality for many people across the country.
In Bristol, Grant Parfitt, who is reliant on benefits after suffering a brain injury in a car crash, said he doesn't know how he is going to cope.
The father is having to use compensation he received from the life-changing accident to support him and his daughter. That money was supposed to last a lifetime. It now won't.
"I think, how am I going to cope? How am I going to manage?" Mr Parfitt told ITV News.
"How am I going to feed my daughter? How am I going to feed myself? How am I going to clothe my daughter?"
He said he has "no answers" to these worries, adding: "Just makes me very upset - kind of useless."
In another part of the city, Tom Murray has sadly shut his butchers business after three decades.
Electricity costs, he says, were the final straw.
"You can't run a business with no profit," he said. "And it's a high cost on electric - extremely high cost."
The butcher said his electric bills have already soared from between £6,500-£7,000 to £22,000.
"And that's the first jump," he warned.
Another small business owner, Tarek Ahmed, said he is having to work three jobs just to cover his costs.
The shopkeeper believes the government should be doing more to support small business owners like him to keep up with bills.
He said: "I've just today signed a petition for small businesses to have a cap to give us a bit of leeway to reduce our electricity bills so we can survive."
Like many parents, Jade Griffiths doesn't know how she'll make it through the autumn and winter months to cover her and son Logan.
The school worker said: "Electric is normally the priority because if you haven't got electric you can't run a lot.
"Well, you can't run nothing - microwave, cooker, anything in the house really.
"And obviously having a small child as well - you need all that to be able to put a roof over their head, to be able to do anything."
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