Lucy Devine
A mum has revealed how her 11-year-old daughter has been helping pay for bills with her pocket money.
Victoria, 34, from Bath, is a single mum and has been struggling to make ends meet as the bills rise amid the cost of living crisis.
Not only is she surviving on her four children's leftovers, but her eldest has also been providing pocket money to help cover bills.
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Victoria receives around £300 a week in benefits and explains she goes hungry and fills herself up with cups of tea instead of food.
“I go hungry because I can’t afford to eat. I fill myself up on cups of tea,” she told The Mirror.
“When the children come home I make sure they have a meal and I take anything they have left on their plates.”
Each week, Victoria's daughter Keira donates her pocket money so they can buy bread and milk.
“It’s heartbreaking. Keira saw me smashing into the tin money chest last week and said to me: ‘It’s okay mummy, you can have my money’," she added.
“It made me feel awful and ashamed. I gave her a big hug. I couldn’t even afford the local food bank £5 fee."
Little Keira even donated the money she received on her birthday last month from her nan, and has told her mum she'll give up any Christmas money, too.
Victoria started struggling financially a few years ago when the relationship with her ex partner started to break down.
The mum cannot work because she is a carer to her five-year-old who has severe health conditions.
“I’ve got really bad anxiety, I’m not sleeping with all the money worries keeping me awake at night," she said.
“I had to find money for one of my daughter’s school trips and I had to ask my mum for the money as I just couldn’t afford it."
With the cost of living having a devastating effect on people up and down the country, we told you how one mum has been hospitalised from starvation after reducing her intake to one meal a day.
Kelly Thomson, 43, an unemployed mum-of-two with long Covid, had cut her food intake so that her kids could eat.
The mum, from Slough, said: "I would wake up every morning and think 'oh my God, not again'."
You can read more about Kelly's story here.