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Report transcript in: Cost Of Inequality Story 13
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Cost Of Inequality Story 13
Please Report the Errrors?
This is Alicia
Alicia
Community recording.
Um, I'm here to ask Scott what the cost of living means to him
and how it affects him on a daily basis.
My answer would be straight off that they call it cost of living,
but it isn't. It's cost of surviving.
I'm disabled,
um, struggle with most things.
But
as I get into explaining it, hopefully this will shed some light.
Years and years ago, people who were disabled
used to beg in the street,
and they used to put their cap out waiting for people to give them money,
and they would put their hands in the cap and put money in there.
That's why that's why that's why the word handicap
developed because people will put their hand in a cup
and then it becomes handicapped.
I feel like every day
I'm pulling my hat out and I'm begging for money.
I'm trying to work out
the best way to survive.
Do I choose to put more on the electric,
or do I choose to put more on the gas
knowing that we need electric for all the appliances,
but
with the conditions that I have and the pine I mean,
I need the heating up.
So what do you choose?
And how do you balance that up?
I'm a type one diabetic as well.
So
every time I see the doctor, their advice is
you need to eat this. You should have this healthy food.
You should get this.
But if you look at this food
and what I would need,
the pricing is ridiculous.
So then I have to make a choice.
Do I have this food which is apparently meant to make me feel better?
Or
do I let the rest of the family have hardly any food?
Because I'm having to.
So I make the choice
to sacrifice my health.
I would rather that the house I live in everybody's fed,
so I won't entertain
me. Eating the correct food
and depriving other family members of their food.
And these and all choices that you make
are on a daily basis.
You check your wallet in the morning to see how much money you've got.
Can I afford to do that? Can I get there?
People don't realise
that
with this cost of living
Sorry. Cost of surviving.
We're not doing anything.
We are just surviving
we don't go out.
We don't do
cinemas or
P stuff that people take for granted
because you have to make a choice.
You have to choose
whether you wanna wait
or do you wanna go out?
Do you want your lights on?
Would you wanna go out?
So every time
people say,
Oh, they've got this much money coming Oh, they've got this to cover it.
They don't realise the outgoings
and they don't realise the stuff that we have to go through on a daily basis
just to survive.
Oh, look,
everything I work out
and I spend
an awful lot of time
balancing money up,
and it is like
robbing Peter to pay Paul.
I will make a decision. I will pay one bill knowing that I can't pay the other bill.
But then I will hold on until the letter comes through
on that bill
and then pay that one and leave the other one.
And this is how
most families are coping
with numerous choices every day
about how do they live? How do they want? So
we don't have a choice in how we want to live.
We have a constraint
that controls us. and controls everything we do.
So when people talk about the cost of living,
they don't realise that your supermarket shop has probably gone up 2030 quid
that your gas bill and electric
They put on these major like tariffs and they
turn around and say This is the stop import
But they don't realise that families haven't got that much money to pay
at their point.
So
if you are working class
all hour,
you are at the bottom of the food chain.
And bit by bit,
this cost of living
is wearing People Day.
And this
I believe my own opinion
is the way
that governments control people.
They control people by demoralising them
by making them feel
that they're begging
that they are
unworthy of any help
because the weaker we get,
the less people speak up.
So while
they sit there
in parliament with their free dinners,
having everything paid for them
while representing us cos we vote the be
but they're not looking after us.
Everything goes up
and we are the ones
who will always suffer.
So when people ask me about the cost of living,
I will emphasise again. It is not a cost of living.
It is a cost of surviving.
And eventually
people will realise
that we aren't people who beg.
We are people who just want to have some kind of life.
We just want to have some kind of enjoyment.
And the cost of living has took that out of
Mag
and I have more family
because anything we do
is a magistrate.
So
all I can say on that is
as a dad
and a husband,
I will always put myself second
two,
whatever's needed.
And is that doing my health any good?
Probably not.
But you put me in this position,
uh, where I have to make a choice
and it becomes detrimental to me.
So
I will end it by saying,
Unless people start speaking up,
start taking it seriously, start helping the people who can't do the stuff.
The people who are disabled like myself.
I'm not
second class.
I'm not any worse than the people out there.
So why should I be treated like that?
Why should I be
forced down
to a point where
having something
is a miracle is an absolute joy?
So that is my answer
to the cost of living and and how it affects our family.
Thank you.
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