This is the Guardian.

Today, a crisis in the cost of living is expected to hit households across the UK this year.

What will that look like?

When I first interviewed Amy Jordan, a working mum from Salford in Manchester,

we were nine months and two lockdowns into the pandemic.

She was worried about the impact it was having on her son Jasper,

and how the two of them would manage as her income shrank overnight.

I recently caught up with her and things aren't getting any easier.

I'm looking into the trolley and I'm thinking, well, what food do I have to sacrifice to be able

to buy these toiletries? You know, my son needs his shampoo. I need toiletries.

So let me just put back this multi-parkour crisps, but then that's something missing out of his

padlock for school. And it's really hard decisions to make and you can't turn around to a child and

say, you know, all the prices have risen, so you can't have any crisps for the next month

because they don't understand that.

What started for her and for many others as a struggle to get by during the pandemic

is turning into a catastrophe with little end in sight. And Amy isn't alone.

The cost of living crisis that's going to hit households in the UK this year is really bad.

The Guardians' Hilary Osborne has been reporting on the rising cost of living.

We have got things coming from all angles. We've got rising cost for food,

we've got rising cost for energy. I mean, everything you spend money on is probably going to go

up in crisis here. And at the same time, the amount of money that reaches your bank account every

month is going to go down because national insurance is going up. So it really is, in the time that

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