This is the Guardian.

Today, how much could cancer cost you financially?

As the Guardian's money and consumer editor,

Hillary Osborne has written expert advice for more than two decades.

Whether it's about managing your household budget,

fighting for consumer rights, or simply helping readers understand

how the economy directly affects their wallet.

It's fair to say, Hillary knows a thing or two about making good financial decisions.

But when she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year,

she thought money would be the last thing on her mind.

You think I'm just going to be sitting at home being ill all the time

and you don't realise that actually even that has got to cost.

Breast cancer is the most common in the UK,

with over 50,000 new cases every year.

And Hillary quickly discovered the illness wasn't just stealing the health of those tens of

thousands of women. It was cruelly robbing them of financial security as well.

My big concern was my income and whether it was going to continue.

There's so many things that you have to buy that you don't realise

when you first get a diagnosis and it does come as a real shock when you realise that

the money's going down every month. So that really did make me panic.

Research from the cancer charity Macmillan shows that four in five people are, on average,

£570 a month worse off as a result of a cancer diagnosis.

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