Ruth
01 Sep 2011
Ruth
I’m on a single income wage with three boys. I’ve got two teenage boys and a seven year old and it’s really hard to make ends meet on that wage. By the time you pay your rent, groceries and bills, if you can pay them, there’s hardly anything left.
If my kids want shoes or to go to the pictures or even a new outfit, I have to tell them no a lot of the time and you can see the really disheartened looks on their faces. With Christmas around the corner that will be a struggle as well. They won’t get much, maybe one gift each, if that. My son gets one shift a week at his part-time job and sometimes, I have to borrow that money, just for school lunches. I pay him back when I do get paid and sometimes that’s a struggle. Just trying to have enough money for food and essentials plus keeping up with the rent on $16 an hour is pretty hard.
It’s depressing – you get really down and upset. You feel like there’s no way out of the cycle. You don’t know if the future is going to be better. The extra $5 an hour would make a huge difference. Hopefully we’d be able to survive on that.
Ruth, New South Wales shopping centre cleaner
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