Myself and my partner have been impacted financially throughout this whole pandemic. More so, my partner but the knock-on effect cannot be understated.

My partner works for an agency. Work slowed down quickly and for 6 weeks she had no income at all. We both assumed that meant she could get furloughed. However, because the agency was still open, she was refused.

We’re going to be playing catch up with the bills for the foreseeable future. Not much fun, just another life change to deal with. This year is a complete write-off, but, like everyone else, we have to get on with it!

Mainly it has affected our ability to pay the bills – social events were a bit of a no-go anyway – but just knowing we couldn’t afford to even go for a drive got us both down.

Luckily work didn’t change for me but I’m only part time. We could eat at least.

My partner doesn’t cope very well if things change and she has been extremely depressed knowing that certain bills were piling up. Not to mention having to stay in all the time. The atmosphere has been terrible.

I took it upon myself to contact everywhere. I managed to get most of my accounts out on hold. However, most places have had a skeleton staff and getting through has taken hours of my time.

We have mostly coped by by binge watching box-sets to keep busy. We have also made sure to check in with each other everyday. To take the time to talk to one another and get anything we are struggling out in the open.