A Tipperary woman is carefully restricting her spending and believes the VAT cut won’t do much to alleviate the rise in the cost of living.
VAT on electricity and gas is set to be reduced from 13% down to 9%.
Tipp Today listener Teresa spoke earlier about how she has to strictly budget in order to achieve a basic standard of living.
Teresa is on a CE scheme and is in receipt of a €230 a week social welfare payment.
She spoke on Tipp Today about how limited her spending is.
“It’s called great planning out on a Thursday before you get your shopping, that’s the best way of saying it.
“I’m not buying all the expensive things because I can’t afford it.
“I don’t drink and I don’t smoke, so house and heating and food comes first.
“We’ve been hit in the very basic areas of that with everything they’ve hit us with in the last couple of months.
“They’ve hit the heating, they’ve hit the house, they’ve hit the food.
“They’re blaming Ukraine, they’re blaming everyone, but they won’t stand back and blame themselves as a Government.”
Teresa added that she can manage, as she lives alone and can do without some things.
“I won’t have a radio on here seven hours a day, I won’t have the laptop on seven hours of the day, television will go on at 5.30pm for the news.”
She said that right down to when she puts on the washing machine, everything is carefully calculated because it has to be.
“I have to, if I want to eat and have a house and pay my rent, of course I have to.
“If you want to live on €230 you have to do it, there’s no way of getting out of it.”
Teresa’s text to Tipp FM read as follows; “At the moment Ireland has its own war going on and it’s a human war of trying to live, the government hasn’t seen the bigger picture just give the public something and hopefully as public we keep our mouth shut, we are at breaking point as human beings!”
