I got a £350 cost of living payment. What happens after that? It’s hardly going to get me through the winter | Liz

Sunak and Truss make any number of promises about what they’ll do as PM – but they will do nothing, like the rest of them

• This article is part of the heat or eat diaries: a series from the frontline of Britain’s cost of living emergency

At the weekend, I went to the seaside with my two kids. It was a spur of the moment thing. I’ve been working a few extra hours and I thought well, let’s splash out! Literally. We took advantage of the heatwave and sunbathed and all paddled in the sea together. My budget wouldn’t stretch beyond one night at a hotel, but we had a lovely time. That’s probably us done in terms of holidays, to be honest. If I can do some extra hours over the rest of the summer and put away a bit of money, hopefully we’ll be able to go away again for another day in October.

I took the kids to a Brewers Fayre for breakfast. We don’t eat out a lot – not surprising really, as a single mum of two kids who works part-time and gets no financial support from either of their dads. I’m all for dads wanting an equal say in the parenting of their kids when they’ve split up from the mums. But that’s got to mean digging into their pockets and paying to bring them up, too. Fat chance of my kids’ dads doing that.

As told to Simon Hattenstone. Liz is in her 40s and lives in the south-west of England. Her name has been changed

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