Toni works three jobs but still sits in the cold and goes hungry

Exclusive: Even though it's cold, Toni Maree tries not to turn the heating on.

It's not that she likes the chill, there's just no room in her stretched monthly budget for growing energy bills.

Instead, to keep warm, she and her partner huddle on the couch under a blanket inside their NSW rental.

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She could stay in bed, taking refuge under the duvet, but Maree is working three jobs, sometimes clocking up 70 hours each week, so there's not a lot of time for lying around.

"It's definitely a luxury to turn on a heater or something," she told 9news.com.au, "but we just simply can't afford it."

Toughing out the freeze isn't the only extraordinary action Maree has begun to adopt as normal to try and make ends meet each month.

Her eating habits are changing.

She's skipping breakfast and sometimes picks up the food a local cafe gives away.

Maree also has celiac disease, a chronic digestive and immune disorder.

She should avoid eating foods containing gluten but that's a line she's now crossing.

"I'm actually starting to re-eat gluten because it's cheaper than eating gluten-free," she said, adding that money is a "constant worry" in her busy life.

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At the end of the week, after working a full-time job at a bottle store, cleaning four nights a week at a factory and a third casual job, Maree is left with $75 after paying all her bills.

The unexpected bills not included in the budget blow a hole in her finances and send her deeper into debt.

"I'm very tired a majority of the time because as soon as I finish one job, I'll go to another," she said.

"It's sort of never-ending."

Maree is far from alone.

Do you have a similar story of financial hardship? Email msaunokonoko@nine.com.au

Across Australia, thousands are struggling to afford rent or keep their families fed and safe.

With the Reserve Bank imposing a string of rate hikes, mortgage repayments have skyrocketed, and the supply of rental stock is so limited that bidding wars are the norm.

The cost of living has risen disproportionately to wage growth, and the economy is facing a possible depression.

If that eventuates, unemployment will rise and ramp up financial stress.

According to the Salvation Army, government and research data shows that around 3.3 million Australians, including 700,000 children, are currently living in poverty.

That data, the national charity said, revealed 40 per cent of renters believe they will struggle to pay rent over the next three months, and over half of Australians think they will find it difficult to pay an essential bill in the next quarter.

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Maree's financial time bomb started ticking during the pandemic.

She lost her job in hospitality, one of the hardest hit sectors during rolling lockdowns, and she has struggled to recover.

Maree had been saving for a house but, out of work, she was forced to dig into it.

"I had a really good lump sum," she said, "and then I had to go through that because we weren't really surviving on (JobSeeker) each week."

When that money ran out, she took out a personal loan "without really looking into it and it went downhill from there" and had "a domino effect".

On top of everything, Maree is studying at Open Universities Australia, hoping to build a new future but she is anxious about the future and how long the pain may last.

"It's gonna be a long haul of a hard time, if I'm honest."

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Her outlook does not appear misplaced.

Stubbornly high inflation continues to elevate staple food bills and many of the country's biggest energy suppliers are bumping up their prices from July 1.

Australia's "misery index" is almost as high as it was during the global financial crisis, due to climbing inflation and interest rates, according to data released earlier this month.

The index has tracked key economic indicators since the 1960s.

Against this backdrop, Maree is frustrated by the government's decision to get rid of the Low and Middle Income Tax Offset, a tax cut sometimes referred to as the "lamington".

The tax offset, a temporary measure introduced in 2018-19 and extended during COVID-19, delivered up to $1500 in rebates per person last year and helped anyone making less than $126,000.

"That's just come at completely the wrong time," she said.

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