Marcela was a college lecturer on a salary of £32K, but was made redundant two years ago. She says, “For months I couldn’t even get a job cleaning.” She has used £2K of her redundancy money to retrain as a fitness instructor and set up her own business. She now earns around £9K, although this is unpredictable, and she has no access to holiday or sick pay or state benefits. Her partner earns £7.50 per hour and Marcela has remortgaged the house. She says, “I work 12-hour days and still money is a constant worry. Our boiler broke last year so we had no heating all winter. I don’t know where to go from here. Would we like a family? God, yes. But we can’t afford to support ourselves at the moment, let alone a child.”