Her relationship also broke down, so she is now living alone and struggling to pay all her household bills. This dramatic change in her financial situation meant Jenny had to stop her broadband contract, but access to a phone is vital to stay in touch with her doctor. The coronavirus pandemic meant that Jenny faced an even more difficult time. Being alone during lockdown without access to the internet and a phone was a very lonely time for Jenny. She described to us vividly how not being able to get online was itself costly, both in lost access to the Universal Credit system and the inflated costs of telephone services.

"I had broadband until summer 2019. It was a complete change in circumstances, a complete change in finances....broadband was something that could be eliminated.

I was paying around £29 per month for my contract. It also had a landline phone with landline calls allowed. Now I’m topping up a phone, a lot of my credit goes to calling doctors, ordering prescriptions, phoning to change or confirm appointments.

I learned very quickly that mobile data and PAYG is expensive, it just disappears and then the packages that were affordable on the phone that I've got don’t get you much data, and I had no real concept of how much 500 MBs of data was. It just seemed to go. So I cut down the social, what you could call unnecessary, stuff. I kept data for going online for banking and paying bills - all that data was then gone. The online access was eradicated, which then puts up your expense for the mobile phone side of things, because all these people who you then have to contact on the phone, when you cannot go to them, it then thrusts the mobile phone side of it up through the roof.

You’re on your tod, you cannae go and see anybody and there's no break from it. It seems a bit relentless because of COVID - you could have popped in to somebody and said ‘go and let me use your computer for ten minutes’, but because of COVID that’s not allowed- it was just the combination of everything, it was this perfect storm of terrible…..

You know with the isolation side of it; your support network’s completely gone and if you don’t have access to them in a digital sense, then that’s you- you’re stuck here all day, all night.

Universal Credit is completely online so if I received a text telling me to check my journal as I had a message, I couldn’t do this. This risks sanctions and causes unimaginable stress!

Most places have automated numbers for paying bills, but my smart meter had not been working, the bills were massively inflated and again you can put your meter readings in online -no you cannae, if you cannae get online...so again you need to call, that’s the number which was three pounds something a minute. It's insanity; sometimes you’re on hold for goodness knows how long, it's crippling, it's soul destroying…

I got this wee tablet [through a Connecting Scotland project], it came with a SIM card that gives it mobile data - it’s unlimited. It's been amazing! I think, at first, I was just doing the boring things, then you realise, I can go on YouTube, I can look that up, I can connect with people again. You’re not penny-pinching and worrying about the data allowance running out. In the mental health sense it is so important... you can amputate your own social life in terms of the finances, to favour the stuff you need to do just to make life keep ticking.”