I was diagnosed with cancer but it was bills that kept me awake at night – I ended up £5k in debt until I found help

MONEY worries are heaping extra stress on the 375,000 people who are told they have cancer each year in the UK.

Living with the disease can cost families an extra £691 a month or £8,292 annually, according to figures from the charity Young Lives vs Cancer.

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And over 70 per cent of households see income drop by thousands of pounds as many have to cut their hours or quit work when they or a loved one gets sick.

Our analysis suggests the illness could leave families up to £12,500 a year worse off.

Soaring prices are driving record numbers to seek help from Macmillan Cancer Support.

The charity says its financial guidance team has been “inundated” with calls, which were up by 25 per cent in the first half of this year compared to last.

Mel Hunter speaks to people affected by the nightmare triple whammy – diagnosis, soaring costs and shrinking income – and explains how to get help . . . 

‘Had more sleepless nights over money than cancer’

WHEN Joanna Shaw was diagnosed with breast cancer following a routine mammogram in January 2022, the struggle to make ends meet soon began to overtake her health fears.

The 51-year-old sales manager from Dundee says: “I’ve had far more sleepless nights about money than I have about cancer.

“With every pound I spent, I worried how I’d get through the month.”

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Joanna, a single mum to Conor, 21, and Abby, 19, took sick leave from her job when she had a mastectomy a month after her diagnosis.

After 13 weeks on her full salary of £27,000, this dropped to 80 per cent for the remainder of the seven months that she was off work.

While her employer’s scheme was far more generous than the Government’s statutory sick pay of £109.40 a week for up to 28 weeks, it was still a huge drop.

“I was just about getting by on my salary before I got cancer, so when it dropped and my costs rose, I wasn’t able to pay all my bills,” she says.

Like many cancer patients, Joanna used more energy as she needed to run fans constantly during last year’s summer heatwave when she was feeling at her worst — just as gas and electricity prices were soaring.

Her bills more than doubled, from £130 to £280 a month.

Buying meals on the go between appointments, or having to buy specialist foods can add up to £144 a month, according to the latest research by Young Lives vs Cancer.

Joanna, whose children have left home, had to rely on ready meals and take-aways when she was too ill to shop or cook and when she had to stay in Glasgow for outpatient radiotherapy.

She ended up £1,000 overdrawn and borrowed a further £4,000 on credit cards to get by.

She kept up her mortgage payments, but missed some for car finance, causing her credit score to plummet.

Joanna says: “I was so worried, I went back to work part-time when I was still having radiotherapy in October last year and in January I went full-time.”

Until Joanna got help via charity Maggie’s, she felt very alone with her money worries and too ill to find out about support.

Last August one of its benefits advisers helped her to secure a £350 grant from Macmillan Cancer Support, as well as apply for Adult Disability Payments, the equivalent in Scotland of Personal Independence Payments, because of her ongoing health issues.

‘Travel to hospital for Hugo’s care cost us £500 a month’

TRAVEL is costly for many cancer sufferers, who drive many miles to specialist treatment centres.

The extra costs add up to around £250 a month, according to Young Lives vs Cancer.

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Jasmin Sarll, 29, from Chelmsford in Essex, had to drive to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London after youngest son Hugo, three, was diagnosed with liver cancer in October 2022

Now in remission, he went through months of treatment and the family was paying up to £500 a month, just in extra travel costs.

Mum of three Jasmin said: “We couldn’t risk getting the train because of the risk of infection, but until we managed to get a blue badge, we had to pay the London congestion charge as well as for parking.

“Central London parking is so expensive. The cheapest we could find close to the hospital was £1 an hour.

“Often we had to stay a few days, so we’d be paying more than £50 just on parking.

“Fuel was costing us £350 a month and we had to sell our big car to get a smaller one that was cheaper to run.

“My partner Michael, a mechanic, had to take six months off work with stress.

“That means the £2,500 he earned each month fell to less than £450 a month Statutory Sick Pay.

“We had to borrow from friends and family and even started a GoFundMe page to help with living costs.

“Looking back, I don’t know how we coped. You just go into survival mode.”

How you can get benefits and grants

IN the first half of this year, Macmillan gave out 26,000 grants to cancer patients – 16 per cent more than a year earlier.

The charity offers one-off handouts to help with costs, but from Monday these will drop from £350 to £300, because it wants to be able to help more people.

It has set aside £20million for grants this year – up £8million compared with four years ago.

William Morrison, one of Macmillan’s welfare advisers, says: “There’s no one knocking on your door telling you what benefits you are entitled to, so we guide you through that maze.”

The main benefits for those of working age are Universal Credit, council tax reductions, Employment and Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payments.

For a single person aged over 25, UC is around £369 per week, or more if you have kids.

ESA pays up to £129.50 a week for those who cannot work due to illness or disability.

Personal Independence Payments are worth up to £172.75 a week for those who struggle with everyday tasks or moving around.

For older people who are single and on low incomes, Pension Credit tops-up weekly income to £201.05 and they might also qualify for Attendance Allowance of up to £101.75 per week to help pay for personal care.

If you earn less than £139 a week and spend at least 35 hours looking after someone, Carer’s Allowance pays £76.75 a week. It’s worth checking even if you don’t think you qualify.

Call Macmillan on 0808 808 00 00 or you can find a Maggie’s centre at maggies.org, or you can visit younglivesvscancer.org.uk for help.

This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk