More than 70% of people in North Somerset are worse off financially than a year ago, according to a survey by your Times and sister paper, the Weston Mercury.

An online survey run in recent months at northsomersettimes.co.uk and at thewestonmercury.co.uk garnered more than 100 responses - and they make for grim reading.

Here's a breakdown of what our survey found...

Are people worse off - and why?

A total of 70.9% of respondents said they were worse off financially than a year ago.

When we turn to why they feel like this, the respondants' most cited areas where they had seen an increase in costs were; food shopping (94.2%), electric bills (92.2%) and vehicle fuel (90.3%).

On monthly bills, the majority of households in our poll had seen an increase of between £51 and £100 (28.2%), followed by an increase of between £101 and £150 (25.2%) and between £151 and £200 (15.5%).

We asked about gas and electricity bills in particular, after the cap on price rises rose by 54% in April.

On gas, 30.1% of respondents said their bill had risen by between £25 and £50. For electricity, 26.2% said theirs had risen by the same amount.

Are these people just in debt already?

We asked people how much debt they currently had and the most cmmon answer was none (40.6%), followed by debt levels of between £1,000 and £5,000 (27.1%).

What steps are people taking to deal with the increasing cost of living?

Our survey asked people what, if anything, they would cut down on in a bid to cut costs.

The most popular step people were taking was to decrease the amount they were switching the heating on (69.9%), followed by better managing their food shopping (58.3%) and going out less (54.4%), which will not be good news to the services industry in North Somerset.

We asked what the cost of living crisis had prompted people to do, and 57.3% said it had forced them to limit 'micro treats', such as a takeaway coffee, while 54.4% said they had switched to shopping at budget supermarkets, and 45.6% said they were not taking a holiday this year.

You can still take our survey HERE (https://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/energy-bills-cost-of-living-survey-8797678)

Are you struggling with the rising cost of living? Do you want to tell us about it? Email us at newsdesk@westonmercury.co.uk