QI am really struggling with the increased cost of living and can barely make my bill payments each month. Is there anything I can do to cut costs?

A I am sorry to hear you are struggling. Without knowing all of your financial situation I can’t give you specific advice, but it is always a good exercise to review all your finances and bills to see if there are areas to cut costs.

Your biggest monthly payment is likely to be your mortgage or rent. If you rent you could have a word with your landlord to see if they will reduce payments for a period — but remember their costs will also have risen so they may not have the flexibility for this themselves.

Mortgage rates are still high, the best five-year fixes are just under 5 per cent, so repayments on a £150,000 loan will be around £870 a month, but if you are on a variable rate this could be an option.

If you have credit card and other debts then it is worth consolidating them on an interest-free credit card and then aiming to clear the debt in the free period.

Even if you don’t, the debt won’t be increasing with interest each month for a while. The longest interest-free period is 33 months available from NatWest, Ulster Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, but all have a balance transfer fee of 2.9 per cent. The three banks also offer a 22-month interest-free period with no transfer fees if you think you can pay off your debts more quickly.

You can pay off personal loans and other credit or store card debts using this method, but check any redemption charges for paying the debt back quickly. Alternatively, consider using any savings to pay off debts that cost more than the interest you are earning. The top instant-access savings account as we went to press was 2.86 per cent from app-based Zopa.

Next look at your utility bills. Use a comparison site such as moneysupermarket.com or uswitch.com to find out if you can move to a cheaper deal. If this is not possible, which unfortunately is likely to be the case, then talk to your providers before you fall into arrears as they run schemes for people suffering hardship.

In terms of reducing bills, the energysavingstrust.org.uk has a range of useful money-saving tips, such as taking showers of four minutes or less to save £95 a year.

Also look at your phone and entertainment costs.

The cheapest broadband is Vodafone at £17.67 a month according to moneysavingexpert.com with Virgin Media coming in at £18.39 a month. For mobile phones Lebara is offering £1.49 a month for the first six months and £6.90 thereafter for 12GB of data and unlimited texts and calls.

Make sure you are claiming any benefits you are entitled to and whether you are eligible for a council tax discount of between 25-100 per cent. The list is on gov.uk. Good luck.