With the cost of living rising faster than household incomes, consumers are struggling to make ends meet. According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 1.5 million UK households have food and energy bills greater than their disposable income. No single initiative could solve the cost-of-living crisis as this is largely driven by global economic factors. However, there are ways of reducing negative impact on households. The dual aim of this project is to explore and share personal strategies consumers develop to cope, and develop solutions that business stakeholders can implement to support consumers during the cost-of-living crisis.

Stakeholders will create a catalogue of interventions that serve as emergency-response solutions. Such solutions could include price caps (Asda), discount product ranges (Asda, Boots), staff financial well-being advice (Co-op, Dunelm), rental services (Decathlon), colleague hardship funds (Dunelm), and discounts for vulnerable groups (Iceland). The project will synthesize these scattered solutions into a coherent set of policy recommendations. Consumers will share their lived experience of coping with the cost-of-living crisis through a video casebook optimised for multichannel social media engagement.