Disabled woman stunned after Glasgow Times reader pays off entire debt

Stunned Kyra Edwards, from Hamilton, was gifted £5098.46 to wipe all her arrears and ‘get a take away’ by a kind stranger who wanted to help her flee poverty.

It comes after the 28-year-old, who suffers from severe OCD, anxiety, and depression, opened up about her financial struggles in The Glasgow Times Beat the Squeeze campaign.

Kyra revealed how she was facing the choice between eating and heating as she battled to pay off her debt from a previous relationship and trying to keep up with bills.

Kyra opened up about her experience with poverty

She had ‘nothing left to cut back on’ as she shared her experience to highlight the pressing issues affecting people's living standards.

But Kyra had no idea one generous reader would take direct action by sending her ‘life changing’ cash to ‘allow her to breathe a wee bit’.

Now she plans to pay off her full debt by the end of the month and can’t wait to not feel ‘trapped’ anymore.

Kyra said: “I had a notification with a new balance and just lay down, I forgot how to breathe.

“I was just in extreme shock.

“I have been paying off my debt for years so to know I don't have this hanging over my head anymore has made me speechless.

“Having debt changes how you view everything. It has caused me so much anxiety, grief and poverty, I felt so trapped.

“I don't think any words will truly express how humbled and grateful I feel at their generosity.

“I never expected anything to come from sharing my own experience, other than hope that it would put a light on a crisis that so many people deal with every day.

“When Kirsty from The Glasgow Times messaged me to say someone had reached out to her about making a donation towards my debt I was surprised.

“I didn't think anything would come of it. I gave her permission to query and sent over details and asked her to please thank them for me. I had no idea my life was about to change.”

The anonymous reader said to Kyra: “It's now your money, but I do hope you will use it to pay off your debt, with maybe enough left for a good curry, or nice meal to treat yourself!

“I read your difficult story by Kirsty Feerick in the Glasgow Times and it seemed to me that if you could pay off your loan amount, it would at least allow you to breathe a wee bit, to then continue with your efforts to move on, at least without that burden, and with an improved credit score.

“Please consider this a one off, anonymous donation. No strings attached.”

Kyra said her life has changed

Kyra, who has strandled the poverty line since childhood, is one of many people facing the one of the worst economic crisis since the 1970s.

Despite spending ten years in education and securing a BA Honours degree in journalism she has struggled to escape mounting financial pressures.

She is now expecting her household bills to skyrocket after a UK Government decision to increase the energy fuel cap by a whopping 54%.

The move has millions of people anxious about how they will support themselves and scrambling to find hundreds of pounds extra a month just to keep afloat.

Out Beat the Squeeze campaign is focusing on real people affected by the crisis, how to save cash, and challenging political leaders as the cost of living soars.

Kyra previously told us: “I was already skipping meals before they cut the universal credit uplift last year, now I barely eat.

“As of April all of my bills will be going up, I can't afford that. There's nothing left to cut back on “The cost of living is currently unbearable.

“I've always been under or on the poverty line despite spending a decade in education, getting a degree and working two jobs to alleviate this. This turned out to be at the cost of my mental health.

“For now I can't even focus on getting better because the things I need to survive that should be available are slowly being taken away from me.

“This is constant - how are we supposed to deal with price hikes when we are already at a disadvantage.”