Berenice Vaucher, who lives in Lees, has been working seven-days-a-week to help pay for her mortgage, after her five-year fixed interest rate of 2.25 perc ent went up to 4.3 per cent last year.
To help pay for her end of terrace home, the 35-year-old has had to take up online French tutoring in the evenings after her shifts as a pharmacist, and at the weekends too.
Berenice, originally from New Caledonia – a French territory in the South Pacific near Australia – lives in the two-bed home with her partner.
“I work after work all the time, so we don’t spend much money anyway because I don’t go out much,” she said.
“We were prepared for a change because we’ve seen what has happened off the back of Covid and everything, the interest rate at the bank was higher – so we were expecting that after five years the fixed rate would increase, we anticipated the situation.
“It’s not like we were spending a lot anyway, it’s not much of a sacrifice because we are very careful with money.”
After studying to become a pharmacist in Montpellier, in the south of France, she moved to Richmond, North Yorkshire, in 2015.
Despite being a registered pharmacist in Europe, her diploma was not recognised in this country until last month.
While her mortgage has gone up just £60 a month, with prices having dramatically risen across the board, including the cost of gas, electric and food, it was enough of a strain to force a change.
She said: “I never thought I would be in this situation because pharmacists get paid quite well so I didn’t think that I would have to take up another job.
“But I did, so I created my own business because obviously I can speak French, so teaching people how to learn French would be an additional income.
“I work all weekend and I even work on my YouTube channel, and I also do private tutoring all day – and when I’m not doing that, I work on my blog.”
Berenice and her partner bought their house on Greenacres Road in 2018, and despite it sitting in council tax band A, they fork out £155 a month towards local government.
“It’s difficult to say how it can be fixed because the problem is everything, but increasing the council tax has not really helped,” she added.
