The soaring price of essentials is piling pressure on disabled households. People on Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance, and Carer's Allowance are being handed £700 savings thanks to a nifty new platform.
A savings platform could help Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits claimants save more than £700 a year. Money-saving platform Purpl is one of the disabled-led companies working to address the financial pressures on disabled people. The platform launched in July 2024 and is the first savings platform for disabled people in the UK. It offers discounts and exclusive savings which help members save hundreds a year.
Disabled benefits from the DWP include PIP, DLA, Carer's Allowance, and Attendance Allowance. Georgina Colman, founder of Purpl, said: “I got my manual wheelchair in 2017, and it was £94. I had to re-order in 2024 as my original broke, and it was £150. It's now £170 for a new one. That’s an 87% increase in nine years. When prices climb faster than benefits or salaries can keep up, disabled people are left to absorb the shortfall themselves.”
She continued: “Disabled people are being hit twice over, by rising living costs that affect everyone and by the surging prices of the specialist products they simply cannot live without. Wheelchairs, mobility scooters, free-from foods, incontinence products, these aren't luxuries; they are essentials. At Purpl, we hope to close that gap wherever we can, giving disabled people access to real savings on the things they actually need. But discounts and offers alone aren't the answer. The conversation about the true cost of disability needs to be much louder.”
Danielle Dyson, 30, from Plymouth, explained that despite working full-time and receiving PIP, after purchasing the essentials to manage her disability, her wallet is stretched thin every month. She said: “There are many items that have gone up in price, from phone and internet bills, incontinence pads, parking permits and disabled bay repainting fees. Life becomes considerably harder with inflation because I have to buy a lot of things daily just to be able to get by. I buy incontinence pads for a family member, and when I first started buying them, you could pay around £6 a couple of years ago, and now they have gone up to £8-£9 a pack.”
She added: “I have used Purpl to reduce the cost of my gym membership, gentle gloves, incontinence pads for a family member, protein powder and much more, saving over £551.27 over the course of a year, according to my Purpl app.”
