I think it’s going to get a lot worse for a lot of people for a long time before it gets any better 🙁
I moved over from benefits to my state pension in June, at the moment I’m almost £400 a month worse off as Pension Credits have a massive backlog. Reading posts on Rightsnet people were already waiting up to 6 months for payments to start and the recent goverment push for more pensioners to make sure they claimed Pension Credit has only added to the backlog.
Like you I now avoid using the car unless I have to, every time I have to go anywhere I’m working out what it will cost me.
Please excuse spelling/typos. Apart from being a clot it turns out I had one on my cerebellum that's now causing various problems!