The registration on her 1995 Toyota Camry has sometimes gone unpaid and she has only allowed herself a one-week holiday in Hobart in two years. Her weekly outing is ten-pin bowling with friends. Her struggle comes as a shock. Despite being employed all her adult life, she now finds herself in the demographic sub-category called ''working poor''. A rapid surge in the cost of utilities, particularly the staples of electricity, water gas and phone, has forced Stacey and increasing numbers of others like her to join welfare recipients and pensioners in seeking help to pay those bills. It is trend identified recently by Victoria's Water and Energy Ombudsman, Fiona McLeod, who noted the number of people having their electricity cut off in the July to December period last year had doubled to 629 compared with the previous year. This, she said, included a rising proportion of people in full-time jobs. Ms McLeod said that costs of utilities, particularly electricity, presented a growing hardship issue nationwide.

Both Queensland and New South Wales raised domestic power prices by 13 per cent from July 1. In the case of NSW, that represents an increase in power charges of up to 42 per cent over three years. Ms McLeod said increasing numbers of people were forced to go to their energy ombudsman for help in sorting out payments. ''Suddenly people who might have been coping are needing welfare agencies and financial counsellors,'' says Ms McLeod. ''In Victoria, electricity disconnections have doubled and gas disconnections have gone up 50 per cent.'' And soon people on lower incomes are likely to need more help than ever to to pay utilities charges.

Sarah Wise, the general manager for policy research at Anglicare Victoria, says that electricity and water bills are likely to rise dramatically over the coming decade. This will result from governments responding to the challenges of drought and climate change. From this month, Victorian water bills are expected to rise by up to 20 per cent a year to pay the costs of infrastructure such as the desalination plant and north-south pipeline. These costs have come as the state government tries to top up water supplies which have fallen due to decreased rainfall and the demands of an increasing population. While the Rudd government was punished in the polls by parts of the electorate for delaying its emissions trading scheme, the delay represents a breather for Stacey and people like her. Nonetheless, the state and federal governments are committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by generating more electricity using gas and wind power. Both of these options point to significantly higher power bills in future because both technologies are more expensive than the greenhouse-intensive brown coal we mainly use now.

Gas is at least one-quarter more expensive and wind up to double the price due to its relatively high capital costs and its comparatively low energy output. Dr Wise says she believes people already experiencing difficulties should not have to bear the weight of these increased costs. ''There are ordinary decent people who are working full time on low incomes who can't make ends meet now. This will push people over the edge,'' she says. The state opposition claims the looming price rises will be exacerbated because government was lax in renewing infrastructure that might have eased the cost of supplying services such as water and electricity. Opposition water supply spokesman Peter Walsh says he believes annual domestic water bills would increase to $1000 in some regions in the coming years. ''Victorians will pay an average of $133 extra a year in their water bills to pay for the Wonthaggi desalination plant and the failed north-south pipeline,'' says Mr Walsh.

''Despite the price increase, there will be no increase in concession rates making families, pensioners and low-income earners particularly vulnerable.'' He says that the government had failed to act in its first seven years in office and then panicked. By the time it got around to building the facilities, it had to pay premium prices for everything. Stacey says she doesn't understand global warming, but she does fear the impact of what might be done to her already overstretched budget. It is not that she is careless or wasteful. She rarely uses much heating or the air-conditioner in summer and has installed energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs. She drinks little alcohol but, by her own admission, one of her biggest failings is that she smokes, a habit that has recently also become more expensive due to the federal government's 25 per cent excise hike in the recent budget.

''I know it is stupid and I know I shouldn't smoke, but the more I am stressed, the more I do,'' says Stacey. She says her problem is that while she can budget for most expenditure, unexpected events like a recent death in the family and the relentless rise of power charges mean she can't meet payments and gets behind. The other big problem is Christmas. Although she has resolved not to celebrate, she says it still sneaks up on her as a financial burden. Her predicament began about 18 years ago with the depression-inspired suicide of her husband who worked as a wood machinist, and she was left with two young children to bring up. It became more difficult when, like most Australians, she pursued the dream of home ownership, buying her current Sunbury three-bedroom brick veneer house on her single income with her two children living at home at the time.

Now her daughter has married and moved out, and her son, who works as a builder, still lives at home and helps with the bills but is saving to move out with his girlfriend. In the past few years, life has become particularly tough. When her son does leave, Stacey imagines she will have to sell the house and resettle in a caravan park. ''It is not so bad, I have a friend doing it. You rent space for one of these relocatable homes. But after all these years' work, I never thought I'd end up in this position.'' She said part of her problem was that a door-to-door salesman talked her into switching from her former energy provider on the promise of cheaper electricity. ''I don't know whether they really are cheaper, but they are certainly less understanding. I seem to always be negotiating. I get back on track and it works for a while,'' says Stacey.

Stacey says she was assisted in her situation by financial counsellors from the Uniting agency and while they had been able to renegotiate better terms for payments, she felt they were only delaying the inevitable. ''I feel like I am drowning, I know I am going to lose my house.'' In Preston, Hasan doesn't own a house but he does have a rental home that he is now finding he can't afford to heat. A Sunni Muslim from Iran, he is 43 and a single father with two children. He was accepted into Australia as a refugee nine years ago, earns $31,000 a year as a labourer in a pasta factory and has lived in Preston for six years. The address is part of his problem because while Hasan is still on a labourer's wage, his suburb is rapidly gentrifying - sending his rent from $240 a week to $370 in the past year.

As well, when the ageing gas wall heater failed a year or so ago, the agents replaced it with a split-system, reverse-cycle air-conditioner, which was cheaper for them but is prohibitively dearer for Hasan to run. It was also placed in the dining room, which means it does not effectively heat the rest of the house. ''Each quarter the electricity bills were $400 and I couldn't pay them. Now I owe $1200,'' he says. Despite his problems, Hasan, who has been receiving financial assistance and counselling from Anglicare, says he does not regret coming to Australia. But in living here he has had to resort to austerity measures that are unimaginable to many families: ''I've just had to tell the kids we can't have heating this winter - they just have to rug up.'' Neither of the aid recipients interviewed for this story wanted their full names used.