When her 16-year-old daughter called "petrified" that bailiffs in full body armour were banging on the door, Julie Andrews realised she needed help.

The carer was £28,000 in debt for not paying gas, electric and council tax bills and had payday loans so she could buy her three children school uniform.

"There were times I thought I wasn't going to manage and there were times I tried to take my life," said Julie, 57.

Julie wants to warn of high interest loans amid the cost of living crisis.

Experts estimate that one in seven people in the UK - more than seven million people - are financially excluded.

This is is where people's credit profiles are so poor that things like loans or mobile phone contracts, for example, have higher interest rates and are more expensive.

Wales has highest proportion of financial exclusion in Great Britain, including Julie, who was so "ashamed" she was one of those in financial difficulty she didn't tell anyone - even her family or closest friends.

"I had to wait for the kids to leave the house before I broke down," said the residential care home worker from south Wales.

'Ashamed'

"It was tough. It's something people don't want to talk about because you're ashamed.

"It was the fear, I brought my children up that you don't answer the door until I'm there - and every time I went out, I was looking over my shoulder to see if anybody was coming up the street, like debt collectors or bailiffs."

Her money troubles began when Julie, who lives in a two-bedroom home in Port Talbot, got divorced and her father, who used to help her, died.

"It's so easy as I carried on being a single mum and started ignoring all of the bills - and before you know it, I was £28,000 in debt," she said.

"The kids went without but had what they had to and I went to foodbanks."

'You've got to get for your children at Christmas'

But Julie said her children "had to have something to open on Christmas Day or their birthdays" and added there was "no other way" than to get a high interest loan.