The cost-of-living crisis we rarely talk about and what belief-backed microbusiness support really looks like
by Richard Kirtley, Nov 21st 2025
The other cost-of-living crisis
Across the UK, much of the public conversation about the cost-of-living crisis centres on households turning down the heating or skipping meals. But behind closed doors — behind the shutters of small shops, in workshops, and in rented dance studios — a parallel crisis is quietly unfolding: the cost-of-doing-business crisis.
For microbusinesses and fledgling enterprises, the headwinds are now relentless. A recent survey found that seventy-four per cent of small business owners expect to raise prices in the next twelve months simply to survive. In another report, more than one in five small businesses said they were worried about their survival or expected to make a major pivot just to stay afloat.
These numbers tell only a part of the story as the rest is lived in the margin. A workshop where material costs double before the first sale is made. A dance instructor where the waiting list is shrinking as consumer budgets tighten. A repair business where energy bills and van mileage squeeze the margin so low that long days become routine just to make the year add up.
Working at the sharp edge of exclusion
This is exactly the terrain where Purple Shoots chooses to operate. Our borrowers are rarely the “fast-scaling tech founder” stereotype. They’re often people excluded from conventional finance: carers with an idea, shoe-repairers turned entrepreneurs, single parents with craft skills, ex-offenders rebuilding after life in prison. Their ideas are modest. Their ambitions quietly solid. Their support systems thin.
We offer much more than a loan as alongside finance, we offer belief and practical, patient support. A micro-loan alone doesn’t change the feeling of being written off by mainstream finance. Instead, what changes things is pairing that loan with someone who says “I believe in you”. Then we walk through the cost-pressures, the local demand issues, the energy rises, with them. When margins are thin, resilience doesn’t come from luck but comes from conviction, flexibility, and trusted relationships.
The anatomy of resilience
We see three patterns in the businesses that endure.
First, they are lean. High fixed-cost models struggle; low overheads, adaptability, and community-anchoring help.
Second, they are embedded in place. They trade where they live, serve people they know, and respond to local shifts faster than large firms ever could.
Third, they often operate on more than income. They build pride, change identity, strengthen local ties. This non-financial impact almost always precedes the financial stability.
Non-financial impact is not a soft metric by any stretch of the imagination either. It matters now more than ever because with consumer spending tightening, businesses fail not just because of low sales, but because people stop believing they belong in the economy. Here we see a situation where confidence shrinks, networks falter and opportunity disappears. Our work aims to prop up that missing link by building the belief that you can still belong, you can still trade, you can still contribute.
When the numbers don’t tell the full story
In the winter ahead, the cost-of-living storm will test many small enterprises. But it will test them differently. A business launched without backing, with minimal support, will likely pay the price. One launched with empathy, mentorship, and belief may still wobble, but it has a fighting chance.
Backing microbusiness in this moment isn’t just sentimental, it’s entirely pragmatic. When people rebuild their livelihoods, they rebuild community economies. They become taxpayers instead of dependents. They build identity instead of losing it. That matters for social mobility, for regeneration, for economic justice.
Beyond survival
We are very much aware that this isn’t a feel-good parable of overnight transformation and magic wand-waving. It is a story of quiet grit, incremental progress, and the cumulative effect of belief-backed enterprise.
At Purple Shoots we’ll continue to stand with overlooked people, not because their stories are neat, but because they’re real, and because the UK economy and society are stronger for every one we support.
Belief alone doesn’t fix inflation or lower energy bills, but it does something else. It keeps possibility alive when everything else feels impossible. Sometimes, that is enough to start rebuilding from the ground up.