Article: OUR CREDIT CRUNCH COMMUNE; Feeling the pinch? These three families were -- and found a VERY 21st-century solution.(News)

Byline: by Amanda Riley-Jones

LAST summer, Maria Roberts was living a pretty dreary existence. There she was, single mother to a nine-year-old son, living in a small, two-bedroom house on a Manchester estate, getting by on the money she earned as a writer.

'I felt I was failing,' she says. 'I didn't want my son growing up in a pokey flat in a rundown area.' Fast forward to 2009 and life is very different. Home is a spacious four-bedroom house in a leafy London suburb, with two reception rooms, a state-of-the-art kitchen and an airy dining room with French doors that lead to a 60ft lawned garden.

This is where son Patrick can be found playing ...

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