Since her divorce, Louisa Forrest has been raising two children on around $30,000 in government benefits per year.
"You just sort of get on with it, but it's a struggle most of the time. I'll do like a freezer inventory or a pantry inventory every month and then map out the month's meal plan, work out what I got, then go out and but the staples I need to get through a month's worth of meal planning."
Ms Forrest also runs a small business that has only recently started making money.
She says in her situation-- it pays to be positive.
"Can I stretch 20 dollars this week this week to feed the three of us: that to me is a fun sort of challenge, like a game as opposed to crying because we've only got 20 dollars left."
Last month the Senate passed legislation that saw Family Tax Benefit payments frozen for two years, a saving of $1.4 billion dollars.
But that was after several attempts to pass other cuts-- ranging from abolishing end of year family tax supplements, to making the unemployed wait four weeks before receiving the dole.
Over time the cuts have been dubbed "zombie measures" because despite previously failing they keep being reintroduced.
And Cassandra Goldie, the CEO of the Australian Council of Social Service, is worried they may be making another appearance in Tuesday's Budget announcement.
"Will this be an accounting exercise? What I mean is they'll say "well, we've dropped the zombie measures beause the credit rating agencies say you're never gonna get those through", but instead they get replaced with different kinds of cuts effectively hitting people on lower and modest incomes."
Last month, a study by Australian National University reviewed the total impact of cuts to welfare from 2005 onwards.
Taking the government's so-called 'zombie measures' into account-- it found a sole parent, with two children, working on the minimum rate for up to 25 hours a week-- would now be more than six thousand dollars worse off compared to 2005.
The report's co-author, Ben Philips, says the current policy isn't much better.
"When we look at the current policy, so not taking into account the omnibus savings, these families are usually worse off by about 4 to 5 thousand dollars per year, and that's independent of whether they're working or not. So if they're receiving welfare payments they'd be worse off by fairly significant amounts of money."
Single mother Louisa Forrest says while her family has been hit hard by recent Budget announcements-- she remains hopeful she won't have to rely on Centrelink payments much longer.
"Overall I think there's probably gonna be continued decisions in future Budgets that will effect us, but at the end of the day we just have to roll with the punches or figure out a way to earn more income and stand on our own two feet, which is the plan."
