A Slice of Bread and Butter
The voice of The Bread and Butter Thing - with stories from the frontline of the cost of living crisis from one of the UK's leading food charities.
A Slice of Bread and Butter
Holly's story of resilience, food and family
It's a full house for this week's podcast as we have Vic, Mark, Alex and new Trustee Simone from Diageo for the occasion. Join us as we meet Holly, an inspiring mother of four who volunteers at her local hub every Friday, while managing her household on a tight budget. From bulk buying to finding the best deals, Holly is a whizz at keeping her family well-fed on very little. You may want to take notes!
Welcome back to a slice of bread and butter. With Alex, Vic and Mark, you get three of us today all from the bread and butter thing.
Speaker 2:Well, actually it's four, isn't it today? Four's, the magic number Four's the magic number because we've also got Simone, who's one of our brilliant new trustees. Simone, where are you from? What do you do?
Speaker 3:Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Simone. I'm actually from Birmingham, but I think you're referring to my role. My role is we won't hold it against. You Love it Representing the North today. Let's not get into the debate about Birmingham and the North. I am at Diageo, I run the commercial team and I've just joined as a trustee to the bread and butter thing. I'm super excited, uncontrollable excitement to join, really, really happy to be here and slightly nervous about the podcast and slightly nervous about the podcast.
Speaker 2:But that's four of us, I'm not listening to this part so just in case you didn't know, here's a little reminder.
Speaker 4:we're a charity that delivers affordable food to the heart of struggling neighbourhoods to help nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change we provide access to nutritious, affordable range of food, which means that our members can save money on their shopping, feed their families healthily, as well as access other support too, right in the heart of their community.
Speaker 2:And this is where we share a slice of life of somebody involved in Bread and Butter and hear about how they connect with us. This time we're talking about Holly. I went to see Holly in Stoke at home with her pesky little five-month-old kitten.
Speaker 4:Called Ralph that licked your head.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Wow.
Speaker 2:I've never been licked in the face by a kitten before but let's have a listen.
Speaker 5:I'm holly. I am a mother of four children. I volunteer at Bread and Butter because it helps me maintain my mental health and I enjoy helping other people. I enjoy seeing and making people happy and greeting them.
Speaker 2:It's that going out meeting people, helping people, supporting people.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 2:Ralph's now stroking my head, which is weird. Go on, get right up, do it there. This is a five-month-old kitten who is trouble, okay, so what day do you normally volunteer? Friday what does a day in Holly's life look like?
Speaker 5:a day in my life is get up, deal with the the children, prep them for the day, and then, if it's a Friday, it's a case of drop kids off at school, go up to the bread and butter, wait for the van to arrive, and then my usual job is preparing and bagging the chiller van ready to hand out.
Speaker 2:Am I right in thinking it's like full-time mum? Yes, do you get universal credit? Family allowance, that sort of thing? Universal credit, yes, universal credit, does it stretch far enough?
Speaker 5:It does yes.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 5:It does. Brilliant, you clearly are somebody that knows how to budget, then I make it stretch because my children aren't fussy eaters, so I don't have to get named brand shopping. My children look after their shoes, their clothes, their coats and going into a shop they don't ask for nothing. So I don't have to deal with the mum I want, mum I want, and then have to spend money on things that aren't necessities. They will get a treat every week, Every Friday they will get a treat, but they don't want nor demand for anything.
Speaker 2:Do you manage to cook, then yes. Rather than buy ready meals and all the rest of it.
Speaker 5:Yes, I cook curry from fresh. I cook minted shredded pork and I do do that with pasta or I'll do that as part of a sunday dinner oh wow, we'll have homemade chips and pizza.
Speaker 5:We'll have tuna mayo, petty ponds, which are little baguettes for the children that they can just pick up and eat. They quite enjoy chicken wraps. They quite enjoy making their own pizza wraps, where we'll make pizza with tortilla wraps instead of a pizza base and then, once it's cooked and it's nice and cheesy, they'll roll it up so the cheese sticks to each other. It's just quick, simple, easy.
Speaker 2:Have you had any training?
Speaker 5:I did a hospitality course in school and then from then my nan was a cook. My mum cooks from scratch. So I just pick up what they do or I'll find recipes online or recipes on Facebook or TikTok, show it to the kids and say, do you want to try this? And they'll say, yeah, we'll try it. If they don't, then I'll try it anyway. A to try this. And if they say, yeah, we'll try it, if they don't, then I'll try it anyway. A lot of people say that people have lost that skill of cooking, and yet you obviously haven't. I'm not technology orientated. I don't own the air fryer and I don't go and buy the ready-made chips or anything like that. I stand there and I will peel my potatoes and cook my potatoes for my chips.
Speaker 2:What's the most fun thing that you've made from a bread and butter bag?
Speaker 5:The most fun thing I made was actually trying the corned beef for the first time in a curry for the kids, because they thought it was little chocolate pieces. When I showed them the bag and I was like, it's not chocolate, it's meat, mummy, what are we going to do with that? I was like it's not chocolate, it's meat, mummy, what are we going to do with that? I was like, do you want curry? So we made curry with it, with the peppers and the onions and the mushrooms, because my kids love all of their veg.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 5:I'm going to say I was very apprehensive, because I'm not a Veggie. No, I quite like my meat. I learnt that when I was a child. I went vegetarian for about a week and then I was sat down having a meal and my mum and that lot were all eating a steak and I'm looking at them and I'm feeling very jealous. I haven't been vegetarian since.
Speaker 2:I've been a veggie for about 35 years now.
Speaker 5:I can't do it. I quite like my steak, but I can't have my steak. Well done.
Speaker 2:Tell me about your budgeting, then again. You're clearly making it stretch. So is this private rented council, council rented? So social landlord, are you on normal meters?
Speaker 5:energy meters pay as you go I'm on pay as you go smart meters.
Speaker 5:But when I get paid I make sure that my bills come out all on the same day. So as soon as as I get paid, my bills come out my council tax, my water, my phone bill, the internet bill because of the kids and the TV and that lot. I then make sure that I've got gas, I've got electric. I'll then go and do my shopping. I'll make sure that I've got all of the essentials and I need the toilet roll, the washing up liquid, the soap powder, the laundry detergent, everything else after that is just money that the kids can play with. If they turn around and say, mummy, can I have, then I'm going to give, because they don't ask for anything very often. But I always make sure I put spare money up in case we've gone through shopping quicker than what we expected to. But because I buy fresh stuff I can freeze it and because I buy the large family packs, I actually am able to halve it and there'll still be enough for everybody else for us to have two meals out of one lot of food.
Speaker 2:So how much do you think you spend on a monthly basis on food?
Speaker 5:In a good month I can spend about £150. In a bad month I'll go to about £200, £250.
Speaker 2:What makes the difference?
Speaker 5:Depending on where I can get the relevant stuff from, because there's places where I'll go for certain things because it's cheaper, and then if they don't have it, then I'll have to go to somewhere else or buy something a little bit more expensive than what I was actually hoping to spend. So I'll have to go vice versa. My pasta bag I get a three kilogram pasta bag for £4.50. But if that bag's not in, I'm having to spend then 50 pence per bag of pasta.
Speaker 2:So you know where to shop right. Yes, 50 pence per bag of pasta. So you know where to shop, right? Yes, so what you're doing is going.
Speaker 5:Okay, lined all my bills up for when my universal credit comes in yes and then I line up all my essentials for the month, like toilet roll and washing powder and all the rest of it, and then I know where I need to go to buy my bulk stuff for food yes, that's pretty savvy most of my stuff, like my big bags of pasta, my big bags of rice and then my tin stuff I usually get from asda my petty ponds that I get for my children, my other baguettes that I get for my children and my wraps I will get from lidl, because you're paying 69p for eight mini wraps. That's two per child and it's less than 70p. It goes a long way, especially when tins of beans you could pick them up for 17p.
Speaker 2:How have you managed to get to this? Is this something your parents did, or school taught you, or you've just learnt?
Speaker 5:I learnt I moved out of home when I was 16.
Speaker 2:Do you mind me asking why?
Speaker 5:I was just too independent for my own good, I know my mum's personality clashed too much, so at 16 I moved out. I was living in the YMCA. Now. They'd cook the meals for you, granted, but growing up in a household where you could cook your own food, I preferred to cook my own food, but paying rent and then also paying to have meals cooked for you because it was included within the rent. Then making sure I had my bathroom stuff and my toiletries and my clothes there I needed and transport to where I needed to get to, and then shopping. It just wasn't adding up. It was costing too much. So I learnt to budget shop and found the best places to get the best stuff from.
Speaker 2:Respect. I really like that. What do you think you would say nowadays, for you is a luxury that other people would see as just an everyday thing.
Speaker 5:A luxury for me Probably be a box of chocolates to myself.
Speaker 2:And the space to eat them on your own. Yeah, nice, when was the last time you had a holiday? 13 years ago 13 years ago, last time you had a holiday. Where did you go?
Speaker 5:My mum took us abroad to Mallorca. I was 12, going on 13.
Speaker 2:So you've never had a holiday or been on a holiday ever since you left your parents.
Speaker 5:No.
Speaker 2:Where would you go?
Speaker 5:It'd just be something simple, like going to Cornwall for the kids just to take them to the seaside by the beach. It's small, it's simple, it's peaceful and to them it's going to be something massive.
Speaker 2:So your kids have never had a holiday no and how old are they now? My oldest is six have they been to the coast?
Speaker 1:no, as a fellow Stokey, hearing Holly's Stokey tones made me feel at one and made me miss my motherland it's funny because when Vic listened back as well, he said who is Holly from Stoke?
Speaker 2:So I didn't think there was a Stoke accent.
Speaker 4:But there is, oh huge, it's the kook and the luke and the booke Exactly exactly.
Speaker 1:And the eat as well. Like stop eat. We really emphasise the vowels in Stoke.
Speaker 4:You need to say cook. How do you say cook Alex Cook, Just like Holly.
Speaker 1:School. It's a double syllable, oh yeah, school, school. Okay, but yeah, it was lovely listening to Holly and she's kind of put me to shame. She is wily. I love how savvy her spending habits are Impressively organised, and I want some tips from her, to be honest.
Speaker 2:I think how regimented she was and she was saying she knew exactly where she would get the right thing for the right price. She gets universal credit and then goes in and goes Bosh, I know exactly what I'm doing. Bang, bang, bang. And if they haven't got it there, they've got it there. And if they haven't got it there, they've got it there, wow it there.
Speaker 4:And they haven't got it there. They got it there, wow. But how many shops? Yeah, how long is that shopping taking? And the thing that got me was the beginning of the month is like right, I've got paid, I'm carving all my money up and I'm super organized, but it's really at the front of her mind all the time, isn't it? Where do I get this from? How do I do it?
Speaker 2:and credit to her because sounds like she's doing an amazing job credit to her, but isn't this exactly what we talk about all the time food insecurity, right. So she has got it to that degree where she's planned the holy hell out of it all the time, because she cannot stop thinking about where's the next meal coming from she's living and breathing, it isn't she?
Speaker 2:and that is what food insecurity does to you, because if you don't have enough and it doesn't stretch, you can't stop thinking about it and you can't stop planning it. And Holly's really done that on steroids sort of thing.
Speaker 4:Well, she was saying that about the pasta, wasn't she? If I can't get the massive lot of pasta, then I've got to spend loads more getting the little bags and stuff. Clearly a lot of thought goes into it, but good for her. Genuinely sounds like she's been amazing for those four kids as well.
Speaker 1:And none of them being fussy eaters, that's, and loving their veg. I'm jealous, I'm jealous. I've got two of those at home.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Is that another symptom? Is that another low-income household? I know we get a lot of fussy eaters in our membership, but I think it depends on how stretched the budget is. Right, Because the less opportunity you've got to eat, the more you'll eat. So I was youngest of four. Right, I know what that is like. I was never a fussy eater because actually those three would just get everything it was a rare.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 2:Every man for himself, and it was a rare thing Mum and dad had a biscuit tin there was never anything in it, I was going to say, was it always empty?
Speaker 1:Yeah, anything in it I was gonna say, was it always empty? Yeah, it was almost like if somebody was in the house when that biscuit tin got a biscuit put in it. Oh my god, it didn't last long. Could you hear that tin open from a mile?
Speaker 1:away like a labrador exactly that yeah, so, and it was interesting to hear how she's had that lifestyle drummed into her from a young age, because she left home at 16. She's been living this way, in this regimented way, for so long now that it'd be interesting, if she did catch a break at some point, what she'd do with that freedom. Yeah, with four kids.
Speaker 2:With four kids is there such a thing as freedom with four kids no, I don't think so, but it's mixed, I know. When we all left home, mum lost the plot. It's like her identity had gone, because her identity was the four kids. That was a purpose. So, yeah, it's funny, it's a, it's a really tricky one, that isn't it?
Speaker 4:yeah, but if you think about Holly, she's kind of doing all the mum thing brilliantly and then she's still giving up her time on a Friday to come to us at Westfield, which is one of our new family hubs. Yes, and she's on the chiller van.
Speaker 1:Would not expect anything less only people volunteers, who do the chiller van.
Speaker 4:They are fierce they are fierce organized. Get off my van yeah I'm doing it my way.
Speaker 2:Well, you'll see this today, simone, because you're going out to see our one of our community hubs my way. Well, you'll see this today, Simone, because you're going out to see one of our community hubs today, St Pete's, and you'll see that that the people are on the chiller van packing the bags in the van. It's their thing.
Speaker 4:They mean business Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Don't mess, don't mess.
Speaker 3:I'm glad for the heads up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and shall we talk about the no holiday for 13 years and children? Having never seen the sea that broke my heart a little bit, I have to say.
Speaker 4:But then that makes me think about what we did in the summer when we enhanced the holiday activity and food provision. So we paid for a whole load of kids to go for school trips and then they were going out and the feedback that you saw, all of that feedback, Alex it was amazing it was.
Speaker 4:Little days out for people, for little people and the mums and dads in the summer, people that wouldn't ordinarily be able to access it. The feedback was it brought a tear to your eye, yeah so that makes me think we're going to stoke next if we, if we get the opportunity oh, you heard it here first, did you? Yeah, hot off the press, stoke next. Well, so that's one of the hubs that we set up around, recognizing that and this was through the nourish the nation campaign.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly that. So this is comic relief in sainsbury's comic relief in sainsbury's.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much. Lots of trips to the coast up in the northeast and days out. So yeah, we'll take it to stoke next year if we're lucky enough to get some more.
Speaker 1:Thank you, holly.
Speaker 4:That will be because of you yeah, yeah, we're listening to our members. If you'd like to know more about the bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at team tbbt, on instagram and twitter, or on linkedin or online at the bread and butter thing and if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast or would like to come and be our guest, drop us an email at podcast at breadandbutterthingorg and lastly, we're always open to new members at all of our hubs, so if you know someone or yourself that will benefit from our affordable food scheme, you can find your nearest hub on the become a member page on our website and please do all the things that podcast asks you to do.
Speaker 4:Like us, subscribe and leave us a review, share us with your friends and chat about us on social see. See you next time.
Speaker 2:Do you want to do this again? Yes, definitely.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Hooray.
