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
When debt becomes your comfort zone, change feels like the real risk
Meet Tracy, whose metal heart valve ticks audibly throughout our conversation - a constant reminder of the life-threatening surgery that became a turning point in her already challenging financial journey.
Tracy's story offers a rare glimpse into how debt becomes not just a circumstance but an identity. Having become a mother at 17 and growing up with a mother who was always in debt, Tracy's financial struggles began from the moment she had her own place. "That's all I've ever known is debt," she explains, revealing how predatory "backstreet loans" targeted her vulnerability when traditional support systems failed.
What makes Tracy's testimony so powerful is her stark honesty about why change feels harder than continuing to struggle. Despite facing potential homelessness, mounting utility bills she can't pay, and visits from debt collectors, she describes her debt-laden lifestyle as "comfortable" - it's what she knows. This psychological insight helps explain why financial education alone often fails to break generational cycles of poverty.
Yet Tracy's resilience shines through. She attempted to open a mindfulness café just as COVID hit, showing her entrepreneurial spirit despite terrible timing. Now she's taking small but significant steps: buying an ADHD-specific budget planner and making her first £100 investment. These modest actions represent tremendous psychological leaps for someone who has never before attempted to save.
Listen to discover how our connections to money run deeper than numbers on a page, and why breaking free from financial dysfunction requires addressing both practical skills and deeply embedded patterns of behavior. Ready to reflect on your own relationship with money? Subscribe now and join the conversation about how we can support each other toward financial wellbeing.
Welcome back to a slice of bread and butter with Vic and Mark from the bread and butter thing. 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.
Speaker 2:We provide access to nutritious, affordable food, which means that our members can save money on their shopping, feed their families healthily, nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change. We provide access to nutritious, affordable food, which means that our members can save money on their shopping, feed their families healthily and access other support too, right in the heart of their communities.
Speaker 1:Yep, 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.
Speaker 2:And this week we're meeting Tracy.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say Tracy 1, because there's quite a few Traces at the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah it, I'm going to say Tracy 1, because there's quite a few Tracys at the moment. Yeah, it seems to be that Huddersfield has a lot of people called Tracy living there.
Speaker 1:I know who knew, who knew. Let's have a listen.
Speaker 3:Hi, I'm Tracy King.
Speaker 1:I'm a single adult with adult children and grandkids.
Speaker 3:I've got two boys. They're 20, I have to think now 28 and 30. I was going to say they're going to test doing silly things. And there's the same four grandkids from the age of five down to the age of just gone one nice yeah, tell me about you, because you've got lots of complications, shall we say um, yeah, sometimes it's kind of where to begin let's start with what might be in here that people might actually hear in the background.
Speaker 1:What's that ticking? Okay?
Speaker 3:yeah, so I have a metal heart valve. Why metal? A friend asked me that the other day. Why did I not get a pig's valve? But yeah, back in 2013, I was diagnosed with asthma and inhalers weren't working and I just had this impression of something to do with my heart. I was thinking angina, went to the doctors, turned out I had what they call mitral stenosis and severe regurgitation or whatever it is. So basically, that's where the blood is going into my lungs instead, so like it was leaking from the valve. The valve was very narrow, so I needed a treatment just to enlarge the valve. During that treatment, the valve popped and then I was literally dying on the table, blood gushing through the lungs. So, yeah, so wherever I go, it's my party trick, you know, like if anyone here's ticking, I'm like it's me, it's not a bum it's me oh, they think I've swallowed a watch yeah, so has it changed you physically?
Speaker 3:so initially it changed things for the better in the sense of I wasn't getting out of breath so easy and I wasn't coughing so much and I was feeling a bit more healthy. But I was obviously not working. I was on employment support allowance so within that time I already had issues with the mortgage where I struggled at times. So there was a suspended possession order on the property so they just went straight to court, despite the fact that I'd like the the massive scar from just having heart surgery.
Speaker 1:And did you lose it?
Speaker 3:I'm still here. Ah, it's this house, great, I've fought and fought and fought it over the years. There's lots of stories, but yeah, yeah, I've had a lot of fighting to keep this house over the years presumably then that's meant that you've got arrears Still got arrears.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I've always struggled with debt and I put that down because I have got other issues as well, adhd being one of them ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia. I became a mum at the age of 17, so I had my own place at a young age and even from day one, I think, I had debt and I've continued to have debt and it's been a big struggle. Debt and I've continued to have debt and it's been a it's been a big struggle, and I'm now, at an age nearly 50, still trying to get myself out of debt.
Speaker 1:So, basically, from day one of being on your own, you've always had debt and you've always had to carry that debt around with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, like say, from day one having my own place with my son, I was still getting the under-18s amount of money, despite the fact that I was having to run a house, buy the food and everything else. I was getting the same as other under-18s who were still living at home with the parents. But then you had them nasty loan people that would I call them backstreet loans. You know like that would knock on the door and say like it doesn't matter what your credit rating is and all that you know, here have this money and young, 17, naive, you know like it's like, yeah, I need that money, I need that money, thank you. So I would say it stemmed from there and, in all fairness, like I grew up with a mum who also was always in debt, so it's something that I've learnt. That's all I've ever known is debt. Did it not weigh on you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I actually did a TV programme once that was about debt as well, actually. So I had the cameras following me around for a few weeks. So there was this one occasion where the camera woman was in with me because my internet and everything had just been switched off because I hadn't paid the Skybill. And it was after that conversation when I absolutely broke down. So I never broke down when I had to go to court to find the house. I never broke down with all the other deaths that was happening. But the minute I was told I'm not getting my internet back on, I just went and even the camera woman was like why is it that that has hit you? So on the other occasion I will break down.
Speaker 1:But of the weirdest things, that's got a lot of pressure right and it's almost normalized to you, like so many things do in life, right, and then the littlest thing will just change you so the minute on that particular occasion when Sky said you ain't getting your internet back, it was a lifeline lost.
Speaker 3:So even though I knew I was fighting to save my house and everything else, I was still living in the house, so I wasn't being affected in that sense. So I think that's what it was. I get it. I get it Because it's like company right. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like. This is how you get through the day. You have some way of interacting with the world. That is, through your phone or through whatever. Yeah, you've got this debt you carry around with you. It's obviously, since your heart surgery, been super tough, but over the last few years, post-covid, everything's got really expensive, hasn't it? So what's it like nowadays?
Speaker 3:Yeah, really it has got so expensive, hasn't it? So what's it like nowadays? Um, yeah, really, it has got so expensive. And again, I I'm always one of these that does things completely different to everybody else when I'm getting that vibe tracy what could possibly give you that idea?
Speaker 3:just before covid hit, I just had gallbladder and my gallbladder removed. I love hospitals, you know, it's real lovely. And I had this idea that I wanted to open up a cafe which was all about mindfulness. And I found this building and I was like this is perfect, and I signed the lease and everything else and we got in and then we went into lockdown and I was like, yeah, so so that's my ADHD kicking in and not really thinking it through and just getting on with it. So whilst everybody else was in lockdown doing jigsaws and anything else they could find, I'm still trying to figure out this business that I've just decided to start doing.
Speaker 3:So I was getting myself into debt with that one. Luckily, at the beginning of Covid, the mortgage companies gave like six month holidays and stuff like that, so so that did ease a lot and we started doing like takeout food. Then, when we could open up a bit more, we changed it then to a community cafe. Still, not enough money was coming in, because I didn't want to charge a lot of money because everybody was schemed because of COVID, and I even tried the pay it forward sort of scheme, but nothing was really working. So this friend next door she needed bigger premises, so she took over the lease and I came out and then just concentrated on the debt that I'd still accumulated back at home instead.
Speaker 1:But what's it like now after Covid? Have you felt the big things that everybody else is looking at? You know, your gas and electric's gone up, your food's gone up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I kind of pulled a face there the minute you said gas and electric, because I have not been able to pay, especially the gas, for probably over a year.
Speaker 1:Wow, they've not cut you off.
Speaker 3:It's a very weird situation. Is this because I chose to have a smart meter? Because, again, like I say, all these years, I kept getting into debt. Then I might get help to pay it or clear it all. So it's always that vicious cycle. So I decided, right, ok, I'm getting smart meters and I'm paying as you go in that way, because I didn't trust myself anymore and I thought I need to stop getting into debt, especially over the last couple of winters.
Speaker 3:Obviously, it's been very cold. I'm having the heart condition, I'm told. You know like I have to keep warm. It really was that choice of do you eat or heat. I was using my emergency credit. Then I remember them saying well, since you've got the heart condition, why don't we just transfer you back onto normal bill? And lo and behold, I couldn't afford to pay the bill. So then they were sending people to the door and he was a lovely guy that came. You know he's like look, you need to stay on the bill, you need to. You need to stay warm. I don't know what to do, bearing in mind I probably already had a debt of at least £700 on the gas. I won't disclose just how much in debt I am right now, but I haven't paid a penny.
Speaker 1:Has anybody actually give you any help with debt?
Speaker 3:So I've been through like Citizens Advice because there is other issues as well council tax and I've had debt collectors at the jar and stuff and count and citizens advice have kind of helped to an extent. They've even managed to get a couple of the previous council tax bills removed. For me when I struggle with it and when I speak to them on the phone they always say I'll try, step change all these different places, but then it's me that doesn't go any further forward. I don't ask for that help why?
Speaker 3:is that I don't know, I think because, no matter what I do, I just do a circle. I don't know if I can't blame the adhd or what, I don't know if, if it's fair to say that that's the lifestyle I've known and and I just and I kind of, I mean just then wanted to say, despite how dysfunctional it is, it's comfortable, it sounds bizarre, does that? It's what I'm used to.
Speaker 1:It's what you know, yeah it's what I know. So it's almost like a step change if somebody would be stepping into the unknown.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean, if, going to fast forward into today, I am on a journey of creating my online business and also I do watch a lot of, like, female investors I'm kind of listening to them now and I bought a budget planner which is specifically for ADHD I've literally just put 100 quid away in this investment company and I only did that last month and it's made three quid, but I've just put that 100 away. It's not much, but it's a start for me saying, look, I've saved something, I've invested a tiny bit of money. It's only a tiny bit of money, but it's something I've never, ever done before, but I've wanted to do, so I'm just making these small changes.
Speaker 1:So I suppose maybe I should go to step change, because small changes with step change it was funny to start with because Tracy did tell me about the ticking and I didn't quite hear it at first, but then I did hear it through the headphones and I could hear her heart valve.
Speaker 2:Really yeah, I tried to listen really hard for it.
Speaker 1:It was weird.
Speaker 2:Well, not weird for Tracy. No, really quite helpful for Tracy, really quite helpful for tracy, really quite helpful for tracy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it felt like tracy is this nurture, perhaps always being very used to mum having debt and having debt struggles, debt. From a young age, tracy's always had debt and it's always been something that's part of her life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But she engages with her, the people that she owes money to her creditors, right, and she's talking to them saying I can't afford. And apart from the gas people, apart from the gas people, yeah.
Speaker 2:For me that sounds like it would be really stressful, but that's all Tracy's known. It's almost like a safe place for her, isn't it some kind of comfort?
Speaker 1:blanket carnage it's funny, right, because in our previous episode, vic, we were talking about free school meals and agency of parents being able to put food in the fridge and, yeah, how free school meals doesn't help that piece. There's something to hear isn't there about how do we actually talk about the nurture from childhood? Because if we just keep focusing on children and trying to help children, the environments in which they are raised doesn't change totally and then how do you break the cycle?
Speaker 2:because this is a cycle of debt yeah, and there's a bigger influence from people at home than there is from people at school because tracy said it herself, didn't she comfort in dysfunction sort of thing?
Speaker 2:yeah, she's comfortable in the debt yeah, and you know, it seems like she juggles it and copes with it really well. Yeah, many of our members do so. Tracy's not alone in in doing that. We've seen the way that people are getting into debt and the types of debt that they're getting into change. Actually haven't we over the years, from chatting to members?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was glad that she did say that she knew StepChange Debt Charity and I still shout out to StepChange if they want to come on, we will find somebody from StepChange to come on, because I'm sure this is the truth with a lot of people, because it's like when you go to a doctor or anything, you've got to go through that admission piece because Tracy probably doesn't know how much she owes and she definitely didn't want to share with me how much she owed.
Speaker 2:I think she probably does, but was not in the room, I'm not so sure.
Speaker 1:I think she kind of will to a degree but, won't realise the full extent of it and you've got to do that war. It's an old piece which is painful yeah, there's a bit of denial.
Speaker 2:There isn't there. If I don't talk about it, then it's not really happening to me yeah, and I do think there's a painful process to go through.
Speaker 1:So at the end, when tracy's saying maybe I will get in touch with step change, I do hope she does, because I genuinely think she needs some help and I think they will be able to help her.
Speaker 2:But she's also trying to do a few things on her own yeah. Which is really great, to be a bit more forward thinking and change things. So even putting a hundred quid away and earning a three quid, yeah, that's a great step in the right direction.
Speaker 1:And I think also, even though Tracy was embedded in a debt culture, shall we say, she was entrepreneurial.
Speaker 2:She was always looking at how she can actually make money and start her own business and do things and projects.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't like she was just sat there, I'm just. I just need another loan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she wants to build a business and be successful yeah, but those entrepreneurial skills are going to be learned from being in debt, though, for sure for sure.
Speaker 1:The ducking and diving, yeah, yeah, the agility, yeah, but she was great. Setting up a business at the best of times is tricky, right, take it from one that knows. But doing it in covid, that was bloody hard and that's really really bad timing no, totally.
Speaker 2:The thing that got me just jumping back a little bit was talking about the debt was. She was on the tv program. There was the straw that broke the camel's back. A little bit was talking about the debt was. She was on the TV programme. There was the straw that broke the camel's back, which was like the real small thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Not being able to put on a Wi-Fi again.
Speaker 1:the broadband yeah, doesn't that tell you about the underlying stress levels?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Totally, and also for lots of people that don't have lots of money. Having broadband and being connected that way is a lifeline to being more social. You can't afford to go out. So you need that to get your favourite programmes on TV or chat with family or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and actually she was a tonne of fun.
Speaker 2:She sounded it. So 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, twitter, tiktok, linkedin or online at thebreadandbutterthing.
Speaker 1:And if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast or you want to come on and have a natter, drop us a line at podcast at breadandbutterthingorg.
Speaker 2:Lastly, we're always open to new members at all of our hubs. If you or someone you know would benefit from our affordable food scheme, you can find your nearest hub on the Become a Member page of the website.
Speaker 1:And please do all those things that podcasts always ask you to do. You know like us. Subscribe to us, leave us a review, share us with your friends, chat about us on your socials. Until next time, Until next time, Until next time.
