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
Listen again - James
What does it mean to “do everything right” and still come up short? We sit with James, a support worker caring for adults with learning disabilities and autism, to trace the real maths of modern poverty: long shifts, term‑time childcare gaps, energy and rent hikes, and the slow erosion of a family’s “nice time” pot. James talks candidly about budgeting in pots, living on beans so his son could eat well, and the relief he found through The Bread and Butter Thing—affordable, nutritious food close to home that stretches cash and eases stress without stigma.
Across the conversation, we unpack why care work—so essential during COVID—remains underpaid, and how that collides with childcare economics that can penalise families for taking extra hours. We challenge the myth that phones and laptops are luxuries, showing how digital access underpins benefits, rota changes, school updates, and everyday life admin. We also ask the tough question: does James consider himself poor? His answer opens a bigger idea—poverty as a spectrum—capturing the difference between crisis and the constant grind of just-about-managing.
Along the way, there are glimmers of hope: a new job with slightly better pay, more hours for his partner, a carefully saved-for holiday. But the takeaway is clear. Stability shouldn’t depend on heroic budgeting or skipping meals. Community support like The Bread and Butter Thing helps, yet the long-term fix requires fair pay, childcare that truly unlocks work, and policy built for how families live now.
If this conversation resonates, follow and share the show, leave a review to help others find it, and send us your thoughts or stories. Subscribe for more real voices from the communities we serve and the people keeping them going.
Welcome back to a slice of bread and butter with Mark and Vic from the Bread and Butter Think. 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_01:We provide access to a nutritious, affordable range of food, which means our members can save money on their shopping, feed the families healthily, as well as access to other support to right in the heart of their communities.
SPEAKER_00:And this is where we share a slice of life with somebody involved in bread and butter and hear how they connect with us. And this week, am I right in thinking it was James?
SPEAKER_01:It is and living legend, one of our carers, and let's have a listen to James.
SPEAKER_02:I'm a support worker, and uh yeah, that's pretty pretty much supporting adults with limb disabilities and autism who don't have capacity to meet their own needs and to do daily activities, have etc medications. So I support them with that in a team. So it's really good, yeah, really good job. And i i is that something you've been doing long? Yeah. As soon as I left college, uh I did health and social care. So I knew I love supporting people. How I struggled myself with a diagnosis of autism as well, uh dyslexia in in school, so I I did know a lot about it anyway.
SPEAKER_01:So I guess you were part of the caring community then during COVID. How was that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was it was it was difficult, but yeah you definitely you bring the best out of people, and I think we the connection and the team, we had a big team back then. You were just bonded and you just you worked 14, 15 hours every day for weeks and weeks and weeks, and it was hard, but it we got through it and yeah, it was good.
SPEAKER_01:Tell me a bit about life in general for you, then James. You can obviously tell me if you don't want to answer any questions, but tell me about home life, family, where you live, and tell us about how you got involved with bread and butter as well.
SPEAKER_02:So, yeah, born in Cheshire, I had uh a difficult childhood, I'd say, in a few parts, um, and as we all do, and bad experiences and stuff. And during the beginning of COVID, moved out of my parents, moved with my partner and crew. Cheshire uh and yeah, and we both both did the same job, so that was great. We've got a young child, four year old, who's doing fantastically well. I'm just uh yeah, young lad. Um but trying to get back out uh back out there on runs and stuff. I love my running, my sports. And then bread and butter was just out of nowhere. I think it came on the crew Facebook community group. It just said, look, next week, uh this charity, bread and butter thing that started, they come into the academy. And uh obviously at that time that's when prices obviously skyrocketed and it was ridiculous. Yeah, with a child and partner who works part-time and I work a job who doesn't pay that much. So uh as everyone, we struggles uh to get by and I think as soon as I started using bread and butter, it it just changed. It was it was brilliant and it helps so much. We don't use it as much as we used to, and we normally about once a month. It's when times are getting a bit tough near the end, but it helps a lot. Yeah, I can't say how much.
SPEAKER_01:Don't worry, we're not looking for a promo, but it's you you and your partner both working, both holding down the job and still struggling to get by. That that's what we just hear all the time as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, i it's it is ridiculous, it is. Even during COVID, my partner she struggles herself and uh mental health and sh she wasn't able to work that much. And we were able to to cope, and like you said, it's skyrocketers and you just can't cope now. You have to work, all of you have to work. Endless hours, we barely see each other as a couple, we barely get out as a family because every day I'm off, she's working, every day she's off, I'm working, you know. It's and that's how it is. Is that because of childcare, James? Yeah, childcare and just getting every shift, every hours that you possibly can. You know, in care, as you know, doesn't pay much at all. You get free childcare for 30 hours and then you've got to pay, if you want extra hours, you've got to pay hundreds and hundreds on top of that to have him in ill all day, you know, until six or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01:No, it it sounds really tough actually. Sounds like you're just passing ships, you don't really see much of each other.
SPEAKER_02:No, we don't see each other. Don't you know, we don't go out this Saturday's the first time we're actually gonna go out for it. I have to say about f four years, three years.
SPEAKER_01:I normally ask what do you think is a luxury nowadays that you used to see as an everyday thing, but given how young you are and how COVID hit and everything, it doesn't sound like it's a relevant question for you guys.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean luxury in terms of you know, you you're paying for or let's go for a nice meal together as a family, or let's go for a nice day trip to a the zoo, or you know, and you're looking at about forty quid. And it's either that or prioritizing eating for the next two weeks. You know, holidays, you can't do a holiday, or you know, I've got petrol, or I've got to feed my child. What do I do? Oh, I'm obviously gonna feed my child. No petrol for the next week. It gets that difficult, it's it's dreadful. It really is.
SPEAKER_01:What's the biggest stress you'd say, or cost in your lives at the moment?
SPEAKER_02:Um apart from debt. I was silly at one point, and then I I had to grow up very quickly, obviously, when I moved moved out, in order to do that. I had to get a credit card as you always do, as everyone eventually sometimes does. Silly enough to get to and it got ridiculous in a ridiculous amount, so that's one of them, that's probably the biggest one.
SPEAKER_01:So you're still paying those down.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, still paying that. I got a loan, I'm paying the loan back, which is quite a big low. But the other's big cost a car, gas and electric, council tax now has just gone up. And rent has just gone up. So they're the main things, I think. Food, obviously. I try and try and do put that in a pot savings, but I've had to dip into that sometimes.
SPEAKER_01:Do you know how much you normally try and have for food each month?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm very part of my orders, I'm very very routine, very set, very I need to work it all out. I need to be finished. You would hate me, I'm the polar opposite. Oh yeah, I'm organised very I work it all out every month before I get paid, and how much I get paid and how much is left over, etc. Uh food my my pot has gone down. It used to be I used to put away£200 a month for food. That's one of the luxuries. I used to have a good Tesco and Astor and you know, do a nice big spend,£40,£50,£60,£30 for a week or two, and yeah, I had money left over. I can't do that anymore. That you know I can't afford just£140 a month for all the three of you. Yeah. It's tough. It's tough. Yeah, I've got I think about£50 left and I've got three weeks left. It gets that tight.
SPEAKER_01:So it's just about£1.55 each per day.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's not much, you know, and uh you know sometimes you like to have a takeaway, so obviously you've got to take that out of your your niceties, money as you say. So you've got a nice pocket as well? Not really. This could be ranged between fifty to a hundred-ish. Uh and that's a month.
SPEAKER_01:Is it the debt that's changed or have your circumstances changed?
SPEAKER_02:Circumstances, yeah, bills, uh like I said, food. All of it added together is so much more than what it used to be. You know, my bills has gone up from about 800 a month altogether. That's everything included, food, whatever it is before, just before COVID, and now he's up to£1,300. So that soon goes, you know, after a week or two of you just wanting to live a little bit or you wanting to give his son something or buy clothes that he needs or shoes, you know, he's grown up quick. Yeah. And it all comes out in the nice pot, does it? It all comes out of the nice pot, and then you're left with the food pot left with three weeks left to spare, and you're like, I've got to use some of that for to fit something or to buy something, you know, and it it goes down so quick with just scraping by and it's that's not good. It's not good.
SPEAKER_01:You're doing fifty, sixty hour weeks, your partner's doing the best at twenty-five hours a week. I think a lot of people will be really shocked to hear how little money you've got because you're doing all the right things, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we we've had to cut, like you said, loads of niceties, loads of things that we just would like to enjoy, go out for a meal once you can a takeaway, maybe once every two weeks, you know. Go to the zoo or go to a nice day out together or a holiday, you know. This summer we've got a holiday coming up and we've planned it, we've saved for it for so long and we've finally got it coming up. So that's you know, first holiday in four or five years.
SPEAKER_01:When I've talked to other people your age, James, some have had help from the banker mum and dad. I'm guessing you guys don't. Don't get me wrong, I have. Of course I have.
SPEAKER_02:You know, it's either that or it's a debt with a credit card, it's a debt with something, you know. The car broke down a few weeks ago, the dad helped with that, I pay him back obviously. And for me to assemble, that means that I've not managed to deal deal with it or I've not managed to prioritize. I get that. It's uncomfortable, right? Yeah. You want you want to stand on your own two feet. All my bills are paid for, like, but that means some ones we're we're not gonna eat properly, or I'll eat one meal a day because I've had to give you know, I've lived off of beans, kind of fucking bloody beans, for two days to make sure my my son eats properly.
SPEAKER_01:When you do that sort of thing, do you think he's aware or is your partner aware and it is she okay with it?
SPEAKER_02:She's aware, yeah. I don't think she understood completely what situation we were in and how things have gone up that much and how much we were struggling until that situation happened where, like I said, I have lived on a canabines. What do you see going forward then, James? You know, we can't stop basically again because we'll be on the streets. Yeah. Things are better. I've not lived on a at a Tinnerbeans for two days, so things have improved slightly in the way that I got a new job. My partner has got a little bit more hours. We're a little bit better in in prioritizing what we actually need. And um so things are a bit better. Things are a little bit better.
SPEAKER_01:Jenger, I'm gonna ask you a question, and I I don't know whether you'll ever even ever thought about it because I don't think people do. I can hear how hard you're working and I hold you up genuinely on the highest pedestal because you're bloody amazing at what you're doing just to keep going. But do you consider yourself poor?
SPEAKER_02:Well, first of all, I appreciate that. That's that's lovely of you to say. Um yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah, you you could speak I could be earning I could earn 35,000 a year before tax and still be considered poor. Now a few years ago, if you're earning 35,000, not bad, is it? That's you know, just above average, really. Yeah, I do consider us poor. Even with my partner working if she works full-time, we then have to pay for them extra hours for my son to be in nursery, we'd still be worse off than we're now. And that's a false economy, right? Yeah. So yeah, I I consider we are poor. Yeah. Obviously, I appreciate we are not as bad as anyone.
SPEAKER_01:It's just like autism, right?
SPEAKER_02:It's on a spectrum. 100%, exactly. That's that's a great way of putting it, actually. So I do, yeah. On the borderline, I think we we're better, we're doing better, like I said, things are looking up slowly, very slowly, um, but yeah, things are better, so that's the most important thing, really.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, um let's get it out there clearly. Carers, hard working, long hours, underpaid.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no one could disagree with that.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know what made me ask James whether he thought he was poor or not, but the conversation was going that way because I everything that James was saying to me just made me feel like him and his partner were trying so hard, and I just didn't know whether they actually thought that they were doing well or not. Yeah. I just feel for the guy. I feel for all of them because they're struggling, and I hope the struggle came through, because it it's a classic of somebody working so hard and yet just running faster and faster to stand still.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, James came across as a real dude, not only for the job that he's doing and the fact that they did it through COVID and they kept the world going, didn't they?
SPEAKER_01:They did.
SPEAKER_00:Working so hard in work, but then also financially to keep the head above water. Yeah, it must be tough to um keep us upbeat and forward looking.
SPEAKER_01:Isn't he amazing? Yeah, just how positive he is when we're talking about the budget. I I loved his nice budget. He had a nice time budget, which was great, but it it quickly eroded.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, because that was the bit that was really the contingency plan. That was the buffer for life, wasn't it? And if life was going brilliantly, oh look, we might be able to get a takeaway. But how often does everything, you know, do you not get that unexpected bill or the kids need new shoes or new clothes, or it's constant, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01:It is. And it's a really interesting one, isn't it? Shall we do the curveball already? Because I normally leave it till a bit later. But what do we think being poor means nowadays? Because it's really complicated and difficult to see, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It is. Because James was a little bit shocked when you asked him that, and he had to think about it, like, oh, let me consider this. And many of our members will always say, Oh, there's someone worse off than me. My life's not as bad as somebody else's. I'm actually okay. And then when they think about it, they're like, well, really, it's tough week in and week out. And you're constantly thinking about money, like it's at the forefront of James's mind. You know, he knows how much all the bills cost. He's constantly thinking, Do I have to take that bit of money out of my nice time pot?
SPEAKER_01:Do you think it it's um appropriate to say there's like a spectrum of poverty?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We support people that aren't in crisis, but then there's also people in crisis. So there's a range, isn't there?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Never know, because I when you're chatting to people like James, you kind of come up with things that just pop out of your head and you're just like, oh, is it is that the right thing to say? I think there is a spectrum, and it's definitely more than just people that are food insecure and people in crisis. It it's such an array, because it like you were saying about our members, they'll always be able to tell you somebody worse off than them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it wouldn't be fair, like our members don't like being put in a box.
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_00:So it's not fair to say, oh, if you've got this much money or this much disposable income, because we don't understand people's situation. Everyone's completely different. And you look at the spring budget statement that came out, what does that mean to anybody? Like, does anyone have a clue where that makes them be financially? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01:No, I don't think so either. I don't I I don't think so at all, because it it was definitely opaque. I couldn't see through it. And again, you've got to wait for the detail to follow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but it's got to go through parliament as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So there's going to be lots of debate about it. So it's just more uncertainty, isn't it? And more everybody thinking about money at the front of their mind constantly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I think this being poor and the spectrum is a really interesting space. Talking to James about not being able to afford what used to be normal life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Holidays was a toughie for him.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think they've got a holiday book for later in the year though.
SPEAKER_01:They do.
SPEAKER_00:That was really exciting to hear.
SPEAKER_01:It was lovely to hear, wasn't it? Yeah. But it's tricky that so many of these things are so far out of reach. Yes. And yet there will be people that will say, but they've still got a phone, right? And they've still got a computer or something. It's like, well, you can't actually operate and function your life admin nowadays without both of those things, really. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:A phone is a hundred percent essential.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And nobody has a landline anymore. So really it's just a swap.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But everything's digital. And to apply for all of your benefits, you need a government gateway thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That stresses me out. The government gateway. So you've got to do that on a phone, or you go into the library to use the computer or something. And who has time for that? And where is the local library?
SPEAKER_01:Yep. And then lastly, I guess James was going on about his point of she tried working full-time and putting the son in childcare, but it didn't add up. It was too expensive.
SPEAKER_00:The childcare thing is really something that needs fixing. Because there's free childcare spaces, but they're not.
SPEAKER_01:Well, he mentioned those, didn't he, James? He said they did use them, but then you've got to pay for the rest.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they don't cover it all. And they're only term time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So what do you do in the holidays when you've got a job? Because I don't know many employers that other than schools, I guess, that will allow people to be term time.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, not at all.
SPEAKER_00:So it's not a proper fix, is it?
SPEAKER_01:No. And I guess that looking at it, there's two sides to that coin, isn't it? Is it that his partner's not being paid enough, or is it that the support is not enough, or is it somewhere in the middle?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely both, I would say.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And we see it because we uplift the holiday activity food programme. We did it last year through Comet Relief Funding, and then we're doing it again this year. And we provide spaces for people that wouldn't ordinarily be eligible. And many of those is parents that are saying, I can't afford childcare. My child has to come and get this provision. And if they don't, I'm going to lose my job. 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 TeamTBBT on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, or online at breadandbutterthing.org.
SPEAKER_01:Big Harper, I'm impressed that did the TikTok thing. And if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast, or you'd like to be a guest, just come and have an at or drop us an email at podcast at breadandbutterthing.org.
SPEAKER_00: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 our website.
SPEAKER_01:And please do all of those things that podcast asked you to. Like us, subscribe, leave us a do, leave us a review, share us with your friends and chat about us on social.
SPEAKER_00:That nearly was take us to the zoo.
SPEAKER_01:That's really weird. We can't take you to the zoo, but I guess we could do a podcast from the zoo. Let's see you next time.
SPEAKER_00:Bye.
