When essentials become a luxury with Claire and baby Cassidy
“It's changed my relationship with food. There's been times when I've not been eating as healthily because I want to save the nice fruit for the children. So a packet of raspberries is a luxury now.”
Claire is a young mum on maternity leave, trying her best to keep her family afloat as well as enjoying her time with baby Cassidy. With prices rising across the board, managing a household budget has become much harder. Tasks like food shopping, once simple, now require careful planning with multiple trips to different shops as essentials become more expensive. Far from ideal when you have a young baby. Everyday items are no longer affordable, and families are feeling the squeeze.
When fruit becomes a luxury
Juggling the budgets has changed her relationship with food, “There's definitely been times when I've not been eating as healthily because I want to save the nice fruit for the children. So like a packet of raspberries is a luxury now.” So discovering Bread and Butter has been a lifesaver for them as it helps ease some of the financial pressure and provides weekly access to an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables for the grown ups as well as the little ones.
“I wouldn't dream of shopping at Tesco's now as it’s too expensive. I go to Aldi or Lidl where it's a bit cheaper and you don't want to have to pay for the delivery fee. So with Bread and Butter and also a community grocery that we go to as well, I'll go to the supermarket to get whatever left that we need that we couldn't get from there and that's brilliant.”
Soaring costs
Even with help from food services like ours, Claire and her husband, both university-educated, are finding it hard to get ahead financially. Despite their skills, wages aren’t keeping up with the cost of living, making it difficult to maintain financial stability. This struggle is becoming more common as the cost of living rises while wages remain stagnant. Claire’s frustration is also tied to the lack of opportunities for fair pay raises, especially when childcare costs add more strain to their budget.
Claire explains, “Energy bills are a huge one and you know, you see things about how oil, the price of food, has gone up one, two percent, five percent, but that's not my experience in the actual day-to-day staples. We're talking double, triple prices of things like butter, meat, just the basics that you buy is like pounds more than it was before. And wages have not really increased at all. So you are just having to do so much more with less.
The gap between high-paid executives and everyday workers is only widening, and many families feel the effects. For Claire’s family to thrive, wages need to keep pace with inflation, or they’ll continue relying on outside help just to stay afloat.
“I think we need to reduce the gap between the richest and the poorest, because I think that's one of the things that's most frustrating. If it was a feeling of we're all in it together and everyone's struggling, it wouldn't be so bad, but you just know that there's all these people who are earning millions and millions that they don't need, while so many other people are struggling. I think that's what's incredibly frustrating in this country at the moment. It's just that feeling of inequality.”
Claire continues, “I’d say we are skilled people and we just can't seem to earn any more than we're already earning. And it's very frustrating feeling like you can't really better yourself any more than where you already are. And especially with when you've got children to look after.”
Bank of Mum and Dad
There is a feeling of guilt around using food support services, “I know there are people worse off than we are. I'm kind of conscious of how privileged we are in that we've had quite a lot of support from family. We own our own home because my parents supplied me with a deposit by my first place. We'd be a lot worse off if we were having to rent. And we also get some support from parents in paying nursery fees and things like that. So we do a lot better than we could otherwise be doing because we have help.”
One silver lining has been the ability to work remotely. Claire has found that working from home helps save money on childcare and gives her more flexibility. However, with some companies pushing for employees to return to the office, balancing family and work life is becoming harder. Claire believes that to truly support families, work policies need to evolve and be more family-friendly.
Claire’s journey reflects the challenges faced by many families today, from rising costs to stagnant wages. It’s a reminder of the importance of what we do to support working parents push through these tough times.
Listen to Claire’s podcast here
