Dm took all the food for my kids!

Ohh and I don't consider someone in their 60s old either... you have many years of work left people live until they are 90 these days I consider late 70s to 80s to be older people. Not a 60 year old... not even a pensioner yet.

It's a proven fact that alot of older people don't do online stuff my mum included, it's not ageist to say it.... older people also use more cash than younger people.

Good for you for keeping up with technology but not everyone has....

You wrote this @Littlechesnuttree "you might not have picked up on it on the thread, but things in my life have been less than rosey lately, so when she said she’d come up to help out. I accepted as I really hoped she would"

I did pick that up. It was actually leaping out of the screen to me to be honest.

Your mother has really done a number on you and she has really done you and your kids wrong here. It's so frustrating as a complete outsider to see what you're saying and I want to find your mother and try to knock some sense into her! You've done nothing wrong here, you are the one who has been wronged. Your partner, your mother. They are both deserving of each other!

I know in time you will be able to look back on this and laugh how your mother took £80 worth of food for her DOG!!! Best pampered pooch this side of the Nile. It doesn't help in the immediate terms but you have a lot of support on here.

Stay strong. Have bolognese and savoury mince (Knorr does a good packet for this) and some salads or cold meats for a few meals. You'll be a much stronger and together woman after all of this has settled.

I agree.
MN can be a shocking place for examples of the horrors that people have as family, but this is a new low.
She is a thundering disgrace to do this to her daughter and grandchildren.
Completely unbelievable.

She could do it over the phone then. There really is no excuse for reimbursing op, ideally sending her a food delivery at a time to suit replacing all of the stolen food. This isn’t a case of being older.

I'm really shocked that a grandmother could be so selfish to her own daughter and grandchildren by taking their food and essentially giving it to her DOG!!!!!

I would have a lot of difficulty squaring this one off and I'd be telling said woman that I really couldn't afford to have her visit for the foreseeable as it's been very costly to you and you weren't aware that the visits came with terms and conditions and a payment plan.

You have my sympathies @Littlechesnuttree and my support. I think your mother is very very very wrong here and she needs to be seen to be making the situation right before I'd consider having her back for a visit and if that means that your kids don't see their grandmother for a while, so be it.

Fuck off with your ridiculous ageist crap about many older people don’t do online banking. Who do you think invented all this stuff in the first place??? Lol!

I’m an older person (60’s) and worked with IT most of my life and my dad (would have been 100 this year), worked with computers back in the 1970’s. He taught me BBC Basic (programming language) when I was about 13.

Lots of my friends (mostly retired and several are widowed), use online shopping and banking.

Some (older and younger) people don’t do online banking for various reasons.

Okay, share.

I am sorry some posters have been so horrible. The nadir must be those people who said you'd fur up your children's arteries eating only meat as if you gathered like a wolf pack. You just have to feel sorry for people who can't comprehend that you were not serving a slab of meat without any vegetables in sight. Imagine what their home life is like!
I know this a really hard time for you - looking after the children on your own and a new job and your mother revealing her true colours. During hard times, I used to think you had to have a certain amount of ill luck in your life and I used to think I was getting the hard times out of the way early. But you all sound healthy which is a blessing. I know that sounds trite but when my sweet teenager was diagnosed with cancer at sixteen all the money in the world meant nothing. He was lucky it was caught very early through an utter fluke, and his prognosis was excellent and he's six years out.

You say you have some mince. Spaghetti bolognaise can make mince go a long way if you add some finely chopped carrots and celery. You could use any left over as a cottage pie with a mashed potato topping with some cheese sprinkled over for extra protein.

Things like quiches can make a little bacon stretch a long way.

If you can do any meat based casseroles cannelloni beans - out of a tin and thoroughly rinsed in a sieve under a tap - can make it go much further.

Homemade pizzas don't need a lot of meat or any meat at all really. (If you can't face making the bases, just buy some readymade.)

Just a handful of things I want to say/add here.

1. @Littlechesnuttree I applaud you for keeping it all together at a time when I'm sure you'd like to fall apart.

1. I want to include some ideas for low cost meals, that may help, or may help other readers.

1. Get the "Supercook" free app. You add all the ingredients you have in the house into the app larder, and it will search the internet for every possible recipe you can make with those ingredients. You can search by main ingredient, or cuisine type. Fabulous for making sure you don't waste fresh ingredients.

1. Get the Olio free app. There is always free food available locally, collected from Tesco and Sainsbury's by volunteers and listed for free. I've not had to purchase bread in well over 9 months.

1. Look up Thrifty Lesley and her webpages. She has very frugal recipes (sorted into meal type) but also has complete week meal plans, for about £1 a person a day. She also has some emergency plans, for if you need to be super frugal. I usually use one week meal plan per month, and use the difference in the food shopping cost that week, to stock up on washing powder/toiletries/toilet paper.

1. If you fancy some old style cooking, the Victory Cookbook (on eBay) and the 1940s experiment (online - the URL looks super dodgy, but it fine) has wartime recipes that use simple, local ingredients to make filling meals.

I hope that some of these ideas help.

I also second that a pp said (I'm so sorry, I can't remember who), that if you can get some cheap food, make it into a positive experience by eating in a different place, or a different way. Tomorrow night, my DC are super excited to be having a parknic (picnic in the park) for dinner. It'll be a sandwich, some cucumber and peppers, a piece of fruit and one treat item each. But they are still excited!

Take care @Littlechesnuttree , I hope things improve for you.

Your welcome, hope you take the holiday, take care op and keep strong

I am still in shock for you. When my parents come to visit they come with bags of shopping as they will go to Costco and get me a giant washing powder, bulk toilet paper and nice treats the kids enjoy, it’s their way of helping me as I’m a single parent.

I'm so sorry that you've been so badly let down by the woman who should be your greatest support during one of the most difficult times of your life.
When we fled my ex, before the counselling had kicked in I'd have been distraught if I was in your shoes.
You are doing amazing though. You already have a back up plan and your not giving your selfish bint of a mother too much head space and your kids are happy, fed and loved.
Have you talked to CA to see if you can claim any support? And talked to your GP about counselling? This can often be arranged for lunch breaks if need be.
I'm so proud of you. I'm a few years on now and life is so good because I got rid of the useless weight of my ex.

You sound lovely. Your mother is delusional and self centred. I do hope things look up for you. Sending hugs and sympathy

I was just about to jump on and say the same. £80 is £80. Even if the OP isn't on the breadline, that's a couple of cheap days out with her kids at the weekend whose dickhead of a dad has just left. That extra £80 could take their minds of things for a couple of hours.

Tbh, it seems like the mum stealing the meat was the last straw. The OP has had a hell of a shitty time, there was most probably a long shitty time leading up to her husband leaving and it sounds like the good deal she had at the butchers was one of the few things that had actually gone right for her - and then her mother bloody takes it for the dog.

Honestly, one day you will laugh about this OP but right now you have every reason to feel mad and you shouldn't have to use that tiny bit of energy you most probably have left fighting to get reimbursed. Anyone who thinks it's just easy to deal with a complicated mother or just pop back to the shops when you work full time and have little ones needs to wobble their head.

You have every right to feel angry/upset/annoyed. And you shouldn't need to sort it out because any normal person would have refunded you straight away and been mortified.

I'd tell her that it is unbelievable that she would have thought the meat was for her. That it is sheer nastiness to take her grandchildren's food. And her rude suggestion that it is payment has left you with no option but to go no contact.
Why in gods name would you want that b1tch anywhere near you or your family. I am outraged for you.

I can't fathom the dynamics on Mumsnet sometimes. Are those of you sticking the boot in envious that the OP can afford to spend £80 at the butcher? For a month that's not that much for 3 people. Her husband has just walked out on her leaving her in a precarious situation at a new job when I'm sure at times she'd rather curl up in a ball than have to be trying to make a good impression. And yet you think you're 'helping' by victim blaming her for not standing up to an abusive mother in the way you think you'd theoretically be able to under the same circumstances? Have a word with yourselves.

Tell her to bank transfer the money, silly woman as if she thought it was for her dog !

3K pre tak, minus massive childcare bills, mortgage to be paid on your own, bills, petrol, I earn similar and could not spare additional 80 quid to replace stuff that was stollen by a selfish b like that. I think that relationship is sour already.