Should I use a food bank in my situation?

[Lionking1981]

I am 200 pounds down on my normal wages this month due to taking unpaid parental leave when my Dd was ill. Overspent the first week of the month trying to occupy the kids. Then my oven broke and had to replace it. Been living out the freezer and store cupboard since. To cut the story short, I now have 30 pounds to survive 10 days til payday. I have 3 small joints of lamb in the freezer, a box
of waffles and some fish fingers. A few tins of baked beans, tomatoes and soup in cupboard.

My friend says to go to the foodbank but I am super uncomfortable about it. We earn over 40k between us and i don't think food banks are there for people like us but it is going to be really hard to feed a family of 4 on this. However, we will be fine next month. Would you just make do for the 10 days?

3 whole chickens, now that would be great!!

Or just one mumsnet chicken...

We are having a very cheap month as we are decreasing freezer contents ,with those and stuff from the cupboards I am only buying milk and veg. Do most people who have a freezer only have a few items?

No, we hit the reduced times in the supermarket and fill it up that way.
Loaves of bread, meat pies etc approx 10p if you're lucky enough to live near any of the supermarkets and go at the right time.

3 Mumsnet chickens should be enough to last a family of 4 for a year.

Fuck me, i give to a food bank every week! Sell the brand new bloody oven and take your kids to the park. I will still continue to donate, but there are people here who have no clue what poverty is.

No-ones mentioned the fish fingers, waffles and beans - there's a meal.

I don't see anything wrong with picking blackberries, if they're not on the roadside and not at pissed on by a dog height.

The OP can take the DCs for a walk, pick some blackberries, get a free fruit portion and a healthy free activity - entertaining DCs doesn't have to cost a lot of money and it's good if they can enjoying doing free things as well as paid activities.

But on the rare occasions I have picked blackberries, I have realised why they're so expensive in the supermarket - so labour intensive and you get scratched to bits.

We used to pick blackberries as a kid and bring them home. My Mum made apple and blackberry pies or crumble with them.

£30 would easily cover food for ten days if spent carefully

It's not £30 for food, it's £30 for everything.

I rarely have £30 left by ten days to pay day. I'm not saying it's easy but this still is a long way from a good bank situation.

We used to pick blackberries as a kid and bring them home. My Mum made apple and blackberry pies or crumble with them.

Same, used to love blackberry picking when I was little, and now my two kids love doing it too! Great healthy outdoors actvity, as well as free.
I make a crumble with ours too, or we love blackberry smoothies.
if any are actually left and we don't just scoff the lot as they are

I went blackberry picking today. Yum. Just tucked into a big bowl of them :-)

OP with a household income of £40k you should use a line of credit since this is a temporary cash flow problem.

Or sell some stuff on eBay.

Sorry skimmed the thread but do you have a tesco club card account or similar? If you login online there might be unspent vouchers on there you could use. I found loads on mine I didn't know about

You have food and money, why do you need to use the foodbank? You won't even need to live on lentils, you've got 3 joints of lamb!!
Btw, shepherds pie using lamb leftovers and bulked out with cheapo baked beans, onion and carrots is absolutely lovely!

And just got back from picking blackberries, see if you can find windfall apples too.

Foodbanks need a referral and OP wouldn't get one

Can I just ask everyone recommending a diet of lentils, kidney beans, baked beans - are you popular at work? Or any other enclosed space?

I am glad I startd the blackberry trend! My hedge had loads and so do all the hedges down the street. I picka bowl a day, some days 2 at present and just eat them as they are. I usually wash them in water bunless eating right fromthe bush. It is healthy, wilod and natural and loads of vit C in them and totally free if you are lucky enough to have bushes near by. In fact a girl lost in a US forest for 30 days recently is alive because she picked blackberries. I do think it is very important all our children have at least some idea what you can pick and eat it he Uk and what will poison you. It's a vital life skill for survival. My parents also used to take us out bilberry picking too (they are small blueberries - and again packed with vit C, totally unprocessed and really good for you).

2 of mym sons are vegans, eat a lot of beans and don't have bad wind by the way. You just get used to what you eat.

I just read a bit back -" dusty scabby fruit" - I don't agree. If you pick carefully you can get the cleaner fruits and obviously if you live under the bull ring in Birmingham you are not likely to find many good blackberries locally of course but plenty of us live in suburbs ( am outer London) with load of blackberries.

I think it's a sad day if middle class posters get their children outside picking healthy food and those with no money for food reject an activity which means moving, outside, unprocessed and free of charge food.

I'm glad OP has come to her senses. It may seem aghast to some of us, knowing what it's really like to struggle. But OP has realised she has many other options, and has committed to donating to the foodbank as she realises that some people are in real poverty and have £0 to live on and 0 food items in cupboard.
Good outcome!

As for the foraging, I love a bit of free food! We go blackberry picking every year and make bramble jam. That saves a lot on jam throughout the year!

Indigox

How many kids do you have? £30 could be enough if you use it carefully

£30.00 could be, just enough, if the OP doesn't also have to pay other outgoings e.g. travel costs and as well, any unforeseen but imperative eventualities that have to be paid for. And we are assuming that that £30.00 is solely for food...

I would struggle to survive on £30.00 for 5 days as a single person, let alone feeding a family on that amount for 10 days

I think it's a sad day if middle class posters get their children outside picking healthy food and those with no money for food reject an activity which means moving, outside, unprocessed and free of charge food.

I think it's a sad day when middle class posters get completely distracted by how simply marvellous it is to go blackberrying and fail to consider that blackberries contain only 195 calories per pound and only a tiny amount of protein. And that they take bloody hours to collect and clean so you've probably burnt off all those calories even before you eat the bloody things.

Blackberries are a wonderful free fruit if you like that sort of thing and are most people's last link with a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. For a couple of weeks a year they can provide much needed vitamins for people who are long term food poor and eating mostly carbs with a bit of whatever cheap protein the budget can stretch to.

For people who have a short term, absolute food emergency they are worse than useless. In that situation you need calories first and foremost.

To think going blackberrying is a suitable response to a food poverty crisis shows a profound level of ignorance and privilege. Blackberrying is a cheap day out, not a cheap meal.

To think going blackberrying is a suitable response to a food poverty crisis shows a profound level of ignorance and privilege. Blackberrying is a cheap day out, not a cheap meal.

You are completely, totally, missing the point and making stuff up. No-one, anywhere, has said they think it is a suitable response to food poverty.
Just that it's a free food source, to which people have come on to say it's dusty and scabby.
By free food source, before anyone starts, I don't mean it's automatically your 3 meals a day and has all your protein and carbs in there too. Of course it doesn't.
It's still perfectly good food though. Although not to some, it seems.