Food Banks are struggling.....

So I have had a busy few days de-cluttering the house in preparation for Benjie going back to school. In fairness as much as I love and adore my son - my poor house needs to find its floors again.....its amazing how large a tornado a 2 year old and an 8 year old can make if left alone for 2 seconds!

Although I did wake up to this posting this morning

( if anyone would like to read the article I read its here )

It does really make you wonder what is going to happen in the future but I think it has made me more determined than ever to make sure my food stores are stocked and in order.......having learned the hard way as well this month....Owen was paid early in December to cover him for Christmas. He currently has £30 to last him until the 31st and I have £28 in my bank to last until the 15th....which is only a week away and to me that is completely do able but I was thinking about it - what if I needed money? what if there was an emergency? If Owen needs money for fuel for work then what will we do? well we would be stuck is the only answer because we have no savings at all.

Another scheme I saw that was linked to from this story was that local food banks are struggling to feed people now because the demand is so high, that deeply saddens me and makes me all the more aware that the world is changing and so has many peoples mentalities towards food storage/preparation and sensible buying.

My parents divorced in 1999, me and my sister stayed with my dad whilst my mum left. She found a place with her friend but was later abandoned by her friend to take on all the bills herself. After 6 months I was told by a family friend that my mum was literally living on hand outs from neighbours - she was living on biscuits basically - and had been for months. I hadn't spoken to my mother since she left but bit the bullet and decided to leave my dad to move in with her. Knowing full well my mum would get child benefit for me and that she would at least have a little bit more money coming in that she could claim and therefore feed herself. I had many cheap/make do/ leftovers from the pub meals (my mums second job was in a pub) and they never did me any harm.....in fact they probably toughened me and my sister up a bit.

Now my mum is back in the same position. She is relying on my sister to feed her (my sister has 3 kids to support) because my mum simply cant afford to feed herself.

This has given me something to think about and ponder for the day.