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
Single Mum Superhero: Tracy's Unfiltered Story
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"I'm a worker, not a charity case."
These six powerful words from Tracy, a 47-year-old single mother working at IKEA, capture the essence of a profound conversation about financial struggle, resilience, and the hidden battles many families face behind brave smiles.
Tracy's story unfolds with raw honesty as she reveals how divorce left her shouldering £102,000 of debt while raising two daughters, one 11 years old and another 21 and pregnant (making Tracy soon to be "Grandma with the red hair"). Despite working consistently and carefully scheduling her hours around school runs, Tracy survives on just £8.50 per week for groceries, relying heavily on The Bread and Butter Thing for vegetables and essential foods.
What makes this conversation particularly powerful is Tracy's unflinching candor about sacrifices that have become normalized in her life. She hasn't had a takeaway in two years. She had to quit Slimming World despite losing four stone because she couldn't afford the fees. When an anonymous donor offered to help cover costs, she felt uncomfortable—not because she wasn't grateful, but because accepting help challenged her deep-seated identity as someone who pays her own way.
Behind Tracy's alternating tears and laughter lies a story that millions share but few discuss openly: doing everything "right" yet still barely keeping afloat. While credit is easily accessible with a few clicks, the support needed to escape debt cycles remains frustratingly hidden. Tracy works with Payplan through an Independent Voluntary Arrangement, caring for her children, supporting her father with dementia and cancer, and still somehow maintaining her sense of humour and dignity.
Join us for this moving conversation that challenges perceptions about financial hardship and celebrates the quiet strength of those fighting invisible battles every day. After listening, you might find yourself questioning why our economic system makes mere survival so difficult for those doing everything society asks of them.
Meeting Tracy: Juggling Life's Challenges
Speaker 1Welcome back to a slice of bread and butter with Nina and Mark from the bread and butter thing. We're a charity that delivers affordable food to the heart of struggling neighborhoods to help nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change.
Speaker 2We provide access to a nutritious, affordable range of food, which means our members can save money on their shopping, feed their families healthily, as well as access other support too, right in the heart of their communities.
Speaker 1Yep, and this is where we share a slice of life with somebody involved in bread and butter and hear about how they connect with us, and this week it's Tracy McGee, the fourth of our Tracys.
Speaker 3Tracy four. I'm Tracy, I'm 47. I'm a sales co-worker at IKEA, mother of two. The eldest is married and 21 and pregnant have you already decided?
Speaker 1is it gran granny nana?
Speaker 3grandma grandma. I don't do colloquial okay, grandma, it is. I've had too many years of cousins going gang, gang and stuff like that and I'm like, no, I am going to be grandma, but with the red hair. So yeah, yeah apparently I'm going to be a cool grandma. Nice and my youngest is 11 both girls and you work at ikea I do. Yeah, sometimes, depending on the scale, you don't know when you're part-time or full-time well, that's interesting because I have a thing about this as well.
Speaker 1So I see, think it's a, it's a word for me, tracy so it's your word, it's my word, it's my word. I do have a thing about it, because you're now going to tell me that is this rotor based or demand based? Do you always flex, then?
Speaker 3um, they tend to work around the school run when we're being a single parent. Yeah, so I start at 9 30, finish at 3 30, then I do the school run at 4. All they request is that I do within my 24 hours, because I won't go for four hours or anything like that because of cost of fuel, so I have to do six hours so what happens?
Speaker 1if you're going to do the evenings, then have you got cover elsewhere?
Speaker 3me ex-husband lives around the corner from where where I, so he gets the call the school that my youngest daughter and my eldest did for a couple of weeks. They do photography and things like that. They're more incorporated in drama and my little inn drama's her thing. That's why I'm a panto mum and a cheer mum, because both of them are cheerleaders. That's what tires me out. Try not to say oh no, you're not. Literally I've had four years of that. Yeah, you know. So yeah, it's tiring.
Speaker 1So how do you get by? You've got 24 hours. You've got one daughter at home still. How do you get by? You've got 24 hours. You've got one daughter at home still. How do you make it pay? Cut to the chase part Just.
Battling Debt After Divorce
Speaker 3Right, so you don't, okay. My idea now of supermarket shopping is to go and get what my daughter needs for her packed lunch at school. I live off the vegetables that I get from the bread and butter thing oh, well done because, basically, when me and my husband split up, I took the house.
Speaker 3When I sat down and worked out what I'd signed up for, you know, I just signed, just signed. I didn't read. I had my own credit cards and everything he had his. We got a loan secured on the house which I thought was a remortgage. My cock up. And I ended up when I got my credit report, I was 102 grand's worth in debt.
Speaker 1Wow, Is that including your mortgage?
Speaker 3That's including the mortgage.
Speaker 1So did you get child support?
Speaker 3Wow, is that including your mortgage? That's including the mortgage. So do you get child support? I get child support, which is £25, I think, and my ex-husband pays maintenance, but the outgoings £8.50 a week is all I can Is all I can afford at this point. I am joining an IVA.
Speaker 1An independent voluntary arrangement.
Speaker 3Yeah, it was the only way that I could keep the house.
Speaker 1And who are you doing that with?
Speaker 3Payplan.
Speaker 1Payplan okay yeah.
Speaker 3And having to do that as well as run the house, do the school runs, and then there's the cheerleading. I'm time off with Panto at the minute because it doesn't start again until September. On a weekend, I have to pick the eldest up from work at two o'clock in the morning because she didn't pass a test. So yeah, it's pretty exhausting.
Speaker 1Any other friends and family around.
Speaker 3My family's around corner. Me and my mum are quite close, but my dad has dementia and prostate cancer, so generally any problems that I do have I don't want to take to their doors. You know what I mean. I have two sisters. One lives on the next street and then my other sister lives the street after that and I'm her unofficial carer it sounds like there's quite a lot of people relying on you yeah, but I think after the split I worked out that I was undiagnosed adhd.
Speaker 3I'm a people pleaser. Um, I think 102 grams worth of debt is enough evidence that I'm a people pleaser. I'll go it down to 94, it's fine it's going in the right direction, at least.
Pride, Work Ethic and Self-Identity
Speaker 3I've been on the waiting list for a year now to actually get a title really, so that I can have some kind of help, because I think when you get to 47 and go, hi, it makes sense, it all makes sense, because an extra year at college, an extra two years at uni, why I couldn't focus? Why I hyper focus, I think personally, I struggle what's your release?
Speaker 1how do you get down time or do something fun?
Speaker 3I don't. I've got no money for it.
Speaker 1Sorry, I didn't mean to trigger you.
Speaker 3I um.
Speaker 1You see what minute she's laughing.
Speaker 3Idiot, it's the opposite of that. Before I realised how much debt I was in, because with my homeschooling my eldest we used to go to the gym because I was like, like I was quite regimental, I was nine o'clock school starts I'm not mum school starts and then money kind of got a bit tight and then I got into aerial hoops you've seen, like Cirque du Soleil and all that, where basically you hang off a hoop.
Speaker 1It all just looks really painful to me.
Speaker 3Oh it is, it really is. Yeah, but empowering you come out with bruises and a sore butt. It got quite difficult because I did try to go back after a car accident but michelda, the woman that owns the place, said, you know, just keep at it. And I was like I can't because I've got no money anyway. So that was the end of my me time because it was like 11 pound a session. That's well, it's not quite a quarter of a tank of fuel in Calber, but it's near, as you know.
Speaker 1I was going to say, compared to the £8.50 you need for food right.
Speaker 3Yeah, so there's no hobby. I don't drink, I have my vape, which is my one vice, but then it's cheaper than smoking anyway and I need something to calm me down anyway, so I don't have any fun. I kind of except for this, of course, if it was called project rather than thing.
Speaker 1I'll take it back to base. See what they say. Tracy says and do you know what they'll say to me? Which bloody Tracy do you mean?
Speaker 3because you've now recorded with four of them, mark the best one, the one that laughs and cries in the same breath. She doesn't know what she's coming out going.
Reflections on Tracy's Resilience
Speaker 1Yeah, the roller coaster, that one. I ask a lot of people this what would you say a lot of people would see as an everyday thing, that you'd see as a luxury nowadays takeaway yeah. When was the last time you had a takeaway? Weeks, months, years.
Speaker 3About two years.
Speaker 1Two years. Yeah so do you do fakeaway?
Speaker 3I had to quit Slimming World because I couldn't afford. Wow. So I lost four stone.
Speaker 1Well, that is an achievement.
Speaker 3I've done it for about six years Now. What happened was it was quite sweet, I'd said I can't be paying the six pound. Well, it's 5.95a week, so I'm gonna have to quit and an anonymous donor paid half with the actual consultant. But then that kind of made me feel a bit weird yeah it was a beautiful gesture, but then I was like I felt like a charity case.
Speaker 1Why did it feel like charity?
Speaker 3Because I can't pay my own way. But I like to pay my own way. I've been brought up with a strong work ethic, so I don't have downtime, but that's fine, because what would I do? My parents have always brought me up that if you can't afford it, don't get it. My ethos changed slightly in the 13 years I was with my husband. I did start with the credit cards and things like that, but that was more situational. You know, if the girls wanted something, even if it was second-hand, I'd find a way to get it. You know, and that won't change. That's me. I'm a worker, I'm not a charity case.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm a worker, not a charity case.
Speaker 2Yeah, it says so much, doesn't it Almost too much. I think there's pride there, but there's also masses of frustration because she's doing everything she can and still it's not enough.
Speaker 1Yeah, everywhere we look, everyone that is just trying to do the right thing and working at IKEA doing the hours that they can and then going at two o'clock in the morning to pick their daughter up from their work and trying to put that work ethic in everywhere, and yet it's just not enough.
Speaker 2Yeah it makes you think about just how close everybody is to the edge and rarely it gets talked about without judgment or pity, and just honesty. I think that's what I really liked about Tracy just how honest she was, but also that mix of tears and laughter, like she said herself. I really liked about Tracy just how honest she was, but also that mix of tears and laughter, like she said herself. I really identified with that.
Speaker 2I'm definitely someone who does that too yeah, okay, it just said to me really that Tracy's got a really brave face on all the time it sounds like she's on that edge a lot as a single parent, the relentless juggle of everything that she's trying to keep going with no backup. You know she tried to do Slimming World. She's tried to, you know, not have takeaways, to strip things down to the basics, and it must be just so hard to have nothing for herself.
Speaker 1And I guess the question just reminded her of that.
Speaker 2Exactly, and she probably tries not to spend too much time thinking about it and obviously ADHD as well. Like she said herself, emotional regulation is really hard and crying is like just one way that you can end up showing your frustration and showing your anger and even laughing. You know, it's just real up and down. She sounds like she's constantly got that sort of noise in her head of just trying to hold on every day.
Speaker 1It was a ton of fun.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1It really was a ton of fun talking to Tracy.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Easy Credit, Hidden Help
Speaker 1I question that as well, because it's just like do you know what? She's got a really tough life, so is it right that it should be a ton of fun? Well, I think it should, because we were always looking at the positive superheroes that our members are right yeah, but just stepping back from it and just looking at burdened with all the debt and the mortgage as husband divorces and goes away and her dad's ill as well, which is another thing she very briefly mentioned.
Speaker 1But that's also another weight on her shoulders which will always be there yeah, my parents have passed away now, but you get that in your middle ages the transfer of responsibility right transfers from you as a child to you becoming a parent for your parent, sort of thing that switch is a tough one that no one really talks about much.
Speaker 2No, like you say, your parents have passed away. My dad passed away last year of prostate cancer. Funny enough, not funny enough. But so I really identify with Tracy's story because it's just there'll be good days, there'll be bad days in his journey, and if she's juggling everything with being a parent and debt as well, it's so much to take on board and the fact that she can still laugh through it and is still doing everything she can, I think she's amazing.
Speaker 1Yeah, couldn't agree more. So shout out to Pay plan as well, who are very similar to step change in never heard of them before.
Speaker 1Yeah, really good to hear about that great to hear that she's getting the right advice and the right support and being able to consolidate debts and things and going through that independent voluntary arrangement that so many people have to nowadays. But it takes me back to the same questions as well, because so many of our members, nina, when we talk to them, they get credit so easy. They just get this money so easy out of what should be a highly regulated loan sector. If you've got a few pennies to spare on your monthly income, they seem to say, well, that's fine, we'll give you a couple of grand, and it just seems too easy.
Speaker 2It's funny, isn't it? Because it's like those kind of things are right there, right in front of you. They're a click away from a website, they're advertised on TV, yet the help that people need to get themselves out of debt is hidden.
Speaker 1Like we always say, the hidden help yeah, I've got apple pay on my phone. But now even apple pay saying have these monthly steps to pay for your whatever you're going to purchase on your apple cost.
Speaker 2Like every shopping place you go to, it's got spread the cost. Buy this, still buy this, rather than you can't afford this.
Speaker 2So don't, and I think that's definitely the beauty of tracy's message as well, because she was like look, my parents basically said if you can't afford it, you can't have it she said she diluted those values during her marriage and she's regretting that and now is burdened with debt that she can't afford yeah, but she is trying to fix things quietly with the help of pay plan and, like we said, still laughing through it and talking honestly. She was so honest. Just wish that there was more help for people like tracy yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2So if you'd like to know more about the bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at Team TBBT on Instagram, tiktok, twitter and LinkedIn, or online at breadandbutterorg.
Speaker 1I actually missed out breadandbutterthingorg. But there we go, and if you have any thoughts or feedback on a podcast or you want to come and have a gas with us, then drop us an email at podcast at breadandbutterthingorg.
Speaker 2Yes, and 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 common member pages on our website.
Speaker 1And please, lastly, do all those things that podcasts would ask you to do. So, like us, subscribe to us, leave us a review, share us with your friends or chat about us on social yes, please See you next time.
Speaker 2Bye, thank you.
