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
Money, Minds, and the Jam Jar Fix
Ever felt that knot in your stomach when the phone rings or another brown envelope lands on the mat? We go straight at that feeling with the Money and Me team from Mind in Salford, unpacking how money stress and mental health lock into a vicious cycle—and how small, steady changes can unlock control and calm. From the first brave step of opening bills together to six weeks of guided sessions, we map the journey from avoidance to action in a way that’s humane, practical, and surprisingly hopeful.
We start with the realities our community knows too well: “tap-and-forget” spending that hides in bank statements, micro-subscriptions that quietly multiply, and takeaways ordered when energy or mood is low. The team shares simple tools that punch above their weight—three-month spend analysis to surface patterns, weekly meal plans that shrink food waste, and jam-jar budgeting with cash or digital pots (including locked essentials). We talk needs versus wants without judgement, and we wrestle with the hardest parts: saying no to kids, protecting dignity, and keeping some colour in life when budgets are tight.
What makes the difference is how support shows up: in trusted hubs, face to face, with a pace that respects mental health. Group sessions reduce stigma; one-to-one work builds tailored habits. We hear the wins—members feeling better, regaining control, and even turning a “wants” pot into a buffer that prevents the next crisis. Along the way, we call out the bigger picture: too many people working hard, still forced into impossible choices. Community doesn’t fix policy, but it does restore agency—28 families engaged in one visit when help met them where they are.
If you found this useful, subscribe, leave a review, and share with someone who might need a gentle nudge toward support. Got thoughts, questions, or a story to add? Email podcast@breadandbutterthing.org and come have a brew with us.
Welcome back to a slice of bread and butter with Vic and Mark from the Bread and Butter Thing. We're a charity that delivers affordable food to the heart of struggling neighbourhoods to help nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change.
SPEAKER_00:We provide access to a nutritious, affordable range of food, which means our members can save money on their shopping, feed the families healthily, as well as access other support to right in the heart of their communities.
SPEAKER_01:And this is where we share a slice of life with someone involved in the bread and butter and hear about how they connect with us.
SPEAKER_00:And this week we brought in the team from Mind that are helping with our hubs and doing Money and Me. Let's go and have a listen.
SPEAKER_03:Hi, I'm Rachel Hansen. I'm currently a Money and Me navigator working on a brand new service that we've set up in Mind in Salford recently. I'm Sita and I'm from Minding Salford as well. Mind in Salford offers a number of services. It covers advocacy, debt and advice, counselling for the LGBTQ Plus community, which again is something that we've recently set up. And the Money and Me service very much complements what we do in Mind in Salford. So we work alongside the debt and advice team. It was set up primarily looking at the connection between money and mental health.
SPEAKER_04:When we worry about money and it will worsen our mental health in terms of worrying, being anxious of not getting the bills settled, and then it it will become a vicious cycle when it starts to become uncontrollable.
SPEAKER_00:Is it fair to say it's a bit chicken and egg as well? So which comes first, the stress or the shortage of money?
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely, and that's something that we explore in our initial session that we have with clients.
SPEAKER_04:Our programme is open for anyone who is age 18 or above and will experience mild to moderate mental health issues.
SPEAKER_03:And as part of our assessment session, we do explore the mental health conditions and problems. But yeah, it's very much looking at the impacts that the mental health has on their ability to manage money.
SPEAKER_00:Are there early signs that you can spot for such things?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. The things that we tend to find are challenges in terms of being able to keep track of spending and also the ability to schedule payments, you know, that's where it starts to become difficult for people.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and we find a lot of clients who struggle with spending money in terms of when they are having low mood and they want to spend money to make themselves feel better, and they will just avoid looking at the bank statements or bank account because it is scary for them to face how much they have spent or how they're going to manage the bills coming up soon.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and we hear a lot about this. We hear people that have a special cupboard that they'll put the unopened mail in, they'll not answer the phone, they'll leave everything on voicemail and not listen to the voicemails.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And an avoidance is absolutely one of those signs. We've had some clients who've actually brought in those unopened bills and we've sat with them to help them gain the confidence and encourage them to actually open those bills, go through them, prioritize them. And if there are things that are sort of debts in there, then we can pass them to our debt and advice team to get the support then to actually contact the agencies to actually come up then with payment arrangements.
SPEAKER_00:Tell us a bit then about how the course works.
SPEAKER_04:So it's a six-week course. So we start with an assessment session, set some goals that they want to achieve through the service. From there we will have around six sessions.
SPEAKER_00:And is this face-to-face, Eita?
SPEAKER_04:Um it's both face-to-face or online, which will do online Teams meeting, Zoom meeting, or we do it over the phone as well. Okay. We do it slowly and in their own pace and in their own comfort zone. Start slowly getting out from there.
SPEAKER_03:You know, it is very person centred, so you know, it is about working at the pace that the individual wants to go at and recognising as well, you know, what mental health difficulties that they're actually managing and working with. The first to the fifth session is very much, as Lita said, goal-oriented. So it can be things like creating a budget planner, analysing spending. So looking at the last three months spending, because what we tend to find is, and I think especially where we're going around now and tapping our cards on the machines, we don't realise necessarily how much we're spending.
SPEAKER_00:It's so easy nowadays, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:It is, and we tend to find when when we ask on how much do you spend on your shopping or how much do you spend on clothes, kind of the figure that people think that they're spending, but then when we do that three months analysis of statements, it's quite different, and I think that's where it starts to become really then supportive and revealing because they start to identify the trends where they thought they were spending less, actually realising that things like food shopping a number of times during the week, you're only spending small amounts. But actually, when you add it up, if you went and did say say a food shop once a week, we offer then going through a meal planner, um, creating a shopping list. So you're actually only then buying the products that you need, looking in your fridge, what have you already got, what don't you need to buy, looking at things like dates, best before dates, and making sure then that as far as your food planner goes, that you're actually avoiding food waste, and that helps to cut down people's bills and then spend more within the budget that they've set.
SPEAKER_00:People will know that I am a big fan of reducing food waste. One of the things that has been calculated is it's something ridiculous like£300 every family waste in food every year in the fridges. When you add it up, that's a lot of money.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, absolutely. And you know, for example, we've got clients where we've enabled them to cut food shopping down from say£200 a week to£50 a week. Wow. Um it's a big change, and that is through looking at what have I got in my fridge, what have I got in my freezer, making stuff that then that you're having something for your evening meal, but then for your lunch, using the leftovers, but getting creative so things like might create a bolonnaise, but then turn it into a chili, or have it with rice with one meal and then a jack of potato with another meal, and then you're cutting down on that food waste.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and it cut down a lot on takeaways as well, the temptation of getting takeaways because we are busy or we don't have the motivation to cook. If we have already meals planned there, so we look forward for what we're going to eat and we have more motivation and we know there will be food there ready for us as well.
SPEAKER_03:And it's also where we see as well, again, the connection with your mental health. So things like ordering from Uber Eats, because actually you're struggling with anxiety, you're struggling with depression, you don't want to leave the house, and therefore either buying takeaways or even doing your shopping on Uber Eats because you're not able to get out, that's where this kind of vicious cycle that we talked about, you really start to see it playing out. But then it's how can you do things differently that when you are feeling like that, that you've got things in that means you don't then have to go out and spend additional money on doing that.
SPEAKER_00:So this is a very personal service, isn't it? We talked about avoidance earlier, right? Is it so it's the type of thing that people would typically avoid until it's almost too late. How do you make it approachable?
SPEAKER_03:We've been going out promoting the service. We've actually been to the bread and butter thing, we've been to the church, we've been to one of the schools where you also go. It can be tricky because when people are feeling isolated, there is a degree of shame that people are in this position. It is about demonstrating that we are there to support, encourage, and there's no judgment.
SPEAKER_00:This is where we really like the collaboration because actually we know our members feel that when we come in, it's a safe space and everybody knows each other, and it's not your space, it's their space, and therefore they feel more comfortable and approach you easier.
SPEAKER_04:Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And we're offering group sessions, advice on how to manage money and mental health crisis. If they feel comfortable coming to those group sessions and they want to engage with us in one-to-one settings, we can do it for them. So it it's step by step also, and it's try to get them to be comfortable with us first, and we don't force any sharing if they don't want to share.
SPEAKER_03:The group sessions are for three weeks, and it might be that people feel more comfortable coming to that because they're in a group that can come, you know, a few people support each other. But after the end of the three weeks, once we've gone through some of those techniques, if they feel then that they they need some support in completing themselves, then we can work with them to do that. It is about removing the stigma. It's double-edged, isn't it? The stigma that's attached for being in the situation that people find themselves in, but also then helping out and reaching for support because you can't do it on your own. So I think it is getting that message out there that there is a very supportive environment that people can come into and walk away with things that are everyday habits that people can then build into their daily lives, which will then benefit them.
SPEAKER_00:What are the common issues that you come across that money and me can help with?
SPEAKER_04:I guess budgeting is a big, big challenge for everyone. First step we need to ask them is do you know what is coming in? And they will think, Oh, I will have around this amount of money, benefits may change every month, like universal credit. So it's very important to let them identify what is coming in first. And but another area that I kind of see a lot is talking about money with their children. It's kind of difficult, especially they don't want their so it's children will request for something that they can't afford, but because they don't want to disappoint their children and make themselves even more stressed in terms of finances.
SPEAKER_03:And I think that's a good one of sort of like the common traps as well, is setting up payments and forgetting that you've set those payments up.
SPEAKER_00:Kana is a killer.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. And with children, streaming services, so it might be Netflix, it might be Disney Plus.
SPEAKER_00:It's amazing how they all add up, right? Because they're all like around a fiver to a tenner, but then if you want several of them because you want something to different to me, etc., wow, they soon add up.
SPEAKER_03:They do, you know, psychologically, we kind of think that these are small amounts, but when you actually see all of them together, and that's one of the things that we do with that three-month analysis, we group them together so you can see those spends. So things like your Xbox subscriptions, Google Play, you don't realise that you've actually set up some sort of regular payment because you're not checking your bank statements, you're not realising that that amount's then going out every month. And that's where those five pounds, and you know, if you've got say three of those at£15, and you know, you choose to then one of those five pounds to start to save that, that's where you can then start to build up that little bit of an emergency fund.
SPEAKER_04:I guess the emotional support that friends or family members give is very important. So reaching out to people you're close to before, even before seeing us, so it's not the pressure is not on you, and there's someone who will support you at the side.
SPEAKER_03:You know, a lot of people now use their apps on the phones in terms of banking. I would say have a look at your banking app. Have a look at what tools are already on your banking app. So there is sort of spend analysis now that is available on most banking apps. It can help you to start to have a look at right, how much am I spending on my shopping? How much am I spending on streaming devices? One of the things that we focus on in sessions is needs and wants. So have a look at what are your pain that you absolutely need, and then from there, what is it that you're paying that you want to have, and really start to think about of those things that I want to have, do I really need them? And then you can start to think about what the things that you don't really need. That's where you've got the choice.
SPEAKER_00:Zita, tell us what jam jar budgeting is.
SPEAKER_04:Jam jar is well, literally meaning we we use jars to split monies. Like, okay, this jar is for my grocery shopping, then this jar is for my getting electric bills, then the next jar is for council text.
SPEAKER_00:I really like this thought because if they're clear jars, you can see exactly what's in them, and if they're empty, they're empty and you've got to deal with it.
SPEAKER_03:There's two ways of doing it, and some people do prefer the visual, literally having the jars. It also goes back to the needs and wants because that when the jars are empty, that's where you can start to decide between and do I need to take something out of another jam jam jar and is that a need or is that a one? But if you don't have the cash and you use um electronic methods of payments, a lot of bank accounts now you can set up jam jars. Once those jars are empty, then they know that either they've spent whatever they've set to spend on that amount that, or they can look to then move things around within those jars. Yeah. So it works whichever method, cash or electronic payments.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and there are some banks offer lock the pot functions. So they can lock the pot, so lock the council tax pot, so they don't take money from the essential bills.
SPEAKER_00:And what's the best part of your work that people on the outside won't actually see?
SPEAKER_04:I think this service is very important to break the taboo topic of money and mental health.
SPEAKER_03:One of the activities that we do is what are the other things that you do in your life that give you that same sort of happy thoughts and feelings. So when you are feeling a bit down, rather than going on your phone and spending actually going out for a walk, going seeing a friend, going doing something that you enjoy that gives you a similar feeling.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's all about equipping and empowering them to do it independently and taking the first step forward.
SPEAKER_03:It is hearing somebody say, I'm feeling so much better at the end of those six sessions. I feel that I've taken back some control in my life. Just knowing that you've made that difference to one person absolutely does get me out of bed in the morning.
SPEAKER_00:So, Dick. Yes, you've got some stats.
SPEAKER_01:I have one quite good start.
SPEAKER_00:That's a good start.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So the one good start that I have is that in one session alone, these guys managed to engage 28 different families at one of our hubs.
SPEAKER_00:Right, so this is this is the power of the connection, right? This is the community connection.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:A demonstration that if we actually bring a service provider and do face-to-face engagement in the heart of the community, look at the fantastic result that you can get.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Look at how important their provision is. Because we know that if people are skin and they can't afford things, especially food, how that impacts on their mental health. And this is one of the first set of people that really tackle that head on, which I thought was quite good.
SPEAKER_00:It is, it's really it's proper chicken and egg stuff, this, isn't it? Because do they get stressed and put their head in the sand and start avoiding bills? Or is it that the bills come in and then they start putting their head in the sand because they're stressed? In that anxiety, there's a real relationship between finance and stress in in this space of ours.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I don't think it's chicken and egg. I think it's just that uh people can't afford and that's being done to them.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So let me rephrase it and let me try it a different way. Do you think then that actually the stress comes first, or do you think that the money shortage comes first, or do you think they both come together at the same time?
SPEAKER_01:I think it varies from person to person, but I think for a lot of our members they've been cutting all fun out of life, and uh then they're still challenged and they're conscious about thinking about money all the time, and that is really stressful.
SPEAKER_00:This is what I hate. This is what I genuinely hate. I'm doing the the air quotes now, but because I'm government bashed, and again, I'm sorry, and it's not a Labour government, it's a government and local authority, and we're not seeing this. This is what I cannot stand that people are in work and cannot afford to get by, and yet we expect them just to survive. And all we are doing with services like this is giving them survival techniques.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. I think I was listening to this last night, and I was yo-yoing between fantastic, this is a great service, well done to them for doing it. But then there were some things that the guys were saying which really saddened me. Things about well, we ask them what they really need and what they want, and then basically, if the need money isn't enough, then they can't have any want money. And they didn't say it quite in those terms, but that's exactly what I took from it.
SPEAKER_00:No, I I get it, and I I I'm with you. I I I I felt that one too, because it's just like what you can't have any wants anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly, you can't have any nice colour in your life, no fun, no, all you can do is pay bills. Dull.
SPEAKER_00:I can see that, and I wholeheartedly feel it. And anybody listening, it's the same thing, isn't it? It's just like you go out every day and people will say, Oh, I need that first coffee, or I need that first costume, and all the rest of it. You don't.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then and that's the message, right? It's like, okay, you're struggling, you don't need that coffee, you don't need that subscription, you don't need that clothing.
SPEAKER_01:So that was the other thing, all of the five pound subscriptions. Are we not allowing people to watch tele? You're not allowed to go out, you're not allowed to get a coffee, you can't do this because all you can do is pay for your heating and the roof over your head, but then you've got to sit there and not have decent Wi-Fi or not have Sky or something.
SPEAKER_00:I'm gonna have to pull us both back here though, because what we're definitely not saying is that we're having a rant about the money and me provision. This is about the state of affairs, right? 100%. Yeah, I've got a mini beef about this, and I hate it. There's all these mini subscriptions, it's only a couple of quid a month, two quid here, five quid there. They soon add up, yeah, and you don't see them because they're so small.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And when you put them all together, they really, really do add up. And this a la car approach that we've got now really is dangerous.
SPEAKER_01:I like the food pun there. Did you do that on purpose? Just on that as well, when you guys were talking, you were talking about making sure that the kids had got the subscriptions and things, and how do you say no to them? And I think that's as a parent, that's where some of the stress comes from. Because that would be in the want pile and not the need pile. Yeah. But how do you say no? Because do you want to do that to your children? Do you want them to feel left out?
SPEAKER_00:This I know is really, really close to you as well. This is the one that you keep coming back to of shielding your kids from it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And if the kid comes with a want, that's a need. Yeah. Because suddenly you're trying to shield them from the struggles that the family's got.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because you kind of ruin the childhood if they're kind of thinking about, oh, mum and dad can't afford some digestive biscuits in the supermarket at age, I don't know, six or seven. You'd want your kids to be innocent for as long as possible.
SPEAKER_00:If you go back far enough in the podcast archive, a three-year-old that went shopping with a mum, and mum was putting biscuits in the trolley, and the three-year-old said, Do we really need these mum?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's just awful. That makes me go cold. That is just awful. Yeah. This one made me think about James as well, who's been on the podcast before, because he was talking about he'd got like the takeaway part, the like the jar for the takeaway, yeah, and so many weeks that would have been his Friday treat. But then he needed to take the money out of the takeaway jar and use it on something boring like rent or heat or something.
SPEAKER_00:But this is the state of affairs now because everybody's lent as much as humanly possible on friends and family. All their reserves have gone, all the favours have been called in.
SPEAKER_01:And why 28 of our members in one go saw this support and recognised that they needed it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So the support is fantastic.
SPEAKER_00:It is. I was I was just thinking about the stigma around being broke.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's a difficult one for me. I know what that can feel like, and I know that it's is it a pride? Is it I don't think it's a pride almost? It's it's like fitting in society and not asking much from society for me. And I know I've in the past experienced this and being on a breadline sort of thing, and not wanting to own up to the fight that you're broke.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But that stigma of having to own own up to I am broke to access services or support, it's a really difficult one to get over, which is kind of brilliant that we had 28 people engage with them. But I it's one I was trying to get to the nub of with the guys as well to say, how do you actually get over that first lump? Because it's a really hard first step.
SPEAKER_01:Agreed, but I also think we see that with people coming to bread and butter. The amount of people that said, I was worried about coming, how silly I was, it was absolutely brilliant, and it's made me realise that I'm not the only person in this situation. So I feel like the bread and butter community are possibly a little bit more than that.
SPEAKER_00:It gives it a normal, it normalizes it for everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, and therefore they'd have more confidence to say, Oh, I'll have a bit of this support. Are you coming along and kind of bring a community to it? Bring some of the community with them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, I I I like that, and I I've always always enjoyed the kind of community bit of bread and butter for such things. You're reminding me that it definitely helps soften that first step.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think certainly for this kind of support, I think there's other support that people would feel is a bit more personal and wouldn't all be like me, me, me, me, me. But I think we've normalised the fact. Well, not we've not normalised it, it's a fact that too many people in the world are struggling, and uh we don't judge people for being in that situation so that they feel that they can go and get extra support. I think it's more that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, okay, that's fair. I I did like the uh jam jars only because they fitted beautifully in the ecosystem, what is bread and butter. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Although prices of jam is going up massively. Have you heard?
SPEAKER_00:No, I've not.
SPEAKER_01:Oh well, this'll be a future topic of conversation. Due to the packaging charges on glass, jam is gonna go through the roof.
SPEAKER_00:I thought you were gonna go the high-fat salt sugar tax.
SPEAKER_01:No. Random fun fact for everybody. There's nothing to do with this podcast. Um yeah, I like the jam jar because it's really visible. You can imagine it in your head, you can see you could see somebody doing that.
SPEAKER_00:That's how my head works a bit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It doesn't work on a phone.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's far less tangible, isn't it, on a phone? But I still hate the jam jar because I know that you're taking out of the fun jam jar every week. And that feels almost to see the money go down in that to go in another jar makes me feel a little bit sad.
SPEAKER_00:I've got no comeback for that, Rick, because I'm with you. I walked in that that moment then because I can feel that pain. The very fact that you've got to open the wants jam jar and take stuff out of that.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, my jam jars didn't have lids on in my head. They were just open, and the money was just it was so easy that you were gonna be taking it out. Almost the want jam jar.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no, no. Mine had to have lids.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Well, in my head, if we're gonna like go with this, the want jam jar has no lid because you're in it every five minutes, and why are you screwing it back on? And all of the need ones have lids because it's harder for you to get in and get the money out.
SPEAKER_00:I see that. I suppose we're doing the same thing but differently because I wanted a lid on everything. Because actually, I didn't want anything coming out of anything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, and maybe I was just a bit more realist about it. Yeah, yeah, thinking actually, this is a really hard conversation to listen to because I did really yo-yo in it. I kind of thought, great for them, and brilliant that members have got support about something that's really needed. But it made me feel sad a lot and just kind of disappointed in life for people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I feel that too, and it and I definitely felt going through the jam jar process as well that eventually I got to a stage where I my wants jam jar actually turned into a what's the point jam jar. Yeah, that was a tough one when I actually got to that, but that I that felt like the truth of it. It's just like call it buffer because actually one of these other jam jars with needs on it is going to need filling up more.
SPEAKER_01:In a business sense, it'd be a contingency, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, instead of once. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So 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, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, or online at breadandbutterthing.org.
SPEAKER_00:You're very good at remembering that, because I never write it down about TikTok.
SPEAKER_01:You just test me every week to see whether I'm old or in with the kids.
SPEAKER_00:And if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast or would like to come and, I don't know, be a guest, have a chat, come and have a brew with us, drop us an email at podcast at breadandbutterthing.org.
SPEAKER_01: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 club, you can find your nearest hub on the become a member pages of the website.
SPEAKER_00:And please do all those things that podcasts ask you to do. Like us, subscribe to us, leave us a review and share us with your friends. Oh, and don't forget, we won the British Podcast Awards last week. We got a silver in our category, which was great. We lost out to movers and shakers, but hey.
SPEAKER_01:They're a bit more famous than we are.
SPEAKER_00:They are a bit more famous than us, and possibly Paxman's a bit more grumpy than us as well.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I think we give him a run for his money some weeks.
SPEAKER_00:See you next week.
SPEAKER_01:See ya.
