Mumsnet get some stick but have a look at this..

glassortwo I would hate to be a young mum now, it can so hard making ends meet.
I have found that total strangers can be supportive (just look at us lot on here)

annika there are offers to have food dropped and offers of online deliveries along side all the recipe help, it warms your heart to see it.

Admittedly 35 years ago, this was exactly my situation, as I had had my purse"raided" by the au pair of a friend I had visited while she was showing me round their new house. When I got home and went to pay the milkman, all the notes had gone and I had precisely £8 for the week. I bought eggs, bread, bacon, milk (but didn't have to pay for it until the next week, because delivered) some potatoes, I had butter/spread and a little cheese and I think I had or bought some sausages and maybe fish fingers. DD1 was 2 and DD2 was just a babe in arms. I made it to the end of the week as I also had pasta and tinned tomatoes in the cupboard, but given the price of eggs and bacon, not to mention sausages, I don't know if £8 would have done it.
I know it was the au pair, by the way as another friend had had exactly the same experience a few hours after me and challenged her. I never got my money back and was too embarrassed to insist!!
I now have so much in my fridge and freezer we could probably manage for a month.

Quite a heart-warming thread, if it wasn't so tragic. What a nightmare for these young families. I've been using the bus so much, now that I've got my pass - but am quite shocked at the cost of the fares just to go to the local town centre about 2 miles away. Young mums have to pay about £6 plus for a return into the town (we're in a small village with a few shops, but these aren't cheap to buy foodstuffs from). So, to be able to save money on buying food, for instance at (very good) shops like Aldi or Lidl, £5 bus fare must before they can do so.

To add insult to injury, Arriva buses here are doing away with return fares! So a round trip into the nearest town will cost £6.00 plus as opposed to £4.50. The greed of these companies is astonishing, especially in times like these when youn families are struggling.

gracesmum , 35 years ago my weekly shopping budget for a family of 4 was £8, which was perfectly adequate as I made everything from scratch. That was then, but now £8 wouldn't go far. It is probably o.k. for one week using up storecupboard ingredients but if it was on a regular basis and had to also provide cleaning products, it would be a struggle. Of course the family might end up healthier as in wartime, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone!

When we got married in 1965 and returned from our week's honeymoon in Edinburgh, I had £5 to last a fortnight. That had to buy all our food and my fares to work and my store cupboard was absolutely bare as we had both lived at home prior to marriage. Hard times but we had proper meals - breast of lamb was a cheap buy and I quickly learned how to use offal and herrings, (very cheap then) plus potatoes and veg to fill us up.

By the time we had two young children I could make half a pound of mince feed the four of us in a large variety of ways, bulked out with onions and carrots and sometimes tinned tomatoes. Money was tight but I baked my own bread and cakes and we always had fresh veg. I am sure that our diet was healthier then than today.

Now I can't be bothered with all the time and energy it takes to make nutritious and palatable food from cheap cuts and we often just have bread and cheese or salad or omelettes or even an occasional delicious "home-made" steak pie from the butcher. And I don't feel guilty!

Living cheaply is possible but it does take more time and effort and I am not sure young Mums today have the time or the inclination! And neither do I these days!

I've just read this and feel ashamed at the amount of food I waste. I don't know how food banks work. Do you donate stuff?

Running out of money was common when we were first married, we often struggled. When I left work to have first baby DH had to get a second job to buy essentials. We cooked everything from scratch and could produce miracle meals from very few ingredients.
I never asked anyone for help though, not even a consideration.

When we first married I budgeted on 2/6 all in for evening meals and 5s on Sunday. I was still a medical student but my oh was earning a small salary!
On Fridays we empty our pockets and see if we had the price of a pint between us . This was in 1967.

In 1976 my weekly supermarket shop came to £12.00 - then we had fruit and veg to buy and the weekly milk bill. No expensive nappies of course as babies wore terry towelling ones. My husband was also having to support his ex-wife and two children - they got £25.00 a month!! Although I was the one with the baby I went back to part time work - a friend cared for my son for £5.00 a week - I only got £20 - which paid for all the food. We managed just, but found it was getting us down and couldn't see any way out it. I also wanted another baby.So he got a job in New York and we lived there for 7 years. Ex-wife remarried and cut herself and 2 kids off in all ways. When I had my first child all the equipment was either 2nd hand or given - perfectly good stuff. My son and his wife are doing well financially but I'm delighted to say that they bought things like prams etc 2nd hand - given cots but bought new mattesses that sort of thing.
I remember as a student waiting for 'payday' trying to decide between buying beans and bread for dinner or going to the pub for a very small drink. Any guesses what we chose?

When I was first married Tesco gave green shield stamps with the shopping and on Thursdays it was double green shield stamp day but only if the shopping came to £5 or over.
I used to walk to and fro around the super market with my weekly shop trying to spend £5 so as I would get double stamps ! Hard to believe isn't it , pop a loaf of bread in your basket and some potatoes and carrots now and thats £5 gone

I looked into mumsnet and was thrilled to see the support available for these people who are having problems and that there is so much support for them,alot of these mums maybe have not been taught by their mums how to cook from scratch with what is available from the store cupboard,at DDs school she and some of the other more able mums have started to do lessons in how to budget and how to put together simple but healthy meals and to cook in bulk so making the money go further.Every 2nd Saturday DD goes and helps at the local Food Bank they also have a store for and unused wallpaper and paint which is sold at a token price this helps families who are moving into larger properties and finding it difficult to decorate because of the high cost of materials.local

glamma isn't the support amasing.

But it makes you wonder how it all went wrong, I taught my DD how to put a meal together and she is more than capable of feeding the family on a shoestring if she needs to. But where have these girls mothers been that they are unable to pass cooking skills on and they have to then buy all these expensive convenience foods.

When my two were small there were weeks when I had to feed 4 of us on just the family allowance.

I think food banks are a great help and support to these young families.

glass I think maybe these girls have not been taught by their mums because the mums where at work full time and the children where either"latch key kids" or childminded and when mum got home from work it has been a microwave meal or takeaway for convienience,but you can't always blame the mums if they have to go to work can you ? that is the only reason I can think of really,as you say your DD is the same mould as mine and can make food stretch on elastic if she needs to.

But glamma what happens to the next generation if this one does not have the ability to pass things on.... how are they going to manage!!

I don't know how to fix it glass all I know is that yours and mine are caperable and so will their off springs but the rest is a massive problem the girls at school do not even learn about budgeting etc now in home economics or learn about foods available in different seasons do they? It is a massive worry and I cannot start to think how it will be solved,I do believe that the problems are going to get worse over the next few years and food banks will be more widely used.

I think you right, but I dont know how they can re-address the problem. I hated the cookery and needlework classes at school and wanted to be in the woodwork and metalwork classes with the boys had, but at the end of the day if it had not been for them and my MIL I would have been clueless

My Mum was the worst cook

My husband taught both our lads how to cook 7 basic meals from scratch, including fish with salad, shepherds pie with vegetables etc. This stood them in good stead when they finished uni, got jobs and left home. He had had to cook for the family when his gran and granddad brought him up, while all the aunts and uncles were still at home. He would come home from junior school, clean up, light the fire and prepare the meal. Later, when at senior school, he cooked it too.

Mum taught me, and I leaned more as an au pair in Vienna. Unfortunately my husband wasn't too keep on Viennese food - I still remember the row when he didn't like my Kaiserschmarrn!!

It is hard to imagine how young women without all that training manage to cope. I'm sure schools could teach all boys and girls cooking and budgeting during one school year - it would prevent a huge amount of social problems.

We both worked full time and one of us always cooked a meal in the evening. Both my son and daughter work full time and they always cook from fresh ingredients as well. I think a lot of it is about the promotion of cheap ready meals and convenience foods in supermarkets and the loss of family meal times for whatever reason. If you want to cook and eat together you will find the time, even if it only a couple of times a week. I also think it was a shame when the Design Technology curriculum took out a lot of cookery lessons. I used to hate design a pizza, design a biscuit and all that stuff; I think you learn to cook and then maybe you think about designing your own. I am always quite shocked when I see older people buying ready-made stuff like macoroni cheese - how difficult is that to make for goodness sake?

It would be a good thing if local councils could make money available for basic cookery lessons! Money is wasted on many things (especially on councillors' expenses and freebies etc). If money could be made available, and suitable premises found, willing people with time on their hands could teach basic cookery/food budgeting skills to local young parents. Most areas have a village hall which has a cooker and sink. If a small amount of money could be made available to provide a few pounds of cheap meat and veg etc, lessons could be given and the resulting meals won at the end of the lesson. A free raffle could take place for this, perhaps? I would love to do something like this - in fact I think I'll go to the next community council meeting and see if there's a chance!

green The only thing that would stop me doing something similar would be the "elf & safety" brigade they would surely put a spanner in the works ?

There is a good website(Measuring Worth)which shows you what you need to spend now for what you spent in the year dot. My housekeeping was £11 in 1971-it would be the equivalent of £121 today-which shocks me .

I was in tears reading that thread. Trouble is raising a family is not easypeasy option. much easier going to work. If you think of housekeeping as a job and raising a family a profession then an awful lot of people would get the sack. that poor young woman needs to get organised -it's the old Mr Micawber thing.
Schools should teach people how to manage money and budget-would love to help-still remember my husband giving the children's dinner money on Sunday to a poor old man at the last week before any money went in and things were very tight-no credit cards no holes in the wall etc. i was very thin lipped for a long time.