Three jobs alongside a full-time nursing degree sounds intense enough, but Michaela’s life keeps stacking up: a menagerie of pets, a move to a new area, and now becoming newly approved foster carers with their first placement. We talk about what it really takes to keep going when you’re doing the “right” things, yet the money still doesn’t work and you find yourself living week to week.

Michaela opens up about student finance only stretching so far, why she turned to delivery driving in the gig economy, and what it feels like to carry the weight of maxed-out credit cards and overdrafts just to get through training. We also dig into the nursing job landscape and the hidden costs of working, from travel to uniforms to the way life has to bend around work, not the other way round.

Then we shift to something hopeful: how The Bread and Butter Thing turns surplus food from supermarkets, farms, and factories into affordable food parcels that can genuinely cut a weekly shop in half. For Michaela, it’s not only about value for money, it’s about community: unloading the van, sharing a brew, making friends, and finding a place in local life that even leads to joining the parish council.

Bags so heavy people bring trolleys. And a volunteer team laughing so much they come home with aching faces. That’s the reality behind this chat with Geoff, a former military medic and civil servant who’s found a second family through The Bread and Butter Thing.

We talk about Geoffs years in the military, travelling with different regiments, and what it’s like to step into a new routine after service and retirement. From there, the story turns local.

How Geoff first heard about the community food club through a neighbour, why he started coming along, and how volunteering at the hub became a highlight of the week. You’ll hear what makes this affordable food scheme feel different, not just the surplus food saved from supermarkets, farms, and factories, but the dignity, warmth, and neighbour-to-neighbour care that keeps people coming back.

We also get practical about the UK cost of living crisis and the real value inside those bags, plus the behind-the-scenes logistics of packing, weighing, and getting food safely to members. And then we will discuss the problems of bags.

A weekly shop for less than a tenner sounds like a bargain, but the real story is what happens around the bags. We’re joined by Trina, who lives locally and volunteers every Friday at The Bread and Butter Thing. She shares how she first heard about the mobile food club after separating from her partner, and why packing bags with the team has become a highlight of her week, not just a “good deed”.

We talk about dignity and belonging, including Trina’s moving memories of bringing her mum, who had dementia and used a wheelchair, to the hub. Being welcomed, included and truly seen turns a practical affordable food scheme into something deeper: a community that shows up, week after week. Along the way, we explore how surplus food diverted from landfill can ease food insecurity without the stigma people often attach to support.

Then we get practical about the cost of living crisis: savvy cooking, freezing and batch prep, whoopsies and yellow sticker shopping, and the mental load of making a tight budget work. We also zoom out to youth opportunity, work experience, apprenticeships and simple first steps that can help young people build skills and purpose. If you care about community support, food waste, affordable groceries, and what it really takes to get by right now, you’ll find plenty to take from this one. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave us a review so more people can find the podcast.