Without food banks, I would have gone hungry to afford my child's school uniform

When my daughter was about to start secondary school, I wasn’t excited. I was terrified. With the list of essential items she needed before the start of the term in my hand, only one thought came into my head. How am I going to afford this?

Buying a new school uniform alone would cost my entire food budget for the week – and that’s before factoring in other essentials like sports kit, stationery and a new school bag. On top of that, we had accrued up to £1,000 in debt to our energy provider because prices had tripled. Food prices were rising too, and it was becoming more and more difficult to get by.

As a single mum, I was working all the hours I could at my part-time job in retail, but my income still needed to be topped up by Universal Credit, and even then, it still wasn’t enough to cover the rising cost of living.

I didn't feel like we were living, we were surviving. I started skipping meals to make sure my daughter could eat.

That’s when I heard about the Trussell food bank. I felt incredibly nervous going to the food bank for the first time. It’s a horrible feeling knowing that you don’t have enough to make ends meet. But I needn’t have worried. The staff and volunteers were incredibly welcoming. I was given a cup of tea and enough food to help us get to the end of the week.

The advice worker there, Ali, put me in touch with a local charity that could help with vouchers for the cost of my daughter’s school uniform. That was a massive help.

Being on an extremely low income means you become great at budgeting. But the reality is that you can’t budget with no money.

If my daughter’s school bag breaks, it could mean we are back in the same position of not having enough money to buy food and being forced to go to the food bank again.

Or if I have to buy my daughter new school shoes. I buy the cheaper brands for her, because that’s all I can afford. But they wear out much more quickly than the higher-quality ones, so I end up having to replace them again just a couple of months later. It feels like an endless cycle I cannot escape.

One of the hardest times was when my washing machine broke and I could not afford to buy a new one. Thankfully, Ali put me in touch with a charity which allows people to purchase electrical items at a budget price. However, they did not have any washing machines for some time.

For 40 days, I would do all of our washing and drying by hand. I would wash the clothes and hang them out overnight, hoping for a warm day, because we couldn’t afford to put the heating on to dry them.

It shouldn’t have to be this way. But millions of families like mine are experiencing the same heartbreaking thing – being forced to make impossible decisions, like buying school uniforms or putting food on the table. This isn’t right.

Please give to Trussell today to help food banks be there for families like mine this September.

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Annie is a single mum who had to turn to food banks to get by when she was left without enough money to afford the essentials like food, bills and toiletries.

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