We earn £62k but still get universal credit & put the food shop on Klarna – it’s impossible to feed our 5 kids otherwise
A MUM-OF-FIVE with a £62k household income has resorted to using Klarna to afford her food shop – due to the cost-of-living crisis.
Laura Caine, 40, struggles to cover her family’s monthly outgoings using her £1k-a-month universal credit payment and her husband Martin’s £50k games programmer salary.
The couple have five children – aged 18 to nine – and say feeding the brood three meals a day gets expensive so they have had to use the buy-now-pay-later service.
In recent months Laura says she had to use Klarna to afford groceries as she “can’t afford” to pay for a big shop upfront.
Laura claims both she and Martin have both maxed out their credit cards after their energy bill shot up to £450-a-month from £200.
Some people find paying debt off interest-free over a short period is helpful, lots of the schemes charge a fee if payments are missed.
Laura, originally from Fife, Scotland, but living in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, said: “I’ve seen the struggles of so many families – I’ve been to food banks with mums and dads with their kids, waiting and wondering what they will be getting, it’s awful.
“The way I shop now, if I have £35 to spend for the week, I could get a £105 shop using Klarna and that’s £105 worth of food in your cupboards and pay £35 per month back for three months.
“If I do it this way it means I can take my kids to places once a month like museums or a train ride somewhere.”
Laura says she has been left with no choice but to use Klarna for her food shop due to her circumstances – but wouldn’t encourage others to do the same.
She said: “The last shop I did I spent £1,050 and am paying £350 back each month.
“The same shop used to be £500 pre-covid which just shows how much costs have gone up – but it will last me a month and a half, which is not bad for a family of seven.”
The food shop she does is usually comprised of fresh fruit and veg.
“I’ll get 10 packets of carrots at 65p a bag and prep them and put in the freezer,” Laura said.
“Potatoes I’ll get 10 bags and keep them in our cellar.
“I buy fresh meat and freeze it as well as flour and butter as I make giant tray bake cakes in the big tray for the oven, I also get crisps and squash.”
Prior to using Klarna, Laura also had to rely on food banks while she also frequents wholesalers to buy bulk essentials like toilet rolls and flour to make bread.
Laura said: “Last year my benefits switched to universal credit – whereas before I was on tax credits and it has given me a cash flow problem.
“Instead of getting paid once per week I got paid once per month, which made things even more challenging, which is why I’ve had to start using Klarna.
“It just means if an emergency pops up like having to pay for an MOT or gas bill – even though it is more money, in the long run it allows me to make ends meet.”
Laura was desperate to avoid frequent visits to food banks.
I know it’s not the ideal thing, but with the cost-of-living crisis, I’m having to use it.
Laura Caine
“When money eventually came in, I decided how can I make sure that we don’t go to food banks anymore – try and get food that would last longer,” she said.
“So I found Klarna – that’s how I ended up starting to use it, I don’t recommend it to people who can’t afford it.
“I know it’s not the ideal thing, but with the cost-of-living crisis, I’m having to use it.”
Laura cooks all meals from scratch and freezes prepped vegetables to ensure nothing is wasted.
“I’ve got big freezers, I homeschool my five kids and always make sure there are three meals a day,” she said.
“I don’t want to get into the rut of using food banks again.
“My mum was poor back in the eighties and nineties and we had to live off sugar sandwiches and chips and I feel if I go I am taking someone else’s slot who might need it more.
“She mum used to get paid on a Monday and by Thursday she had no money left or food and then my grandma would have to help her out.”
Laura home cooks all her kids’ meals from scratch and makes “stews, soups, roast dinners, home made pizzas, cakes and cookies.”
“For lunch time I usually make sandwiches with meat that I’ve cooked or sometimes cooked meat I’ve already bought,” she said.
Laura claims most people don’t appreciate just how much food is required to feed a big family.
“With seven people in the house having three meals a day that’s 588 meals a month,” she said.
Laura says something needs to be done about the costs-of-living crisis which is still hurting families “every bit as badly”.
“It’s our next generation – we need to feed them, they’re going to be tired, they need to step up, kids need to be fed and the older generation is also struggling,” she said.
“People need to be helped out much more by the government.”
Laura also helps out her local community by collecting food being thrown away at supermarkets.
“If there’s a small Tesco with food going off – reduced stickers – you can take it from there,” she said.
“I will knock on the older people’s doors who are also struggling to get food.
“It’s hell right now – not just for my family but for many other families as well.”
How the cost of living has affected food prices
According to the Office of National Statistics, inflation rates for food have been on a steady decrease in the last 10 months. In January this year it stood at 7%, down from 8% in December. However, this is much less than the March 2023 high of 19%. That percentage was the highest it had been in 45 years.
49% of those surveyed by the organisation said their cost of living had increased from December 2023 and 91% of those named food as one of the main reasons. 1 in 25 adults (4%) said they had run out of food in their homes and couldn’t afford to buy more.
To put this into perspective, more people were using food banks in 2020/2021 than in 2019/2020. The number jumped from 1,909,360 to 2,578,919 according to the Trussell Trust.
Furthermore, they state that over 2.1 million people who used food banks were given food parcels in 2021/2022. Though this statistic was lower than the total number distributed in 2020/21 during the pandemic (2.5 million), it was still 14% higher than 2019/2020.
If you need help with food and other essentials like energy bills, you can visit the government website and Citizens Advice for support.