Late night shopping yields the bargains

Rachel finds it difficult to budget and often only buys fruit and vegetables when they are reduced or on special offer.

When you see stuff coming through the till on a Thursday or Friday evening and you're thinking 'you're lucky', sometimes I don't recognise the fruit they buy - one turned out to be a star fruit.

They ought to know what it's like to want and it can make you feel very bitter.

When you see what goes through the tills and you're thinking, 'if only I could afford that, how the other half live'.

Everywhere is just so expensive for fresh fruit and fresh veg.

I find it a struggle to buy food for my family and the only way I can manage it is by going for the foods that aren't healthy Rachel, mother

The only way I can do it is if the veg is discounted or on special offer; sometimes I can buy three for the price of two.

If it's not too deteriorated then I'll buy a load of it, blanch it, put it in freezer bags and freeze it.

I have to keep my eyes peeled for the bargains.

I do my top-up shops at the shop in the village where I live.

It has some fruit and veg in it but I just can't afford to buy it, so I just get the basics there like milk and bread.

Struggle

Most of the time I do the shopping in the evening when my partner isn't using the car and when I am not working around 10 or 11pm in the supermarket; that way I can get some bargains and I don't have to take the children with me.

Practically everything I buy is economy brand but I do not like processed food if I can avoid it but do because of the salt and sugar levels.

I do a big shop once a month at a big supermarket and then top up between times.

Fresh fruit is expensive

I spend about �180 a month on my big shop and then with the other bits and pieces I get it comes to probably about �250 a month for me, my two children and my partner.

(This gives her �2.23 to spend on food for each family member per day.)

If you want to eat healthy you've got to fork out for a family of four - that's about �400 a month on food.

We tried to get family tax credit, but we come just under by �1 so we don't get any extra help and I could really do with it.

I find it a struggle to buy food for my family and the only way I can manage it is by going for the foods that aren't healthy.

You've got to buy little and often with fruit, but it's usually cheaper if you bulk buy, but it goes off so quick.

Going without

I can't afford to buy a lot of the fresh fruit. I try and make sure my children have fruit - if it's a toss up between them, me and my partner having fruit, the children always come first.

My children have crisps every day, as many as they can get their hands on but in reality a packet or two.

I try and get the crisps on special offer - sometimes the multi-pack bags get split and you can get them cheap; when I see them I dive in and get them.

I buy my children economy baked beans but they've got salt and sugar in them, practically all of them have, unless you pay over the odds to buy the low-salt, low-sugar ones.

I hate having to buy the economy brands because they aren't as healthy, they are watery, but if you get a little arrowroot that thickens it up and you can't taste it.

It makes me feel bad that most of the foods I can afford to buy for my children are the most unhealthy ones.

I can afford to buy the supermarket's so-called 'extra large' frozen chicken twice a month - it's only �3.49 and I can get three meals for four of us out of that: roast on the Sunday, chicken and gravy on the Monday and a casserole on a Tuesday.

There are a lot of things I can't buy my children and if they don't like it they have to go without that's it.