We’ve got our big Summer Survival Guide special this week to help parents navigate the cost of living crisis, but there is more too! Read on to find out about what Gregg Wallace’s trip to a ‘human meat factory’ says about the state of Britain, how to ask your new boss for flexible working hours, and a funeral for fish and chips. 

Good morning and an especially good morning to all the parents, carers, guardians and grandparents reading this. Each of you deserves a special shout out for doing what you do every day, and more so than ever in the summer holidays (on top of a cost of living crisis). You are stars.

If you only have fond childhood memories of playing in the sun over the school holidays, adults around you might well have been hiding the hefty costs. Families spend nearly a grand on childcare each summer, there are extra mouths to feed with the lifeline of free school meals stripped away, and then you’ve got to keep them entertained… it all adds up.

The Big Issue is here to help. So, for the moment you have all been waiting for, the Summer Survival Guide is back and it’s jam-packed with helpful tips to keep your youngsters entertained over the long school holiday without breaking the bank.

We’ve got a big round-up of advice here (and a lovely illustrated version in the magazine) with lots of our tips on finding affordable childcare, free activities, cheap food and much more. We’ve also gone into detail on these topics in individual articles. Scroll down to ‘Saving those Coins’ to get the links for all of those!

If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that you never know who might need help, so please share our Summer Survival Guide with your community and anyone else who might benefit and encourage them to sign up for future editions here. And send any of your own tips or what you would like to see from the Summer Survival Guide to me, Isabella, at isabella.mcrae@bigissue.com 

I’ll be taking some annual leave for my own summer holidays over the next couple of weeks, but Survival Guide will be back with a bang on 17 August!

Here’s everything else going on this week… 

Need to know basis

✂️ Universal credit cut. Half a million seriously ill and disabled people could lose £400 a month in the long term under Department for Work and Pensions plans to change the health element of universal credit. Read our story.

📝 Call for evidence. The Work and Pensions Committee is going to examine how the DWP supports vulnerable benefit claimants and whether its approach to safeguarding needs to change. The committee is currently accepting evidence: you can write in here if you have an experience to share. 

🏠 Homelessness at new heights. Early 2023 was the worst period for homelessness in England since recent records began, according to the latest government figures, causing charities to redouble their appeals for action to address the crises of housing and the cost of living.

🌪️ Council debt spiral. Council tax debts at some local authorities have trebled in three years amid the impact of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis, in stark evidence of how economic turmoil continues to affect people across the country. Chaminda Jayanetti reports.

🏦 Forget Farage. Amid front-page attention given to Nigel Farage and Coutts, debt advisor Amy Taylor writes in The Guardian that “banks have been quietly closing accounts without giving their customers any reasonable explanation for decades”. It’s an important point that sometimes we can forget the ordinary people in the big stories.

👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 A no brainer. In last week’s newsletter we talked about Keir Starmer saying that Labour would not scrap the two-child benefit policy. This is a comprehensive analysis from Patrick Butler, The Guardian’s social policy editor, about how its removal would be “powerfully emblematic after years of austerity”. 

🍟 A funeral for fish and chips. Tom Lamont has a beautiful long-read in The Guardian about the decline of the fish and chips industry as costs rise. “Every industry has to adapt to survive,” said one man featured in the article. 

“Unfortunately, in fish and chips, there’s only so much you can do while keeping it traditional. The potatoes need their peeling. The fish needs its frying.” It’s well worth a read on an unexpected tragedy of the cost of living crisis. You’ll need some time and tissues. 

📉 It’s going down. The inflation rate is expected to keep falling in 2023, according to this new House of Commons briefing on the rising cost of living, but this doesn’t mean prices are going to keep falling. In fact, the briefing points out that living standards are also going to fall in the coming months and years. 

💬 A call for social reform. This briefing from Graeme Cooke at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation argues that economic security really matters in people’s lives – “it must respond to immediate everyday concerns but also the longer-range issues undermining many households”. He’s got a list of solutions he believes would pave the way for social reform. 

⚖️ An unequal crisis. Morgan Wild, the head of policy at Citizens Advice, writes that the cost of living crisis is worse than it officially looks for the poorest households who are disproportionately impacted by inflation. He believes that should be taken into account in the official statistics to give a real picture of the crisis. 

Like what you're reading? Let people know by going to our sign-up article and sharing it on your social networks! You can also sign up to our 'Working on It' newsletter, about making work better, written by my colleague Evie Breese.

On a cheery note

👏 Ask your boss for flexible hours. Have you dreamt of working whenever and wherever you choose? A newly passed law on flexible working will give you the right to ask for what you want the second you start in a new job. 

Sounds fantastic, but there is a catch. Your employer has the right to deny you those flexible working hours if they can prove they “have sound business reasons to do so”. That could be anything from productivity levels to not having the technology to support remote working.

Unions and campaigners have said the government must go further on flexible working rights, but at least this is a start. 

If you can prove flexible working patterns will benefit business (perhaps it will boost your wellbeing and make you a more efficient worker), you might stand a solid chance. My colleague Evie explains. The charity Working Families has a template letter anyone (not only those seeking flexible working for childcare reasons) can use.

Saving those coins

Kids eat free. There are lots of places where children can bag a free or £1 meal over the summer holidays. Some of the cheapest options are at Asda Cafe, where kids can get a meal for £1 without an adult having to buy anything else; Tesco, where kids eat free when an adult buys anything else from the cafe; and Ikea, where the cheapest item on the menu is the pasta with tomato sauce and a soft drink for 95p. 

Be warned that lots of the other restaurants and cafes will ask you to buy a full-sized adult’s meal alongside, but if you’re planning a meal out anyway, these spots are probably among the cheapest bets for feeding the whole family. We’ve also rounded it all up in an Instagram post which you can save for later:

Free activities for kids (and adults). We’ve rounded up lots of free (or heavily discounted) things you can do with kids over the summer holidays. Some of the options include free museums and farms, joining a free drama school and online adventures! 

There’s lots of discounted days out. The Official London Kids Week theatre promotion is offering free child tickets to London theatre shows with a full-priced adult ticket. Through National Rail, you can get two-for-one tickets at some of the UK’s biggest attractions. And if you receive benefits, the whole family can go to London Zoo for £3. 

Cheap school uniforms (and other help). Yes, we’re talking about back to school already. If you’re worried about the costs of school uniforms, check out these tips. You might be eligible for a school uniforms grant if you also get free school meals, or there’s cheap options such as the £5 deals at Aldi and Lidl or buying second hand. 

Childcare that’s actually affordable. Childcare can come at a steep price over the summer holidays, but there are affordable options out there for families who are struggling. Lots of councils offer free holiday clubs, and there’s the holiday food and activities programme for kids who usually get free school meals. We’ve also rounded up the financial support you can get from the government to cover the costs of childcare over the school holidays. 

You can get even more tips in our Summer Survival Guide - which also includes how to save on your food shop and where to find cheap recipes for the whole family. 

Anyone doing something inspiring in your community or know about a cool initiative getting people through the cost of living crisis? Let me know at isabella.mcrae@bigissue.com

Dates for your diary 📅

27 July. Navigating the cost of living by Halifax, joined by the Energy Saving Trust and Digital Skills. 12:30pm, online. 

28 July. Cost of living ‘Make It Make Sense’ panel event from My Life My Say, which is looking to make politics more accessible for young people. 1pm, Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Plexal, London. 

2 August. Mencap’s weekly cost of living webinar for parents, family members, carers or people with a learning disability looking for extra help and support around the cost of living. 1pm, online.

15 August. Coffee Morning: Recognising personal burnout while tackling child poverty, hosted by 4in10. If you work in public services, the charity or other third sector or voluntary organisation tackling child poverty, this is a space to voice your concerns and connect with others in the sector. 10am, online. 

Anything I’ve missed or any events which should be on our radar? Let me know on isabella.mcrae@bigissue.com

Catch up 📺

Gregg Wallace, the self-proclaimed “bald bloke off the telly”, appears to be gleefully visiting a human meat factory in a Channel 4 satire The British Miracle Meat. The barbaric concept is that human flesh is much cheaper than animal meat, costing as little as 99p per steak, allowing families to survive in the cost of living crisis. Horrifyingly, a 67-year-old was flogging her thigh for £200 to raise some extra cash. It is all satire. This is not real. But the fact that people watched the show or read the reviews and believed it paints a bleak picture of Britain today. Interesting stuff, even if it is shoving a pretty grotesque point down its audience’s throats. 

Sunny side up 🌞

488 golden retrievers gathered in Scotland for a ‘kind of golden retriever convention’. Ruff work but someone’s got to do it.