To most of us, £5 isn’t really that much. When we look at what we do on a daily basis, how often do we throw away £5 on things we don’t really need? A couple of days worth of coffee? That McDonald’s that you instantly regretted the moment you finished it. Heck, even a Twix these days can almost set you back £1. But £5, when used in the right way, can do an awful lot of good. So I’ve magically invented the Food Bank Fiver. Or #FoodBankFiver if you want to get all hashtaggy. “What’s a Food Bank Fiver?” I hear no one ask. Well calm down and let me explain. Jeez.

The #FoodBankFiver - basically where you give £5 worth of food to a food bank. Simple.

#FoodBankFiver – A Simple Way of Giving to the Food Banks

I’m pretty sure a #FoodBankFiver is something that is rather self-explanatory. It’s really very simple. All you do is head into a supermarket – or some sort of shop – and spend £5 on products that will be given to the food bank. If you go over or under the £5 mark then ~~you die a horrific and painful death~~ it doesn’t really matter.

Example of a Food Bank Fiver

You’ll be surprised just how much you can pick up with just £5. Here’s what we got on our first trip doing it:

It’s actually quite a lot! When you compare that to the fact a meal deal in Tesco is £3 then that’s a LOT of food for just £2 more. Did I miss that £5? Not at all.

Doing this also has the added benefit of teaching Isabelle some maths – which might be important with the whole home education idea – as it can be quite tricky picking up the right things to hit the £5. And as she grows older it’ll also teach Isabelle to not only appreciate the food that we buy but also to appreciate that food poverty in general, and to be more charitable.

We also did this #FoodBankFiver – which was actually more like £20 because I got carried away with scanning – on sanitary products for #MenstrualHealthDay!

Food bank fiver for #MenstrualHealthDay! - All to help with period poverty

Get Involved! The Food Bank Fiver Friday!

Look, the reason I’m actually turning this into a blog post is simple. Every now and then I like to try and use this blog for some sort of good. Obviously, it’s mainly used for me to moan about stuff. Or get half-naked – who am I kidding, it’s fully naked – and then dance. But I understand that I have my little corner of the internet, and in that corner, I can actually have some sort of positive impact should I choose to try.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m honestly not expecting many people to actually get involved. I doubt many will suddenly start donating £5’s worth of food to a food bank on a monthly basis. But if a few people do then that’s awesome.

This isn’t some self-indulgent wankery thing that I’m doing in the hopes that everyone starts tagging me in it and I look all virtuous and awesome. I honestly don’t care about that. If no one gets involved and every month it’s just us donating then that’s fine. Simply put, I just want to try and do something positive. I was once inspired by someone on Instagram – who in turn was inspired by someone who got inspired by someone else – to do the reverse advent calendar for food banks in November.

So I understand how things can snowball and how one person can cause a small ripple effect to inspire others. So, on the off chance you do want to do a Food Bank Fiver then…

Simply use #FoodBankFiver or #FoodBankFiverFriday to get involved!

Don’t ask why I’m using two hashtags. The one is just a general #FoodBankFiver for any time you want to donate £5s worth of food. And the whole #FoodBankFiverFriday thing is something for me to try and “promote” once a month to try and get people involved.

If you’re wondering where you can donate food, then feel free to use the Trussell Trust’s “Find a Foodbank” page to see where’s closest to you!