Like most parents, Lisa Day is really feeling the strain.
As a mum-of-three she is being hit hard by the soaring cost of living. The ability to pay the bills and make sure her 16, 13 and 11-year-old children are properly fed each day.
She said: "Yesterday I went shopping and I spent £60 pretty much just on packed lunch stuff to last the kids a week. Prices are crazy right now."
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Like many people, Lisa has turned to her local food pantry to help her through these tricky times. Based a few doors down from her Norris Green home, the pantry at Christ Church allows people to pay a few pounds for access to food and essential supplies.
It is a sign of the times we live in that there are now dozens of food pantries and community food spaces set up across Liverpool to add to the large number of foodbanks that also exist.
Families right across this city are really struggling. It is estimated that more than 50,000 children in Liverpool and the surrounding areas are living in poverty right now. The Liverpool West Derby constituency, where Norris Green is based, has nearly 6,500 kids below the poverty line.
The continuing fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis is pushing more families to the brink each day, with the salaries of working parents no longer enough to pay the bills.
One way campaigners believe things could be improved is by widening the scope of free school meals for children in England. While there are an estimated 800,000 school pupils in England living in poverty, around one in three of them are not in receipt of free school meals because they do not meet the criteria.
In 2020 Scotland pledged to offer free school meals for all primary aged kids and Wales followed suit in 2021. The National Education Union's No Child Left Behind campaign is calling for the UK government to offer the same policy for youngsters across England.
As a mum who knows the challenges of keeping three kids fed with packed lunches at school, Lisa is backing the campaign.
She said: "My kids never qualified for free school meals, so I was always responsible for their packed lunches and it wasn't always easy. Having three kids you try and find savings, often you end up putting the same things. You would love to put all the fresh and healthy food in but at the end of the day a packet of eight Pain Au Chocolates costs less than a box of grapes."
The 45-year-old said having a healthy meal provided for her kids when they were at primary school would have made life easier for her family while also promoting healthy choices from a young age.
She added: "I was speaking to my daughter's teacher about this campaign. She can't understand why free school meals are only offered to reception, year one and year two kids and not all kids.
"At the moment, we are calling for free school meals for all primary school children. This is the age when they are willing to try different foods, it is the best time to get them in the habit of eating healthily, to get them in those good habits.
"I look back at what I have done wrong and the mistakes I have made with my kids. I think free school meals would have really helped me. I think it can also make kids try healthy food from a young age. I wish I had it with my kids.."
The campaign for free school meals has been stepped up powerfully across Liverpool this week. Feeding Liverpool, the city's food alliance, has organised days of action across food spaces and schools around the city, including a protest of parents at Monksdown Primary School in Norris Green.
Children from that same school have also written powerful letters to the Prime Minister - urging him to roll out the policy - which were hand delivered to Downing Street on Thursday.
In one of the letters, a pupil wrote: "All we're asking for is free school meals for all primary schools in England. Wales did it and so did Scotland so can't we? Are you going to help or not?"
In a separate letter, another Monksdown child wrote: "We want you to give all children a free school meal. If you don't have a free school meal you might get sleepy and not learn. Parents might not have money to pay for meals, your brain needs to be full and healthy to learn."
Samir Karnik Hinks is development officer with Feeding Liverpool, he explains what a difference free school meals could make for families across Liverpool who are struggling with the cost of living right now.
"Free school meals take pressure off families who are being squeezed from all angles right now and knowing that children are getting a healthy meal, every single day at school is one less mental and financial worry for families.
"The impact that has on teaching and learning conditions is huge. We hear from teachers all the time from teachers about how they are providing food for kids out of their own pockets to get them through the school day, which is just wrong."
He added: "In the letters they have written, the kids are describing and reacting to the things they are seeing at home, they can see mum and dad are working and are struggling - that can't be hidden, children are very perceptive. This campaign has given children a chance to raise their voices and let themselves be heard. That's really important."
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